Best Werner Herzog Film

I found the Reijseger too much in COFD but loved loved loved it in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

I listened to Reijseger all day yesterday on grooveshark, loved it. Played the trailer for my students today, they found it 60% enjoyable, 40% boring (I could tell)

Still, they seemed interested. I've done my duty.

I saw Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night with the wife. It had some of the usual Herzog off-kilter narrative, which featured some albino crocodiles that had no connection to the cave, and it did seem a bit padded out to fill the requisite 2 hrs for a theatrical film, but damn those cave paintings and the cave itself were of brilliant superstar-quality! The 3-D helped me to understand the art, because cave walls are so undulating they greatly affect how they were painted and how you view the paintings.

The music was pretty cool most of the time, but I thought it was kind of lol when Herzog solemnly announces we shall all stop and listen to the awesome silence of the cave, and then within 20 seconds or so the music soundtrack cuts in over the silence, because audiences just don't really want to listen to awesome silence for more than 20 seconds.

Heart of Glass should have gotten at least one vote. that movie is sublime.

I thought it was wise to only make people listen to the awesome silence for 20 seconds! Leave the party while you're still having fun, etc.

Heart of Glass should get a vote for the soundtrack alone!

The heartbeat sound annoyed me.

loved the crocodile coda

this was great, even in 2D (missed the 3D showing arrrghhh)

cave sniffer!

mutant albinos.

loved this, of course. no 3d showing here. is it more expensive to show or something? idgi

seeing those cave paintings left me speechless for most of the rest of the day and when I started talking, all I could talk about was the film. so much closer to modern art / impressionism / surrealism than most of anything that's happened since. the scale of time, not just how old they are but the fact they were painted over a span of 5000 years, nearly twice as long as of what we're used to calling history etc

I also found the music a bit too intrusively busy in parts. I loved the expository and the interviews, but still hope the DVD comes with a feature that basically lifts everything out and gives you a good 20-40 minutes of just the paintings. you need more than 10 consecutive minutes of staring at them to even come to grips.

& loved the ending of course but was didn't even need to doubt this article would be online to google before I even got home

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/tags/mutant+albino+crocodiles/default.aspx

was didn't even like needta y'know

hes playing the villain in the next tom cruise movie

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/10/werner_herzog_will_play_the_vi.html

'Into the Abyss' is fantastic. (And, in what might be a first for me with his films, I nearly cried in a couple of spots.)

I totally bawled in a couple of spots, but I'm pretty easy that way.

On his move to acting villainy:

http://www.movieline.com/2011/11/werner-herzog-talks-one-shot-tom-cruise-he-means-business.php

lol@this exchange:
Cruise is an interesting actor to me — someone who’s never directed, but who’s instead worked with some of the foremost filmmakers of the last half-century: Kubrick, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, and many others. Have you met him?
Yes.

Also WH the secret Paulette: "Brian de Palma is certainly the better director than me."

And, in what might be a first for me with his films, I nearly cried in a couple of spots

What, you've never cried at 'Kaspar Hauser' or 'Land of Silence and Darkness'??!?!?!?

I wouldn't agree with WH there, but I've seen one great film from him and it's Aguirre.

Saw Into the Abyss yesterday, it was fantastic. I loved the choice of final interview about "living the dash", I loved how congested that guy was, I loved WH's questions during all of the interviews. Everything about this movie chilled my blood, I loved it. I can't wait to see what the other 3 capital punishment movies are like -- I guess there are others coming?

the other 3?

anyway, on this one:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/into-the-abyss/5892

i don't remember where i read it, but i read something about how he intended to make one doc about cap punishment, and then decided to spread it out over several movies? maybe i dreamt that.

Well, "Into the Abyss" is a whole tapestry, and only part of it is about death row. It's very much about life. I have also filmed some death row inmates for a series of one-hour films for television, which will be called "Death Row." That's very much focused on one person on death row, and no big tapestry of people around it, members of the families of victims, and whatever.

god this film is amazing?, is a masterpiece, i think. it's punctuated by absolute testimonial gold but it transcends being a film about the death penalty, or the extent to which that's a debate, by just being so human. i really thought it was gonna be a polemic before seeing, pitching WH's case, but it's just about life, how people can manage it, through the lens of people who really had to go through it & put their effort into understanding.

the humour of a twenty minute run halfway through was such a relief, too, after the yknow cold open kinda crimescene section. but oh man this film.

Is there any love for Gesualdo? I just watched it tonight, and next to Land of Silence and Darkness, which also received 0 votes in this poll, it's my favorite human subject Herzog documentary.
The bagpipe scene where the guy was playing into the cracks to satisfy the evil spirit of Gesualdo was just totally O_O amazing, as were all of the professional ensemble vocal performances. Top notch even if that one lady with the red hair was TOTALLY ott.

It's the next day and I am still thinking about this. The OTT red haired woman is "Milva", apparently? She is truly UNBELIEVABLE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rgBt5EkIKE

i need to see that one! looks amazing, and weird. didn't even know it existed til alex ross did his gesualdo article in the Ny-er a couple months back.

Gesualdo is the portrait of a perfect Herzog subject, and it's handled well and concisely. Also, only an hour long.

I really want to post lurid details about Gesualdo, but I will refrain out of politeness.

yeah he seems like a wild n crazy guy, with emphasis on the "crazy"

haven't seen it, sounds interesting

feel like there is always more Herzog for me to watch

Listen to how beautiful crazy sounds! This seems to be Gesualdo's greatest hit, if youtube results are any indicator. (This is one of the ensembles from the movie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_q3EJNUKis

hey here's the whole thing
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBanw2yUPdk

my son, my son what have ye done isn't very good

ha, that one is sitting in my watch instantly queue, i keep suggesting it to my wife and she says hell no. she's probably right.

its watchable, just didn't do a whole lot for me. produced by david lynch!

been very curious about that one, as I love everyone involved.

Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices is probably my sentimental favorite Herzog film. Partially because I love Gesualdo's music so much, but also because it is the perfect subject material for a Herzog 'documentary'. It's been layered and over-mythologized to such an extent that no one will ever know exactly what happened, and then Herzog gets in there with his freewheeling camera and taking a wrecking ball to reality

I watch that youtube of 'Moro, lasso, al mio duolo' a lot. Many recordings of Gesualdo lay on the ambience & cavernous room tone, but it really is meant to be sitting room music performed in small spaces so you can follow every last quirk of each individual voice, so the two performances in Herzog's film are basically two of my favorite Gesualdo recordings of all time

remarkably poor grammar in that post, even for me, but go ahead and dig for reality

Bells From The Deep 1

at first, i thought this was balls from the deep.

fata morgana is the answer to your question. or maybe land of silence and darkness.

I loved both of those, but I found the Leonard Cohen songs in Fata Morgana extremely distracting. The Third Ear Band song was good, though. I've probably said that before.

Also I didn't realize it, but I guess Milva is famous -- http://www.youtube.com/artist/Milva

watching 'fata morgana' was the 1st time i ever really "got" the appeal of leonard cohen

The Third Ear Band song was good, though.

... and Blind Faith too

my son, my son what have ye done isn't very good

I liked it a lot, more than Rescue Dawn or Bad Lt. The first half-hour had me discouraged but it built something powerful.

was listening to the 'heart of glass' audio commentary, love this

under hypnosis imagination functions very well. i tested it by having people under hypnosis and i would ask them to write a poem because there is something like poetic language in all of us and of course it wouldn't function if i asked you 'you are shakespeare write me a sonnet' it wouldn't function, it depends on the quality of suggestion so i told the people under hypnosis this 'you are on a foreign island, the first one who sets his foot now on this island for centuries and it's overgrown with uh jungleous butterflies strange birds singing and you are walking through the jungle and you come across a gigantic cliff and upon closer inspection this entire cliff this entire escarpment is made of pure emerald and a holy monk hundreds of years ago spent his entire life with a chisel and a hammer to scratch a poem into the wall of that because it's like diamond and it took him all his life to engrave only three lines of a poem' and i said please open your eyes and you will see it you will be the first one to see it and you will read it to me

ha ha ha

a finer human could not have been produced by science
i never listen to the commentary but i appreciate that someone does and then transcribes it for my enjoyment

how's the film, btw? i've never seen, & have that ass-backwards impulse to read this regardless: http://www.ipgbook.com/every-night-the-trees-disappear-products-9781569766071.php