TSPDT - Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog

TOP 100

21ST CENTURY TOP 50

Gerald Peary's Magnificent Seven (2006)

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Theo Angelopoulos

Les Blank

Francis Ford Coppola

Paul Cox

Alexander Dovshenko

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Robert Flaherty

Alexander Kluge

F.W. Murnau

Godfrey Reggio

Andrei Tarkovsky

Peter Weir

Director / Screenwriter / Producer

1942 -

Born September 5, Munich, Germany

Key Production Countries: Germany, France

Key Genres: Adventure Drama, Adventure, Documentary

Key Collaborators: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus (Editor), Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein (Cinematographer), Thomas Mauch (Cinematographer), Popol Vuh (Composer), Klaus Kinski (Leading Player), Henning von Gierke (Production Designer), Bruno S. (Leading Player), Walter Ladengast (Leading Player), Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg (Leading Character Player), Rainer Klausmann (Cinematographer)

Recommended: Signs of Life (1968), Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), Fata Morgana (1971), Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Stroszek (1977), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Lessons of Darkness (1992), Grizzly Man (2005)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Werner Herzog Film ] [ BBC Interview ] [ Strictly Film School ] [ New German Cinema Biography ] [ Baseline Biography ] [ MovieMaker Article: The Enigma of Werner Herzog ] [ Conversation with Roger Ebert (2005) ] [ kamera Article ] [ World Screen Interview ] [ New York Magazine Article (2007 ] [ Filmmaker Article (2007) ] [ The Believer: Conversation with Errol Morris (2008) ] [ Filmmaker Interview (2008) ] [ Moving Image Source Article (2008) ]

Books: [ Herzog on Herzog ] [ Werner Herzog ] [ Werner Herzog (Arte Edition) ] [ The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History ] [ Images at the Horizon: A Workshop with Werner Herzog ] [ Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Signs of Life (1968), Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Lessons of Darkness (1992)

21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films: Grizzly Man (2005)


	"Fond of shooting in difficult locations, he can seem as eccentric and driven as one of his heroes. Recently he appears to have found it difficult to continue making films, but his visionary work of the 70s constitutes a high point of the modern cinema." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

	"It was immediately clear that Herzog possessed a quick sense of narrative; a withdrawn, mobile camera; and a dark, inquisitive humour...As attention fell on Herzog, so his pursuit of extremism became a little more studied; it began to seem more zealous than natural...Herzog pictures were events in the seventies, but they became very hard to see, Fitzcarraldo was the last film to get wide screenings" - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)

	"Werner Herzog, more than any director of his generation, has through his films embodied German history, character, and cultural richness. While references to verbal and other visual arts would be out of place in treating most film directors, they are key to understanding Herzog. For his techniques he reaches back into the early part of the twentieth century to the Expressionist painters and filmmakers, back to the Romantic painters and writers for the luminance and allegorization of landscape and the human figure." - Rodney Farnsworth (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)

	"One of the best of the new wave of German filmmakers, Herzog has already mastered themes of illusion, delusion, alienation, and hypocrisy." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

	"There are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you've got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I'm sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn't have the same substance." - Werner Herzog

	"I cannot work fast enough. I cannot cope fast enough, really. And just releasing a film is hard." - Werner Herzog