Best Werner Herzog Film

best herzog performance = julien donkey boy

so true! also i have no idea how to vote. i might go for one i havent seen.

which is most of them

i voted bells from the deep - that had a nice ring to it.

what have you seen?

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
Cobra Verde
Even Dwarfs Started Small
Fitzcarraldo
God's Angry Man
Little Dieter Needs To Fly
My Best Fiend
Nosferatu
The Great Ecstasy Of Woodcarver Steiner
The White Diamond
The Wild Blue Yonder
Wheel Of Time
Where The Green Ants Dream

and grzly man

no surprises here.

Well someone voted for "The Unprecedented Defence Of The Fortress Deutschkreuz" - I call that a surprise!

http://www.roguefilmschool.com/

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The Rogue Film School will be in the form of weekend seminars held by Werner Herzog in person at varying locations and at infrequent intervals.
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The number of participants will be limited.
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Locations and dates will be announced on this website and Werner Herzog's website: www.wernerherzog.com approximately 12 weeks in advance.
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The Rogue Film School will not teach anything technical related to film-making. For this purpose, please enroll at your local film school.
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The Rogue Film School is about a way of life. It is about a climate, the excitement that makes film possible. It will be about poetry, films, music, images, literature.
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The focus of the seminars will be a dialogue with Werner Herzog, in which the participants will have their voice with their projects, their questions, their aspirations.
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Excerpts of films will be discussed, which could include your submitted films; they may be shown and discussed as well. Depending on the materials, the attention will revolve around essential questions: how does music function in film? How do you narrate a story? (This will certainly depart from the brainless teachings of three-act-screenplays). How do you sensitize an audience? How is space created and understood by an audience? How do you produce and edit a film? How do you create illumination and an ecstasy of truth?
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Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.
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Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.
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Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list: if possible, read Virgil's "Georgics", read "Hemingway's "The short happy life of Francis Macomber", The Poetic Edda, translated by Lee M. Hollander (in particular the Prophecy of the Seeress), Bernal Diaz del Castillo "True History of the Conquest of New Spain".
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Follow your vision. Form secretive Rogue Cells everywhere. At the same time, be not afraid of solitude.

"The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted," said the film-maker. "It is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favouring their projects."

There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.

Lol - isn't he making a film with Lynch at the moment? I guess they got on each others nerves.

nah i think he just wants the seminars to get the point. ya know,like lockpicking.

great dbl bill at the Ritzy tomorrow, btw - wanted to see Fata Morgana for a while

http://www.v22collection.com/herzog/26.html

i watches stroszek last night. really good. the heist scene followed by the grocery shopping is hysterical.

watched

STROZEK

it's his best (and most lynch-y) film,imo

strozek just combines such wierd elements together, and somehow it works, but i also love fitzcarraldo and aguirre

I love this scene in Fitz:

http://www.konradprojects.net/blog/uploaded_images/Fitzcarraldo2-711143.jpg

what i liked about srozek the most, is that it deals with social problems of the present - one might call it the Herzog version of social realism.it's a very special film in his filmography.it is also funny and presents Bruno S at it's best. as oppose to Aguirre/fitzcaraldo/kasper which are historical,colder,less emotional movies (though still great).

this should have a run-off poll!

strozek is def. a very special film. I've never seen anything like it. the sad/funny ratio is really well done.

my dad told me that he watched strozek and just started it over w/herzog commentary on right after it finished. awesome!

(commentary is hilarious, of course)

Rewatched The White Diamond last weekend, just lovely; maybe my favorite thimg he's done since Aguirre.

Overrated

Summer Hours is better

;)

The next Rogue Film School will take place on the East Coast in spring 2010. Stay tuned!!

explain why I should not apply

I love the scene in TWD where Herzog is telling Dorrington why not having him w/ camera on the first airship flight is "a stupid stupidity."

whenev I try to imitate him it comes out like Arnold, but how great would WH be as CA governor?

<3 x 1000000000000000

watched Stroszek yesterday (Superbowl? what's that?) - what a goofy little movie. scene w/premature baby = disturbing.

it's his best movie imo.
works like a twisted combination between humanistic social realism and david lynch surrealism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcoqeNdMAfA

i don't remember any premature baby and i just rewatched it a couple months ago

oh wait yeah i do

Stroszek himeslf kinnda premature baby ..

it was overshadowed in my memory by the fart-lighting scene

what the hell 'even dwarfs started small' is on youtube in its entirety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXrV36ffFWw

lmao @ camel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_uFDSQ_Ius

yeah def some precursors to Lynch (and Jarmusch?) - strikes a great tone between pathos and comedy. Bruno S is alternately pitiable and hilarious... the final sequence with the robbery (of a barbershop?) and then grocery shopping and ski-lift. And the car spinning around on auto was like a quote from Even Dwarfs Started Small, no?

btw that youtube channel also has My Best Fiend, Aguirre, Woyzeck,and The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser

Stroszek is amazing. Need to see The White Diamond, Nosferatu and Hauser ASAP.

another WTF scene - nephew pulling out one of his teeth in autoshop

Stroszek is prob my favourite WH movie too. That or Aguirre. I love the auction scene and the all scenes with the man from the bank. And of course the ski-lift/car/chicken scene.

Storszek is definetely my favourite Herzog movie. Obv. final scenes are incredible but i really like the scene near the start where Bruno is playing the accordion to a bunch of kids in the street, funny and touching and v. human.

My library just got Cobra Verde and the Kinski-Herzog documentary. Which should I watch first?

#2

Thanks!

don't miss cobra verde, though

White Diamond wasn't his best but it was definitely very enjoyable.

Anyone seen Cave of Forgotten Dreams? I thought it was kinda cool in a "if I saw this in geography/biology/whatever class this would be awesome" way, but it's not up to snuff compared to some of his other docs, I thought. Maybe it was better in 3D, but I found the staring at the paintings, as awesome as they are, to get a little wearing after a while. I guess there's only so much painting to be shown and you gotta fill up the 2 hrs somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4f9HNknKTU

Encounters At The End Of The World was his next doc after Grizzly Man and it gave us this classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWH_9VRWn8Y

That gets some attention in the documentary. What they really toss off is everything between Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo. All you get from Stroszek is two stills without commentary.

That’s his best stretch! No one gives Heart of Glass any love, even less for Woyzeck. Herzog’s humanism gets overlooked for all the “LOL wacky they’re midgets” and “Kinski go off king” and the “Herzog Plays Herzog” of the last couple decades.

And the 70s documentaries might as well not exist. Land of Silence and Darkness is so great.

Land of Silence and Darkness and Fata Morgana in the same damned year!

an acquaintance of mine part of a herzog film once and he said he is actually just the best guy, and a very inspiring person to work for.

I quite liked The Twilight World when I read it the other week.

I recently watched Herzog's film about Gertrude Bell, starring Nicole Kidman and James Franco. If there is ever an updated poll that includes Herzog's films since 2007 I will definitely not vote for Queen of the Desert. It's bad.

His movies with Bruno are absolutely some of my favorites. I adore that guy and could watch him forever.

Haven’t seen the queen of the Desert one yet, I have an unopened blu-ray

The Queen of the Desert has nice location shots, lighting, costumes - all the things that an experienced professional crew can bring to a film. It treats arabs as worthy human beings rather than cartoons, which is good. But the script leans hard into schmaltzy romance and the dialogue isn't much better than your basic Hallmark Channel soap opera. iow, it's bad, but sort of tolerable for the travelogue elements.

I am going to anticipate the HELL out of Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans"

otm