Which is your favourite: Werner Herzog film?

[L2R]

Also, check this out....

Werner Herzog and David Lynch are teaming for My Son, My Son, a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story. Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote "Son," loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March. Herzog, repped by Gersh, is having a busy 2008. He was set to film "Son" in the summer but postponed it to direct Nicolas Cage in a remake of Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" starting in July. In the fall, he will shoot the Victorian-era drama "The Piano Tuner" for Focus Features.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213902/news#ni0181589

 

[L2R]

i think the only film in that list i have seen is nosferatu.

many of them sound really interesting

 

[alasdairm]

i've only seen a handful and voted for fitzcarraldo. it was a close thing between that and aguirre.

i love this matter of fact piece of trivia from imdb: "A real 340 ton steam ship was moved over the mountain with a bulldozer without the use of special effects."

alasdair

 

[EJ]

Timing. I was going to bump the Rescue Dawn thread after watching it this week. In fact, when I was finished, I went straight into watching Wheel of Time. Haven't finished watching that one yet, so I guess i've seen 8.5 Herzog films.

Rescue Dawn is his first "American" film i've seen, and am pleased to say it does not suffer from being "too Hollywood". It actually reminded me a lot of two of my favourite Vietnam War films. Most of the setting (POW camp) reminded me a lot of The Deer Hunter, and all the POW's reminded me of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now. Had an element of Castaway in it as well. Had read that it was very slow during the POW camp scenes, and I guess it is, but it was by no means boring.

Wheel of Time, as I said, I haven't completed, but there's only about 15-20 mins left. Excluding My Best Fiend (I don't know why I exclude it, but I consider it separate), Wheel of Time is only the second Herzog documentary i've seen after Grizzly Man (my Herzog introduction). I'm now very keen to sought after more. He is the most fascinating director i've come across, quite easily.

My vote has to go to Aguirre. I'm not the most articulate person, so i'll just say it is everything I love about film-making. It is a tragedy that the original voices were lost to the environment, but you do get used to it. Aguirre also has one of my favourite film endings; operatic in it's context and beautifully cinematic. However, it is what i've learnt about the behind the scenes that lifts this film into true greatness.

Francois Truffaut: "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema..."

Truffaut would have adored Aguirre, Wrath of God.

Honourable mention to Every Man for Himself and God Against All, or The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, which is what I know it as. Fascinating premise, and great acting by Bruno S.

i love this matter of fact piece of trivia from imdb: "A real 340 ton steam ship was moved over the mountain with a bulldozer without the use of special effects."

What makes the fact even better is the true story and inspiration behind the feat was done with a 34 ton ship. Herzog being Herzog must've thought "No, we must do it, but times 10". And yeah, it was done with heavy machinery, but only after investing much time and effort into attempting it with man power alone. Burden of Dreams documents Herzog's monumental and incredibly dangerous real life struggle in satisfying detail. It is truly unbelievable. They actually did manage to pull the ship a small distance by man power, using a type of ingenious pulley system, but cables inevitably broke and it slid back down.

We are very lucky a director like Herzog exists.

 

[psood0nym]

I voted for Aguirre; it's one of the most haunting films I've ever seen. The story makes humankind look truly pitiful.

I know Herzog stole the camera used for many of the scenes in the film from his film school. I also heard--and this isn't from imdb, but maybe was from an interview with Herzog--that the monkeys used in the film were were also stolen; something about Herzog posing as a professional animal handler (or something). According to imdb, he also threatened Klaus Kinsky with a pistol, and later threatened to commit suicide if Kinsky left the set.

Another imdb trivia fact that reveals Herzog's eccentric character: "Werner Herzog promised the cast [of Even Dwarfs Started Small] he would jump into a field of cacti if they managed to pull through the movie. Eventually, he fulfilled his promise."

The pairing of Herzog and David Lynch is interesting. Two inimitable auteurs bumping egos as they attempt to cinematically craft an already inaccessible-sounding story ... interesting.

 

[mariacallas]

Aguirre is first, than Fitzcarraldo next.
I rather like Grizzly Man and Heart of Glass too.

His complex and twisted relationship with Kinski is absolutely hilarious