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Source and ©: Werner Herzog Film
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Werner Herzog
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Werner Stipetic was born September 5, 1942, in Munich. At first, he grew up on a remote farm in Upper Bavaria but moved with his mother to Munich after his parents divorced. He hitchhiked through Yugoslavia and Greece in 1956, worked in Manchester for a couple of months at the age of 17, and finished school in 1961. In 1962, Herzog finished his first short film "Herakles" and set up his own production company in 1963. Herzog then studied history, literature and theatre studies in Munich, later as a Fulbright scholar at the film institute of Pittsburgh's Duquesne University.
In 1966, Herzog finished "Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreutz" ("The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz"), a "study" for his first feature-length film "Lebenszeichen" ("Signs of Life", 1967) that won the German film award in 1968 and was named the best debut film at the international film festival in Berlin. Furthermore, Herzog won the first prize at the 1968 Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen for his short film "Letzte Worte" ("Last Words").
Between 1968 and 1970, during several stays in the Sahara desert and on Lanzarote, Herzog finished "Fata Morgana". With "Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes" ("Aguirre, the Wrath of God"), that was filmed in Peru in 1972, Herzog managed in his first collaboration with Klaus Kinski to attract a larger audience by casting an international star for the leading role.
In choosing his locations Herzog repeatedly put himself – and sometimes even his staff members – at extreme risks. He was also criticized for casting roles with "exotic" lay actors: "Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen" ("Even Dwarfs Started Small", 1970) is a controversial parable of deformed social behaviour, with only growth-restricted actors. Furthermore, in "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle" ("The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser: Every Man for Himself and God Against All", 1974) Bruno S., who had been living in isolation for several years, played the leading role of Kaspar Hauser.
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For "Herz aus Glas" ("Heart of Glass", 1976), Herzog thought it useful to hypnotize the actors as a "means of stylization". Bruno S. also played the title role in "Stroszek" (1976/77), a film that borrowed several motives from the biography of its leading actor. In 1978, Herzog finished his first genre film with "Nosferatu – Phantom der Nacht" ("Nosferatu, the Vampyre"), a remake of Murnau's classic film "Nosferatu. eine Symphonie des Grauens" ("Nosferatu. A Symphony of Horror", 1921), as well as his first film adaptation, Büchner's "Woyzeck". In 1979, Herzog started to prepare the shooting of "Fitzcarraldo" in Peru. After several recasts, Klaus Kinski took the leading role. But during the shooting of the film, several arguments arose, also with the indigenous tribes in the area where the crew filmed.
Herzog then finished the socially critical film "Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen" ("Where the Green Ants Dream"), "Ballade Vom Kleinen Soldaten" ("Ballad of the Little Soldier"), and "Gasherbrum – Der leuchtende Berg" ("The Dark Glow of the Mountains") about Reinhold Messner in the Pakistani Karakoram massif. "Cobra Verde" ("Slave Coast") was his last collaboration with Klaus Kinski. In 1999, Herzog made the documentary film "Mein liebster Feind" ("My Best Fiend - Klaus Kinski") about his relationship with Kinski.
After "Schrei aus Stein" ("Scream of Stone", 1991), Herzog only made documentary films during the 1990s and did not return to feature films until he finished "Invincible" in 2001. One central motive of his following films are the conflicting poles of man and nature, of science and spiritualism. In "Rad der Zeit" ("Wheel of Time"), for instance, Herzog observed a Buddhist ritual; for the documentary film "The White Diamond" Herzog accompanied an aviation engineer in a miniature zeppelin to the rain forest in Guyana; the pseudo documentary film "The Wild Blue Yonder" tells the story of an extraterrestial on earth. In his feature film "Rescue Dawn", Herzog shows the struggle of survival of an US Air Force pilot (Christian Bale) who has been downed. In his most recent film "Encounters at the End of the World", Herzog takes on a trip to the Antarctic to eternalise the beauty of the local landscapes on film.
While Herzog's recent films have only attracted little attention in Germany, they are celebrated in the US as works of a great master. At the moment, Werner Herzog is working on the remake of "Bad Lieutenant", Abel Ferrara's 1983 cult film.
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(
Werner Stipetic )
*05.09.1942
München
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