What Makes Werner Herzog Such a Great Filmmaker?

The Vast Herzog Collection of Feature Films and Documentaries

Aug 8, 2009

A look at the award-winning German director of Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Grizzly Man and many more.

Werner Herzog is a legend for many reasons. There's the films, of course – a varied and numerous collection, which two recent box set DVDs only just began to cover – but there's also the stories behind the films. Like how Herzog threatened to shoot Klaus Kinski if he dared walk off Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and how he promised to eat his shoe if his friend Errol Morris ever managed to get the film he was always talking about made. He did, which led to Les Blank's curious short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980).

Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog

Herzog had a somewhat stormy relationship with his favourite leading man Klaus Kinski, although he himself describes it thus:

"People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other's murder".*

Despite the fireworks, and Kinski's infamous on set tantrums, the work Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski produced together is some of the very best of their careers. They collaborated five times:

Klaus Kinski was Herzog's first choice to play the deranged conquistador Aguirre. He remembered him from years before, when the actor had spent a few months living in accommodation rented from his family. Herzog knew the actor's volatile nature would be perfect for the part, and many subsequent roles too. In Woyzeck, an excellent but not quite so famous film of Herzog's, Kinski plays a mentally unstable soldier. Nosferatu was a remake of F.W. Murnau's classic horror film, and then came Fitzcarraldo - a film with enough background information to fill a book.

In fact, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo production diaries were published as a book, Conquest of the Useless. It's a terrific account of the observations and difficulties encountered on a daily basis by the director. In Fitzcarraldo, Kinski plays a man who's so obsessed with following his dream he endeavours to pull a steam boat over a mountain. Many have drawn comparisons between the mad plot of the film and the mad lengths its director went to make it. Cobra Verde was the final film Herzog and Kinski made together (Kinski died in 1989). It was an adaptation of Bruce Chatwin's novel The Viceroy of Ouidah about a fictional slave trader.

Bruno S. in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

Aside from Kinski, Werner Herzog has also famously collaborated with actor Bruno Schleinstein (known as Bruno S.) He first noticed him in a documentary about street musicians, took an interest and vowed to cast him in one of his films. That film was The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), about a boy who had lived in a cellar, devoid of human contact, until one day he's dumped in the town of Nuremberg. The film is based on a true story. Incredibly, Bruno S. also has much in common with the character he played. He too was born into an extremely dire situation. He was beaten as a child and spent much of his youth in mental institutions. He taught himself music and painting, but his deep set problems and mistrust of people still presented difficulties on set. Apparently, some takes were preceded by several hours of histrionics. But then Herzog is never one to shirk such difficulties in search of the performance he wants. He cast Bruno S. again in Stroszek (1977), a film about an alcoholic ex-con, determined to leave Germany for a better life.

Werner Herzog Documentaries

More recently Herzog has become well known for punctuating his work on feature films with documentaries. Titles such as Herdsmen of the Sun (1992) and Bells From the Deep (1993) give free reign to Herzog's unique interests and opinions, especially being as he narrates his own films. His documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) was based on the true story of Vietnam veteran Dieter Dengler. Herzog then went on to make a feature film, starring Christian Bale as Dengler, called Rescue Dawn (2006).

Herzog's undeniable fascination with mad men continued with his celebrated film Grizzly Man (2005), in which he documents the story of amateur grizzly expert Timothy Treadwell. The film is a touching portrayal of one man's obsession. But tragedy haunts the piece from the very outset as Herzog reveals upfront that both Tim and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed by a rogue bear. Encounters at the End of the World (2007) is Herzog's most recent documentary. The film, set in Antarctica, boasts stunning images inside ice caves and underwater, as Herzog conducts interviews and narrates in his own inimitable style.

Why is Werner Herzog so Great?

Right from the beginning, with early films such as Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970), all the way through his collaborations with Klaus Kinski and Bruno S. up to the remarkable Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog has been captivated by stories of madness. A constant champion of outcasts, he celebrates the unusual and sees worth and beauty in capturing crazy, random, glorious moments on film. His choice of subject matter, his films, books and stories all offer a fascinating glimpse of the man behind the lens With his enigmatic, eloquent charm serving to sweep fans along on his magical, maniacal journeys, Werner Herzog is not only a master of cinema, but also a truly unique and fascinating person.

Further reading: A profile of another interesting German film director Wim Wenders.

The copyright of the article What Makes Werner Herzog Such a Great Filmmaker? in Foreign Films is owned by Michelle Strozykowski. Permission to republish What Makes Werner Herzog Such a Great Filmmaker? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.