Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog in Brussels, 2007.
Born	Werner Herzog Stipetić 5 September 1942 (1942-09-05) (age 68) Munich, Germany
Occupation	Actor Director Screenwriter Producer
Years active	1962–present
Spouse	Martje Grohmann (1967–1987) Christine Maria Ebenberger (1987–1994) Lena Herzog (1999–present)
Website
http://www.wernerherzog.com

Werner Herzog (German pronunciation: [ˈvɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk]; born Werner Herzog Stipetić,^[1] 5 September 1942) is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.

He is often associated with the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Wim Wenders and others. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams,^[2] people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who find themselves in conflict with nature.^[3]

1 Personal life
2 Career
3 Future projects
4 Film theory
5 Collaborations
- 5.1 Cast
- 5.2 Crew
6 Filmography
7 Stage works
- 7.1 Opera
- 7.2 Theatre
8 Bibliography
9 References
10 External links

Personal life

Herzog was born Werner Herzog Stipetić (pronounced ['stɪpɛtɪtʃ]) to Dietrich Herzog and Elizabeth Stipetic in Munich. His family moved to the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang (nestled in the Chiemgau Alps), after the house next to theirs was destroyed during the bombing at the close of World War II.^[4] When he was 12, he and his family moved back to Munich. His father had abandoned the family early in his youth. Werner would later drop his Croatian mother's surname for the German "Herzog", translated as "duke."

The same year, Herzog was told to sing in front of his class at school and he adamantly refused. He was almost expelled for this and until the age of 18 listened to no music, sang no songs and studied no instruments. He later said that he would easily give 10 years from his life to be able to play an instrument. At 14, he was inspired by an encyclopedia entry about film-making which he says provided him with "everything I needed to get myself started" as a film-maker—that, and the 35 mm camera that the young Herzog stole from the Munich Film School.^[5] In the commentary for Aguirre, the Wrath of God, he states, "I don't consider it theft—it was just a necessity—I had some sort of natural right for a camera, a tool to work with." He studied at the University of Munich despite earning a scholarship to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In the early 1960s, Herzog worked nightshifts as a welder in a steel factory to help fund his first films.

Herzog has been married three times and has three children. In 1967, he married Martje Grohmann,^[6] with whom he had a son in 1973, Rudolph Amos Achmed,^[7] who is a film producer and director as well as the author of several non-fiction books. In 1980, his daughter, Hanna Mattes (now a photographer and an artist), was born to Eva Mattes. In 1987, Herzog was divorced from Grohmann; later the same year he married Christine Maria Ebenberger. Their son, Simon Herzog, who attends Columbia University, was born in 1989. Herzog and Ebenberger divorced in 1994. In 1995 Herzog moved to the United States and in 1999 married photographer Lena Pisetski, now Lena Herzog. They live in Los Angeles.

In January 2006 actor Joaquin Phoenix overturned his car on a road above Sunset Boulevard. Herzog, who lived nearby, helped him get out of it.^[8] A few days later, while giving an interview to Mark Kermode for the BBC, an unknown individual shot Herzog with an air rifle during filming. Herzog continued the interview and showed his wound on camera but acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, remarking, "It is not a significant bullet."^[9] In the next interview he held with Kermode, Herzog was questioned about his belief that the universe is a godless and random place. Kermode asked that if this was indeed the case, "How come it can produce something as beautiful as the films of Werner Herzog? For me, the proof that what you're saying isn't true is you and your work." To which Herzog replied: "Well, I stem the tide."^[10]

Career

Besides using movie stars, German, American and otherwise, Herzog is known for using people from the locality in which he is shooting. Especially in his documentaries, he uses locals to benefit his, as he calls it, "ecstatic truth", using footage of them both playing parts and being themselves. Herzog and his films have won and been nominated for many awards. Herzog's first major award was the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury for his first feature film Signs of Life^[11] (Nosferatu the Vampyre was also nominated for Golden Bear in 1979). Most notably, Herzog won the best director award for Fitzcarraldo at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. On the same Festival, but a few years earlier (in 1975) his movie The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser won The Special Jury Prize (also known as the 'Silver Palm'). Other films directed by Herzog nominated for Golden Palm are: Woyzeck and Where the Green Ants Dream. His films were also nominated at many other very important festivals all around the world: César Awards (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Emmy Awards (Little Dieter Needs to Fly), European Film Awards (My Best Fiend) and Venice Film Festival (Scream of Stone and The Wild Blue Yonder).

In 1987 he and his half-brother Lucki Stipetic won the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Producing, for the film Cobra Verde.^[12] In 2002 he won the Dragon of Dragons Honorary Award during Kraków Film Festival in Kraków.

Herzog was honored at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival, receiving the 2006 Film Society Directing Award.^[13] Four of his films have been shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun in 1990, Bells from the Deep in 1993, Lessons of Darkness in 1993, and The Wild Blue Yonder in 2006. Herzog's April 2007 appearance at the Ebertfest in Champaign, Illinois earned him the Golden Thumb Award, and an engraved glockenspiel given to him by a young film maker inspired by his films. Grizzly Man, directed by Herzog, won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Encounters at the End of the World won the award for Best Documentary at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature, Herzog's first nomination.

Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if Errol Morris completed the movie project on pet cemeteries that he had been working on, in order to challenge and motivate Morris, whom Herzog perceived as incapable of following up on the projects he conceived. In 1978 when the film Gates of Heaven premiered, Werner Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe, an event later incorporated into a short documentary Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank. At the event, Herzog suggested that he hoped the act would serve to encourage anyone having difficulty bringing a project to fruition.

In 2009, Herzog became the only filmmaker in recent history to enter two films in competition in the same year at the prestigious Venice Film Festival. Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was entered into the festival's official competition schedule, and his My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? entered the competition as a "surprise film".^[14] Herzog also provided the narration for the short film Plastic Bag directed by Ramin Bahrani which was the Opening Night film in the Corto Cortissimo section of the festival.^[15]

Herzog is also a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.^[16]

Herzog was the President of the Jury at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Herzog also lent his voice to the animated television program The Boondocks in the third season premiere episode It's a Black President, Huey Freeman in which he played himself filming a documentary about the series' cast of characters and their actions during the 2008 election of Barack Obama.

Future projects

Herzog has just finished a documentary called Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, co-directed with Russian filmmaker Dmitry Vasyukov, which portrays the life of an indigenous tribe from the Siberian part of the Taiga.

Another documentary is in post-production; The Cave shows Herzog's journey into the Chauvet Cave in France. Some reports has confirmed Herzog's intention of releasing the film into a 3-D format.

As for feature films, the film adaptation of Daniel Mason's novel The Piano Tuner has been re-written by Herzog (after Peter Buchman first draft), and will be directed by Herzog as well. Focus Features will be studio helming the project, along with Mandalay Independent Pictures as production company. No cast, shooting or release dates are known yet.

Herzog has said that he would like to make a biopic about real-life traveler and explorer Gertrude Bell. Until now, it has been classified as a contemplative project.

Film theory

Herzog's films have received considerable critical acclaim and achieved popularity on the art house circuit. They have also been the subject of controversy in regard to their themes and messages, especially the circumstances surrounding their creation. A notable example is Fitzcarraldo, in which the obsessiveness of the central character was mirrored by the director during the making of the film, as shown in Burden of Dreams, a documentary filmed during the making of Fitzcarraldo. His treatment of subjects has been characterized as Wagnerian in its scope, as Fitzcarraldo and his later film Invincible (2001) are directly inspired by opera, or operatic themes. He is proud of never using storyboards and often improvising large parts of the script, as he explains on the commentary track to Aguirre, the Wrath of God.

Collaborations

Cast

Actors/Actress in a Leading Role

Klaus Kinski: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde. In 1999 Herzog directed and narrated the documentary film My Best Fiend, a retrospective on his often rocky relationship with Kinski.
Brad Dourif in Scream of Stone, The Wild Blue Yonder, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
Bruno S. in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Stroszek
Josef Bierbichler in Heart of Glass and Woyzeck
Eva Mattes in Woyzeck and Stroszek
Michael Shannon in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Actors in a Supporting Role

Clemens Scheitz in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Stroszek and Nosferatu the Vampyre
Peter Berling in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde
Volker Prechtel in Heart of Glass, Woyzeck and Scream of Stone
José Lewgoy in Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde
Walter Ladengast in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Nosferatu the Vampyre

Crew

Cinematographers
Thomas Mauch

Mauch worked with Herzog on ten films: starting with Signs of Life and Last Words and ending with Fitzcarraldo. He helped to create hallucinogenic atmosphere in Aguirre and realistic style of Stroszek. Mauch won Film Award in Gold and National Society of Film Critics Awards for Aguirre. He was Herzog's first choice to be cinematographer during Cobra Verde, but after a perpetual torrent of verbal abuse from Kinski, Mauch walked out on the project. That was Mauch and Herzog's final collaboration.

Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein

Reitwein worked with Herzog on seventeen films. Reitwein was Thomas Mauch's assistant camera during Even Dwarfs Started Small. His first independent work for Herzog was Precautions Against Fanatics in 1969. He helped to create poetical atmosphere of Fata Morgana, Heart of Glass, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Nosferatu. He won the Film Award in Gold for Heart of Glass and Where the green ants dream at the German Film Awards. He last collaborated with Herzog during Pilgrimage in 2001.

Peter Zeitlinger

Zeitlinger collaborated with Herzog on eleven films, from Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995) to My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010), including Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World.

Producers

Walter Saxer

Saxer produced sixteen of Herzog's films, including Nosferatu and The White Diamond. He worked as Sound Department during seven of Herzog's films, including The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner and Echoes from a Somber Empire. He co-wrote Scream of Stone which Herzog directed. Saxer appeared as himself in Herzog's My Best Fiend and in Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, in which he was also subjected to the verbal abuse of Kinski.

Lucki Stipetic

Lucki is Herzog's half-brother. He also produced several Herzog films, including Aguirre and Invincible. Stipetic is a head of Werner Herzog Productions. He won Bavarian Film Award in 1988 for Cobra Verde and International Documentary Association Award for Little Dieter Needs to Fly in 1998. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award in 1998.

Editors
Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus

Mainka-Jellinghaus worked with Herzog on twenty films, from Signs of Life and Last Words (both from 1968) to Where the Green Ants Dream (1984).

Joe Bini

Bini collaborated with Herzog on eleven films, from Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) to Bad Lieutenant (2009).

Costumes designers
Ann Poppel

Poppel collaborated with Herzog on four films, including Nosferatu the Vampyre and Scream of Stone.

Gisela Storch

Storch worked with Herzog on six films: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde. She was nominated for a Saturn Award for Nosferatu the Vampire in 1979.

Others
Henning von Gierke

Gierke collaborated with Herzog on seven films and several operas. He was Production Designer during The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu the Vampyre and Fitzcarraldo. As a Set Decorator he worked on Heart of Glass and Woyzeck, as Stage Designer on operas: Lohengrin and Giovanna d'Arco and as Costume Designer on film The Transformation of the World Into Music. Gierke shot additional still photographs on Stroszek 's set. He appeared twice in Herzog's film The Transformation of the World Into Music as himself and in Herzog's TV realisation of opera Giovanna d'Arco. Von Gierke won Film Award in Gold for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser during German Film Awards and Silver Berlin Bear for Nosferatu, during Berlin International Film Festival.

Popol Vuh

Popol Vuh was a German Krautrock band founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke. The band took its name from the Popol Vuh, a manuscript of Quiché Maya kingdom, after watching Herzog's Fata Morgana (in which Lotte Eisner reads parts of the Popol Vuh). The band composed music for eight Herzog's films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu, The Dark Glow of the Mountains, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and My Best Fiend. Their compositions were also used by Herzog in Rescue Dawn. Florian Fricke made a cameo as a pianist in Signs of Life and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser.

Filmography

All films were directed and written (or co-written) by Werner Herzog:

Features

Signs of Life (1968)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Fata Morgana (1971)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Heart of Glass (1976)
Stroszek (1977)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Woyzeck (1979)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)
Cobra Verde (1987)
Scream of Stone (1991)
Invincible (2001)
The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Rescue Dawn (2007)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)

Shorts

Herakles (1962)
The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1966)
Last Words (1967)
Precautions Against Fanatics (1969)
No One Will Play With Me (1976)
Lessons of Darkness (1992)
O soave fanciulla from La bohème (2009) review

Documentaries

Full length:

Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
Echoes From a Somber Empire (1990)
Bells from the Deep (1993)
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
My Best Fiend (1999)
Wheel of Time (2003)
The White Diamond (2004)
Grizzly Man (2005)
Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
The Cave (201?)

For TV:

The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969)
Handicapped Future (1971)
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
God's Angry Man (1980)
Huie's Sermon (1980)
The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984)
Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
Film Lesson 1-4 (1990)
Jag Mandir (1991)
The Transformation of the World Into Music (1994)
Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
The Lord and the Laden included in 2000 Years of Christianity (1999)
Wings of Hope (2000)

Short:

Game in The Sand (1964)
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
La Soufrière (1977)
Portrait Werner Herzog (1986)
Les Gaulois included in Les Français vus par... (1988)
Pilgrimage (2001)
Ten Thousand Years Older, included in Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)

Screenwriter

Films written, though not directed, by Herzog

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

Werner Herzog has written all his films, except

Scream of Stone (1991)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010)

Herzog has also co-written

Hunger in the world explained to my son (El hambre en el mundo explicada a mi hijo) (2002)
Incident at Loch Ness (2004)

Actor

Geschichten vom Kübelkind (1971)
Man of Flowers (1983)
Bride of the Orient (1989)
Hard to Be a God (1990)
Tales from the Opera (1994)
Burning Heart (1995)
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)
Incident at Loch Ness (2004)
Mister Lonely (2007)
The Grand (2007)
Plastic Bag (2009)

Stage works

Opera

Doktor Faustus (1986, Teatro Comunale di Bologna)
Lohengrin (1987, Bayreuth Festival)
Giovanna d'Arco (1989, Teatro Comunale di Bologna)
La Donna del lago (1992, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
The Flying Dutchman (1993, L'Opéra de la Bastille)
Il Guarany (1993, Opera Bonn)
Norma (1994, Verona Arena)
Il Guarany (1996, Washington National Opera)
Chushingura (1997, Tokyo Opera)
Tannhäuser (1997, 1998 Teatro de la Maestranza; Teatro di San Carlo; Teatro Massimo)
The Magic Flute (1999, Teatro Bellini, Catania)
Fidelio (1999, Teatro alla Scala)
Tannhäuser (Wagner) (2000)
Giovanna d'Arco (2001, Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa)
Tannhäuser (2001, Teatro Municipal; Houston Grand Opera)
Die Zauberflöte (2001, Baltimore Opera)
The Flying Dutchman (2002, DomStufen Festspiele Erfurt)
Parsifal (2008, Palau de les Arts, Valencia)

Theatre

Floresta Amazonica (A Midsummer Night's Dream) (1992, Teatro Joao Caetano)
Varété (1993, Hebbel Theatre)
Specialitaeten (1993, Etablissement Ronacher)

Bibliography

Books

Writer:

Of Walking In Ice (Free Association, New York, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9796121-0-7)
Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story (Fjord Pr, January 1983, ISBN 978-0-940242-04-3)
"Conquest of the Useless" Herzog's diaries of the making of "Fitzcarraldo"

Co-writer:

Paul Cronin. Herzog on Herzog (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2002, ISBN 0-571-20708-1) (extracts here:^[20]
Lena Herzog. Pilgrims: Becoming the Path Itself (Periplus Publishing London Ltd., ISBN 1-902699-43-2)

Screenplays