Best Werner Herzog Film

gotta be fiddycaraldo -- insane movie about an insane dude, directed by an insane dude w/ an insane behind-the-scenes story.

though that description could just as equally describe aguirre, come to think of it.

I have only seen five of these movies, but of those I liked Aguirre best.

Why is Incident at Loch Ness not on here? Make that SIX Herzogs I've seen.

he only acted in it.

I've seen 9 or 10 but looking at the list that seems woefully inadequate. aguirre's in my top 10 evah so no vote agonizing here.

best herzog performance = julien donkey boy

it's def NOT wild blue yonder.

Kaspar Hauser though I'll probably get stoned later and vote for Heart of Glass w/ a new login.

It's a crime I've seen only half of these.
I refuse to vote.

Based on the 8-9 I've seen besides Aguirre... it wd still be Aguirre if I saw all of them. (Kaspar Hauser and White Diamond best of rest.)

also, the Film Forum sold out his Dieter appearance about 4 hours in advance, despite the lies they told about ticket sales beforehand.

White Diamond felt like it was trying too hard to shoehorn a slight but touching story into his grander pet themes.

The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner gets my vote, just because I don't think anyone else will vote for it.
Slow-motion ski-flying + Popul Vuh = oh wow!

The Wild Blue Yonder was very wtf and fairly unrewatchable, however it has one of probably my 10 favorite soundtracks of all movies ever.

Woodcarver Steiner is still in my Blockbuster queue.

Has anybody actually seen Rescue Dawn yet?

So is the hottie Russian chick in Incident at Loch Ness really his wife? Cause I always thought that was one of the jokes.

I'm going to vote for the bottle of LiquidSilk I bought the day Jeff loaned me Aguirre.

also, the Film Forum sold out his Dieter appearance about 4 hours in advance, despite the lies they told about ticket sales beforehand.

Yeah, that fucked me over too. I'm also pretty sure they projected Les maitres fous from a VHS.

I voted Dieter anyway.

So is the hottie Russian chick in Incident at Loch Ness really his wife? Cause I always thought that was one of the jokes.

I don't think they ever claimed she was his wife. She was just some vague hot young woman he lived with. I didn't figure out this movie was a work of fiction until it was nearly over (I am naive I guess), I can't believe that whole opening dinner party scene didn't tip me off.

I think his wife is young & hot, though?

And Russian...
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1365577/

yeah the description of her in the new yorker profile from a year or two ago seemed to fit.

"people say i've gone hollywood..."

Fata Morgana so good I can't bring myself to finish it.

Kaspar Hauser for me. I'd say it's one of my top 5 movies ever. Nosferatu may be my second fave of his.

Invincible is underrated.

I'd go fitzcarraldo, but it's close.

fata morgana is underrated, but then again it's only suited for persons of a certain bent. I can't imagine watching it piecemeal, that's like listening to marquee moon in 3 minute increments.

AGUIRRE

Stroszek is my vote. Because of the totally bizarre (but not in the context of the movie) chicken/music/ski-lift thing at the end, which I think sums up Herzog maybe better than his big epic movies. There's only one director who would would dare or even bother to make a movie with this clearly unstable person. Herzog is a little nuts, and attracted to like, and his sweet and tender relationship with Bruno S. is more revealing than his violent relationship with Kinski. At least, I prefer it. And it's a great movie.

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)

seen most of them again

favorite Herzog films:

Aguirre: Wrath of God
Fitzcarraldo
Grizzly Man
Fata Morgana
Stroszek
Kaspar Hauser
Cobra Verde

also really liked

Nosferatu the Vampyre
Even Dwarfs Started Small

others that were interesting:

Heart of Glass
Stroszek
Lessons of Darkness
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Rescue Dawn

(in the last post I meant Woyzeck)

The BFI blu-ray set is such a steal (most of the 68-87 work) for £35 ish.

The big omission for me is Lessons of Darkness, only available on Blu as part of the $105ish US Shout! Factory set. I probably would have voted for it (just to be ornery) had I been here in 2007.

(xp) Have you seen "Land of Silence and Darkness"?

have not seen it, but it looks interesting

More than interesting - devastating, heartwrenching et al.

I’ll have to look into buying it, I don’t see it available for rental or streaming

MUTTER... ICH BIN VON ALLEM...ABGETAN

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

The Wild Blue Yonder was a strange film, but the score/soundtrack by Ernst Reijseger was great

My Best Friend was an amazing film, it gave a lot of insight into the filming of Aguirre

My Best Fiend, you mean?

lol, it showed the trials of the ship on the river and how Herzog tried to reign in the impulses and outbursts of Klaus Kinski and modulate the responses from the crew

and how Klaus Kinski stepped up in the end

Watched the top two poll winners this weekend, I'd never seen Aguirre and only previously watched the last 45 minutes or so of Stroszek. I remember being awed by the climax of Stroszek, but definitely helps to have it all in full context.

Aguirre was a favorite back in the day when the only way to see it was at a repertory theater (usually high as a kite.) I haven't rewatched it since the VCR/DVD/streaming era, I really should.

It was often on a double bill with Nosferatu, which doesn't all work but certainly has its moments.

When you're sick, clearly the thing is to watch Aguirre. I'd seen it so long ago (and stoned) that it might as well have been the first time. From memory, I would have called it an ornate film, the descent much more visceral and melodramatic, so I'm kind of stunned by how minimal it is, and how that minimalism is what echoes into grandiosity in the mind. If it were made now, the violence would have to be shocking and jarring; decapitation aside, most of the violence is either implied or weirdly underplayed. What a film.

1) I blame the panpipes.
2) I saw Zama recently, which is exploring similar themes of madness and folly, and I swear directly references some of Herzog's non-diegetic sound. Could just be the relevant species of bird, of course.

The spectacular scenes (both conflicts and the visionary interludes) don't even take up a lot of the running time. A whole lot of this movie is two or three people in dialogue, which you forget when you bring the film to mind afterwards.

Two or three monkeys in dialogue.

Yeah, I don't really understand how he's done it, tbh.

It made me think of Zama a lot, obviously, but also Bone Tomahawk. The former, like Aguirre, works with pace and tone; the latter might well do this, but everything is pulled toward the vortex of the final scenes, so it becomes moot.

Also, I think having Florian Fricke on your side helps.

Saw the documentary (about him) tonight--pretty good. His ubiquity as a pop-culture figure was news to me. I still haven't seen Aguirre. It's on Tubi or FilmRise right now--may finally just give in and watch it on TV.

He was always a name director, and Roger Ebert championed him throughout his career, but I want to say he became a true pop culture figure after Grizzly Man became a pretty big success. Before that movie came out, I don't think people would know him unless they had an active interest in film culture. It probably helped that he's in the film and his distinctive voice provides the narration - it became something people latched on to, and then of course they'd find out about his crazy history as a filmmaker and suddenly he's up there with David Lynch as this unusual auteur everyone found so fascinating.

I was thinking of the two or three animated clips in the film, including The simpsons. And appearing on what looked to be some online Henry Rollins interview show (which I wouldn't wish on anybody).

The docmentary presents Grizzly Man as a turning point, yes. Only ever saw it once, remember it as disturbing and exasperating.

I think it was particularly this part that did it. His delivery is classic, so flat and definitive.

I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWYaC5YBaJk

He basically says the same thing in Burden of Dreams, which reappeared in My Best Fiend. For me at least the later documentary def was a step at making him a character.

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