In the 1950s, an adolescent Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, forty-eight-hour ...
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During the 1800s, paroled Brazilian bandit Cobra Verde is sent to West Africa with a few troops to man an old Portuguese fort and to convince the local African ruler to resume the slave trade with Brazil.
A documentary on the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's epic Fitzcarraldo (1982), showing how the film managed to get made despite problems that would have floored a less obsessively ... See full summary »
Director:
Les Blank
Stars:
Werner Herzog,
Klaus Kinski,
Claudia Cardinale
This film shows the disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames, with few interviews and no explanatory narration. Hell itself is presented in such beautiful sights and music that one has to be fascinated by it.
About the daring adventure of exploring rain forest canopy with a novel flying device-the Jungle Airship. Airship engineer Dr. Graham Dorrington embarks on a trip to the giant Kaieteur ... See full summary »
Director:
Werner Herzog
Stars:
Werner Herzog,
Graham Dorrington,
Dieter Plage
German-American Dieter Dengler discusses his service as a U.S. naval pilot in the Viet Nam War. Dengler also revisits the sites of his capture and eventual escape from the hands of the Viet Cong, recreating many events for the camera.
Director:
Werner Herzog
Stars:
Dieter Dengler,
Werner Herzog,
Eugene Deatrick
Count Dracula moves from Transylvania to Wismar, spreading the Black Plague across the land. Only a woman pure of heart can bring an end to his reign of horror.
Film-maker Werner Herzog travels to the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, looking to capture the continent's beauty and investigate the characters living there.
Director:
Werner Herzog
Stars:
Werner Herzog,
Scott Rowland,
Stefan Pashov
In Berlin, an alcoholic man, recently released from prison, joins his elderly friend and a prostitute in a determined dream to leave Germany and seek a better life in Wisconsin.
Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to talk or walk, and bearing a strange note.
In the 1950s, an adolescent Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, forty-eight-hour fit of rage, Kinski completely destroyed the bathroom. From this chaos, a violent, love-hate, profoundly creative partnership was born. In 1972, Herzog cast Kinski in Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972). Four more films would follow. In this personal documentary, Herzog traces the often violent ups and downs of their relationship, revisiting the various locations of their films and talking to the people they worked with.Written by
L.H. Wong <lhw@sfs.org.sg>
The film details the long and often complicated relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. The film also the last collaboration between Herzog and his friend since school, Florian Fricke of Popul Vuh. Ficke composed the score of many of Herzog's most famous films and passed away in 2001. See more »
Quotes
Beat Presser:
[Herzog and Presser are looking at Presser's famous picture of Kinski trying to strangle Herzog]
I truly like this very much. It happened because he must have sensed the presence of your camera.
Beat Presser:
He also just wanted to let you have it, didn't he?
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Werner Herzog: Every grey hair on my head, I call Kinski.
The documentary made by Werner Herzog tells about the legendary love-hate relationship between the director who was ready to climb to Hell for his every movie and border-line insane genius actor Klaus Kinski who might have been one of the creatures from Hell that Herzog had to face. It is hard to imagine two people more different than Herzog and Kinski: "...stone and waves, the coldest ice and hottest flames have more in common, differ less" but they both were driven and obsessed artists. Famous for his wild and ferocious talent and temperament to match, Kinski was incredibly difficult to work with. He wrote about himself, "I am a wild animal born in captivity, in a zoo but where beast would have claws, I have talent".
Kinski's talent was fully realized in five films that he made with Werner Herzog over a fifteen-year working period, starting with astounding "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1973), and then following with "Fitzcarraldo," "Nosferatu" (1979), inspired by Murnau's silent vampire classic; "Woyzeck" (1979), about a 19th century army private who seems mad to others because he looks and acts so differently from them, and "Cobra Verde" (1988). It is impossible to imagine any other actor starring in these films and they are without doubt the best Kinski ever made (and he made hundreds of films). Thanks to the Herzog's documentary we are able to learn what exactly went on behind the stunning images and unforgettable performances. According to Herzog, "people like Marlon Brando are just kindergarden comparing to Kinski. He is mad and unpredictable." They liked each other, they hated each other, and they respected each other at the same time making plans to murder each other.
Kinski, who respected Herzog, and valued his friendship, confessed to the director that in his autobiography he would describe their relationship in not very flattering terms - otherwise, the crowd would not read it. Herzog recalls how they both would sit together at the bench after the shooting and discuss what Kinski would write in his book. I am curious if they discussed and agreed upon the following passage and if Herzog helped Kinski with some of the colorful metaphors: "I absolutely despise this murderous Herzog! Huge red ants should p**s into his lying eyes, gobble up his balls, penetrate his a**hole and eat his guts."
Even after watching the fascinating documentary, it is difficult to fully understand the relationship between two giants but as Herzog admits, the only thing that counts is what we see on the screen and what we see is amazing.
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Werner Herzog: Every grey hair on my head, I call Kinski.
The documentary made by Werner Herzog tells about the legendary love-hate relationship between the director who was ready to climb to Hell for his every movie and border-line insane genius actor Klaus Kinski who might have been one of the creatures from Hell that Herzog had to face. It is hard to imagine two people more different than Herzog and Kinski: "...stone and waves, the coldest ice and hottest flames have more in common, differ less" but they both were driven and obsessed artists. Famous for his wild and ferocious talent and temperament to match, Kinski was incredibly difficult to work with. He wrote about himself, "I am a wild animal born in captivity, in a zoo but where beast would have claws, I have talent".
Kinski's talent was fully realized in five films that he made with Werner Herzog over a fifteen-year working period, starting with astounding "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1973), and then following with "Fitzcarraldo," "Nosferatu" (1979), inspired by Murnau's silent vampire classic; "Woyzeck" (1979), about a 19th century army private who seems mad to others because he looks and acts so differently from them, and "Cobra Verde" (1988). It is impossible to imagine any other actor starring in these films and they are without doubt the best Kinski ever made (and he made hundreds of films). Thanks to the Herzog's documentary we are able to learn what exactly went on behind the stunning images and unforgettable performances. According to Herzog, "people like Marlon Brando are just kindergarden comparing to Kinski. He is mad and unpredictable." They liked each other, they hated each other, and they respected each other at the same time making plans to murder each other.
Kinski, who respected Herzog, and valued his friendship, confessed to the director that in his autobiography he would describe their relationship in not very flattering terms - otherwise, the crowd would not read it. Herzog recalls how they both would sit together at the bench after the shooting and discuss what Kinski would write in his book. I am curious if they discussed and agreed upon the following passage and if Herzog helped Kinski with some of the colorful metaphors: "I absolutely despise this murderous Herzog! Huge red ants should p**s into his lying eyes, gobble up his balls, penetrate his a**hole and eat his guts."
Even after watching the fascinating documentary, it is difficult to fully understand the relationship between two giants but as Herzog admits, the only thing that counts is what we see on the screen and what we see is amazing.