Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun
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Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun c.1989
"Documentary" 52 minutes, 16mm color
Director: Werner Herzog; Producer: Patrick Sandrin]; Director of Photography: Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein; Editor: Maximiliane Mainka; Production Manager: Walter Saxer; Sound Engineer: Walter Saxer; Assistant Direcotr: Claude Hervaint; Music: Gounod, Mozart, Handel, Verdi; Production Company: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion; Co-Producers: Suddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart and Arion Productions; Participants: Wodaabe Tribe
In Wodaabe: Herdsman of the Sun filmmaker Werner Herzog and his crew document the social rituals and cultural celebrations of the Wodaabe tribe. The Wodaabe are a nomadic African tribe who wander on the southern Sahara Desert.
Although the film may be considered to be ethnographic, Herzog commented that: "[My films] are anthropological only in as much as they try to explore the human condition at this particular time on this planet. I do not make films using images only of clouds and trees, I work with human beings because the way they function in different cultural groups interests me. If that makes me an anthropologist then so be it." (1)
The opening shots of the film depicts a celebration of male beauty, showing males dancing in elaborate costume, accentuating their height and whites of their eyes and teeth to attract females, as we hear "Ave Maria" in the background (a 1901 recording made by the last castrato of the Vatican). The film is stylized to an ecstatic level, with long scenic views of the Saharan plains and the camps of the Wodaabe.
(1) Herzog on Herzog, edited by Paul Cronin. Published 2002 by Faber and Faber Limited.
Herakles (1962) Game in The Sand (1964) • Last Words (1967) • The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967) • Signs of Life (1968) • The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969) • Precautions Against Fanatics (1969) • Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) • Handicapped Future (1971) • 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) • Heart of Glass (1976) • No One Will Play with Me (1976) • How much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976) • Stroszek (1977) • La Soufrière (1977) • Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) • Woyzeck (1979) • Huie's Sermon (1980) • God's Angry Man (1980) • Glaube und Währung (1980) • Fitzcarraldo (1982) • Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984) • The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984) • Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) • Cobra Verde (1987) • The French as seen by... (1988) • Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun (1989) • Film Lesson 1-4 (1990) • Echoes From a Somber Empire (1990) • Jag Mandir (1991) • Scream of Stone (1991) • Lessons of Darkness (1992) • Bells from the Deep (1993) • The Transformation of the World Into Music (1994) • Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995) • Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) • The Lord and the Laden (1999) • My Best Fiend (1999) • Wings of Hope (2000) • Invincible (2001) • Pilgrimage (2001) • Ten Minutes Older (2002) • Wheel of Time (2003) • The White Diamond (2004) • Grizzly Man (2005) • The Wild Blue Yonder (2005) • Rescue Dawn (2006)
