Fata Morgana (film)

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Fata Morgana
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Produced by	Werner Herzog
Written by	Werner Herzog
Narrated by	Lotte Eisner
Starring	Eugen Des Montagnes
Music by	Blind Faith The Third Ear Band Leonard Cohen
Cinematography	Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
Editing by	Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Release date(s)	1971
Running time	79 min
Language	German
IMDb profile

Fata Morgana is a film by Werner Herzog, shot in 1969, which captures mirages in the desert. Herzog describes the film as "a documentary shot by extraterrestrials from the Andromeda Nebula, and left behind."^{[citation needed]} The only narration consists of a recitation of the Mayan creation myth (the Popol Vuh) by Lotte Eisner, and text written by Herzog himself.

Film critic David Thomson describes Fata Morgana as "extraordinary": "[The] desert is a model for mankind. The film is in three sections: the first showing an unpeopled, beautiful wasteland; the second introducing signs of human wreckage; and the third showing wretched vestiges of life. Totally imaginative, it is a legend of life at extremes that contrasts with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Whereas Stanley Kubrick has an all-powerful, riddle-making consciousness behind the universe, Herzog's creator is as fallible, quirky and uncertain as man himself."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Production

The film was initially intended to be presented with a science fiction narrative, casting the images as landscapes from another planet. This concept was abandoned as soon as filming began, but was realized in his later films Lessons of Darkness and The Wild Blue Yonder. ^[1]

Much of the film's footage consists of long tracking shots filmed by cameraman Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein from the top of a VW bus with Herzog driving. The crew smoothed out the road themselves to prepare the shots.^[1]

Herzog and the crew encountered many problems during the filming, most notably being imprisoned because cameraman Schmidt-Reitwein's name was similar to the name of a German mercenary who was hiding from the authorities and had recently been sentenced to death in absentia.^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Herzog, Werner (2001). Herzog on Herzog. Faber and Faber, 303. ISBN 0-571-20708-1. 

[edit] External links

• IMDB entry for Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana

v • d • e Films directed by Werner Herzog 1960s Herakles (1962) • Game in the Sand (1964) • The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967) • Last Words (1967) • Signs of Life (1968) • The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969) Precautions Against Fanatics (1969) 1970s 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 (1978) • Woyzeck (1978) 1980s Huie's Sermon (1981) • God's Angry Man (1981) • Fitzcarraldo (1982) • Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984) • The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984) • Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) • Portrait Werner Herzog (1986) • Cobra Verde (1987) • The French as seen by... (1988) • Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun (1989) 1990s 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) 2000s 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 (2007) • Encounters at the End of the World (2007) • The Cheese and the Worms (2008)