Werner Herzog - A Guide for the Perplexed

by Paul Cronin

Overview

One of the best things published about cinema.' Sight & Sound Herzog was once hailed by Francois Truffaut as the most important director alive. Famous for his frequent collaborations with mercurial actor Klaus Kinski – including the epics Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, and the terrifying Nosferatu – and more recently with documentaries such as Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Into the Abyss, Herzog has built a body of work that is one of the most vital in post-war German cinema. Here, he reflects on his legendary and inspiring career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571336067
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	06/02/2020
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.60(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword Harmony Korine xi

Visionary Vehemence Paul Cronin xiii

1 The Shower Curtain: A Lost Western, Herakles, Game in the Sand, The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz 1

2 Blasphemy and Mirages: Signs of Life, Last Words, Precautions Against Fanatics, The Flying Doctors of East Africa, Fata Morgana, Even Dwarfs Started Small 43

3 Adequate Imagery: Handicapped Future, Land of Silence and Darkness, Aguirre, the Wrath of God 76

4 Athletics and Aesthetics: The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, No One Will Play with Me, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass 114

5 Legitimacy: How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck … Stroszek, La Soufrière, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Woyzeck 141

6 Defying Gravity: God's Angry Man, Huie's Sermon, Fitzcarraldo, Ballad of the Little Soldier, The Dark Glow of the Mountains 179

7 Going Rogue 212

8 Reveries and Imagination: Where the Green Ants Dream, Cobra Verde, Les Français vus par … Les Gauloises, Wodaahe: Herdsmen of the Sun, Echoes from a Sombre Empire, The Eccentric Private Theatre of the Maharaja of Udaipur, Scream of Stone 251

9 Fact and Truth: Lessons of Darkness, Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia, The Transformation of the World into Music, Death for Five Voices, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Wings of Hope 286

10 Fervour and Woe: My Best Fiend, The Lord and the Laden, Pilgrimage, Invincible, Ten Thousand Years Older, Wheel of Time, The White Diamond 330

11 Blowing the Fuses: Grizzly Man, The Wild Blue Yonder, Rescue Dawn, Encounters at the End of the World, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans 364

12 The Song of Life: La Bohème, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, Ode to the Dawn of Man, Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life, On Death Row, From One Second to the Next 399

Ten Poems Werner Herzog 437

Thinking about Germany Werner 458

The Minnesota Declaration Werner Herzog 476

Shooting on the Lam Herbert Golder 478

Afterword Lawrence Krauss 489

Bibliographic Essay 494

Acknowledgements 501

Filmography and Opera Stagings 503

Index 527