Herakles (film)

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Herakles
The opening shot of Herakles
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Produced by	Walter Krüttner
Written by	Werner Herzog
Music by	Uwe Brandner
Cinematography	Jaime Pacheco
Release date(s)	1962
Running time	9 minutes
Language	German
IMDb profile

Herakles (Heracles) is a 1962 short film and the first film by German director Werner Herzog.

The film relates to six of the twelve labours of Heracles. The film starts with shots of young male bodybuilders working out in a gym, posing on a stage and flexing their muscles. Each of the labours are then announced by on-screen text in the form of a question, followed by related scenes of modern challenges intercut with the bodybuilders. The audio track of the film is saxophone jazz and sounds from a gym.

The question Wird er den Augiasstall säubern? (Will he clean the Augean stables?) is followed by scenes of a garbage dump, Wird er die lernäische Schlange töten? (Will he kill the Lernaean Hydra?) is followed by a huge line of stopped traffic on a motorway and people walking around outside their cars, Wird er die Rosse des Diomedes bezähmen? (Will he tame the Mares of Diomedes?) is followed by scenes of car racing and several race crashes including a crash into the spectators and shots of the subsequent disaster and piles of bodies, Wird er die Amazonen besiegen? (Will he defeat the Amazonians? (Hippolyta)) is followed by scores of young women marching in uniform, Wird er die Giganten bezwingen? (Will he conquer the giants? (Geryon)) is followed by shots of rubble of a destroyed apartment building and men in uniform searching the wreckage, Wird er sich der stymphalischen Vögel erwehren? (Will he resist the Stymphalian birds?) is followed by jets flying in formation, shooting missiles and dropping bombs on training targets. The last shot of the film is of a bodybuilder's buttocks as he goes off the stage through the stage curtains.

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)

v • d • e Cinema of Germany Film chronology • German Empire 1895-1918 • Weimar Germany 1919-1933 • Nazi Germany 1933-1945 • East Germany (1945-1990) • (West) Germany 1945-present Actors • Directors • Films A-Z • Cinematographers • Festivals • Producers • Composers • Screenwriters