Little Dieter Needs To Fly

( 1 )

Overview

While growing up in desolated post-WW II Germany, all Dieter Dengler, the son of a Nazi slain during the war, dreamed about was becoming a pilot. At age 18, he left his country with only a few cents to his name and emigrated to the U.S. Landing in San Francisco, he worked odd jobs until he was accepted into the Navy and began pilot training. He was sent to Vietnam around 1966 and on his first mission was shot down and taken prisoner. There, the Vietcong tortured and starved him until Dengler engineered a ...
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Overview

While growing up in desolated post-WW II Germany, all Dieter Dengler, the son of a Nazi slain during the war, dreamed about was becoming a pilot. At age 18, he left his country with only a few cents to his name and emigrated to the U.S. Landing in San Francisco, he worked odd jobs until he was accepted into the Navy and began pilot training. He was sent to Vietnam around 1966 and on his first mission was shot down and taken prisoner. There, the Vietcong tortured and starved him until Dengler engineered a hair-raising escape and eventually returned to the U.S. where his heroic life story has been forgotten until now. Sometimes blurring the lines between fact and fiction with his trademark recurrent themes, this documentary from Werner Herzog remembers the times of the heroic Dengler. The film is divided into four chapters, each representing a period from Dengler's life; the story is recounted via interviews with the Navy pilot, archival footage and new footage seamlessly spliced together.
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Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide
More than a tribute to a naval hero, Little Dieter Needs to Fly is an existential biography about one man's dream to become a pilot and how that leads to the unfathomably horrific trial he endures after being shot down and escaping a POW camp in Vietnam. Dieter Dengler's journey through the jungle, battling starvation and the killing of his friend Duane, is engagingly retold as Dengler returns to Vietnam and retraces his steps. The nuances of his emotional journey are open to interpretation. Werner Herzog is notorious for using documentaries to advance his own ideas concerning man and nature in extreme circumstances and Dengler's impassive military bearing makes for a tantalizingly blank slate. However, Herzog is extremely respectful of his subject, and if it is occasionally peppered with Herzog's overdone narrative ruminations, the documentary is careful not to project too much on Dengler's interior life and ends with a fittingly regal yet enigmatic salute to the pilot. In 2006, Herzog completed a fictionalized version of this documentary titled Rescue Dawn starring Christian Bale as Dengler and Steve Zahn as Duane.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 12/4/2001
  • UPC: 013131153934
  • Original Release: 1997

    • Rating:

  • Source: STARZ / ANCHOR BAY
  • Format: VHS

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Dieter Dengler
Werner Herzog
Technical Credits
Werner Herzog Director, Screenwriter
Ekkehart Baumung Sound/Sound Designer
Joe Bini Editor
Herbert Golder Asst. Director
Glen Scantlebury Editor
Rainer Standke Editor
Lucki Stipetic Producer
Peter Zeitlinger Cinematographer
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Customer Reviews

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    Posted October 3, 2009

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