Werner Herzog (born 1942) [1] is a German filmmaker whose films often feature ambitious or deranged protagonists with impossible dreams. [2] [3] Herzog's works span myriad genres and mediums, but he is particularly well known for his documentary films, which he typically narrates. [4]
In 1962, Herzog made his directorial debut with the German-language short Herakles . His feature film debut— Signs of Life (1968)—garnered him the Silver Bear at Berlinale. [5] Six years later, Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. [6] Starting in this period, Herzog collaborated with actor Klaus Kinski on five films, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Cobra Verde (1987). [2] Fitzcarraldo won Herzog the Best Director Award at Cannes. [7] His tumultuous relationship with Kinski was the subject of Herzog's 1999 documentary My Best Fiend . [8] Herzog directed two films in 2009, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done and the Nicolas Cage-starring Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , [9] both of which were nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. [10] He has directed a number of other fictional feature films as well as shorts.
Herzog made his documentorial debut with 1969's The Flying Doctors of East Africa . In his documentaries, Herzog often explores the "moral or existential abyss", commonly in nature. [11] His first documentary to screen at Cannes, Fata Morgana (1971), for instance, pairs footage of barren African desert landscapes with a recitation of the Mayan creation myth, the Popol Vuh. [12] [13] Similarly, Herzog's film Lessons of Darkness (1992) matches Richard Wagner overtures with documentation of the Gulf War's wake of chaos and destruction in Kuwait. [14] [15] Lessons of Darkness was criticized for its supposed "aestheticizing" of war. [16] As with his fictional works, Herzog's documentaries also examine nonconformists outside conventional society, [17] such as Timothy Treadwell in his 2005 documentary Grizzly Man . [17] [18] Herzog studied the pilot Dieter Dengler in his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly , which he later remade into the 2006 feature film Rescue Dawn starring Christian Bale. [11] The following year, his exploration of the lives of scientists in Antarctica—2007's Encounters at the End of the World —garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. [19] [20] For his 2018 documentary Meeting Gorbachev , Herzog had extensive interviews with the Soviet leader. [21] He has directed dozens of other documentaries, including shorts and television segments.
In addition to his own works, Herzog has appeared in other projects, including as the narrator or subject of documentaries and mockumentaries. He has appeared in two Les Blank documentaries, including Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), in which he eats his shoe after losing a bet to then-college student Errol Morris, [22] and Burden of Dreams , shot during and about the chaotic filming of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. [23] Herzog has also appeared in commercial films and television series, often portraying villains, [24] such as in the 2012 Tom Cruise film Jack Reacher , [25] or, in 2019, The Mandalorian . [26] He has made cameo appearances in The Simpsons , Parks and Recreation , and other television series.
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1968 | Signs of Life | Yes | Yes | Yes | [27] |
1970 | Even Dwarfs Started Small | Yes | Yes | Yes | [28] |
1972 | Aguirre, the Wrath of God | Yes | Yes | Yes | [29] |
1974 | The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser | Yes | Yes | Yes | [6] |
1976 | Heart of Glass | Yes | Yes | Yes | [30] |
1977 | Stroszek | Yes | Yes | Yes | [31] |
1979 | Nosferatu the Vampyre | Yes | Yes | Yes | [32] [33] |
Woyzeck | Yes | Yes | Yes | [34] | |
1982 | Fitzcarraldo | Yes | Yes | Yes | [35] |
1984 | Where the Green Ants Dream | Yes | Yes | No | [36] |
1987 | Cobra Verde | Yes | Yes | No | [37] |
1991 | Scream of Stone | Yes | No | No | [38] |
2001 | Invincible | Yes | Yes | No | [39] |
2005 | The Wild Blue Yonder | Yes | Yes | No | [40] |
2006 | Rescue Dawn | Yes | Yes | No | [41] |
2009 | Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans | Yes | No | No | [9] |
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done | Yes | Yes | No | [42] | |
2015 | Queen of the Desert | Yes | Yes | No | [43] |
2016 | Salt and Fire | Yes | Yes | No | [44] |
2019 | Family Romance, LLC | Yes | Yes | No | [45] |
Year | Title | Role | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
1971 | Geschichten vom Kübelkind | Hurenmörder | [46] [47] |
1983 | Man of Flowers | Father | [48] [49] |
1989 | Bride of the Orient | [50] | |
Hard to Be a God | Mita/Richard | [51] [52] | |
1998 | What Dreams May Come | Chris's father | [53] |
1999 | Julien Donkey-Boy | Father | [54] |
2007 | Mister Lonely | Father Umbrillo | [55] |
The Grand | The German | [56] | |
2012 | Jack Reacher | Zek Chelovek | [25] |
2013 | Home from Home | Alexander von Humboldt | [57] |
2014 | Penguins of Madagascar | Documentary filmmaker | [58] |
2024 | Orion and the Dark | Narrator | [59] |
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Sound | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1962 | Herakles | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | [60] |
1964 | Game in the Sand | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | [61] |
1966 | The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | [62] |
1968 | Last Words | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | [63] |
1969 | Precautions Against Fanatics | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | [64] |
1976 | No One Will Play with Me | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | [65] |
1988 | Les Gaulois | Yes | No | No | No | No | [66] |
2009 | Plastic Bag | No | No | Yes | No | No | [67] |
Ref.: [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [1]
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1977 | La Soufrière | Yes | Yes | Yes | [30] |
1980 | Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe | No | Yes | No | [109] |
1986 | Portrait Werner Herzog | Yes | Yes | Yes | [118] |
2001 | Pilgrimage | Yes | No | No | [119] |
2002 | Ten Thousand Years Older | Yes | No | No | [120] |
2009 | La Bohème | Yes | No | No | [121] |
2011 | Ode to the Dawn of Man | Yes | No | No | [122] |
2013 | From One Second to the Next | Yes | No | No | [122] |
Year | Title | Director | Narrator | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1991–1992 | Filmstunde | Yes | Yes | Series of interviews conducted by Herzog | [124] [125] |
1999 | 2000 Years of Christianity | Yes | No | Episode 9 "Christ and Demons in New Spain" | [126] |
2012–2013 | On Death Row | Yes | Yes | 8 episodes | [127] [128] |
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | The Boondocks | Himself | Episode 31 "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman" | [130] |
2011, 2019, 2020, 2021 | The Simpsons | Walter Hotenhoffer, Dr. Lund and The Amazing Herzog | Episodes "The Scorpion's Tale", "Crystal Blue-Haired Persuasion", "Screenless" and "Mother and Child Reunion" | [131] [132] [133] [134] |
2012 | American Dad! | Himself | Episode "Ricky Spanish" | [135] |
Metalocalypse | Ishnifus Meaddle | 9 episode (voice role) | [136] | |
2015 | Parks and Recreation | Ken Jeggings | Episode "2017" | [137] [138] |
Rick and Morty | Old Reptile | Episode "Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate" | [139] | |
2019 | The Mandalorian | The Client | Episodes "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian", "Chapter 3: The Sin" and "Chapter 7: The Reckoning" | [140] [141] [26] |
2024-present | Conan O'Brien Must Go | Narrator |
Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His style involves avoiding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film they are working on.
Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America." Per The New York Times, "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over the Andes mountains to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon basin. The character was inspired by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who once transported a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although the name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor stage performance, the direct inspiration for the name from Duong, Lee, and Wang came from an equivalent scene in the 1992 Canadian film Léolo.
Grizzly Man is a 2005 American documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast and conservationist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard at Katmai National Park, Alaska. The film includes some of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with brown bears before 2003, and of interviews with people who knew or were involved with Treadwell, in addition to professionals who deal with wild bears.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly is a 1997 German-British-French documentary film written and directed by Werner Herzog, produced by Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, and premiered on German television. The film follows the life of Dieter Dengler, in particular being shot down during the Vietnam War and his capture, imprisonment, escape, and rescue. Herzog went on to direct a dramatized version of the story, Rescue Dawn, which stars Christian Bale as Dengler in 2006.
Burden of Dreams is a 1982 documentary film directed by Les Blank.
Vernon, Florida is a 1981 American documentary film produced and directed by Errol Morris profiling various residents living within the town of Vernon, Florida. Originally titled Nub City, this follow-up to Gates of Heaven initially focused on residents of the Southern town who cut off their own limbs as a way to collect insurance money. After Morris's life was threatened by the subjects of the film, he re-worked Nub City into Vernon, Florida.
James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Tony Soprano, the Italian-American Mafia crime boss in HBO's television series The Sopranos (1999–2007). For this role, he won three Emmy Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and one Golden Globe Award. His role as Tony Soprano has been described as one of the greatest and most influential performances in television history.
Encounters at the End of the World is a 2007 American documentary film by Werner Herzog about Antarctica and the people who choose to spend time there. It was released in North America on June 11, 2008, and distributed by ThinkFilm. At the 81st Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
Quentin Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer who has directed ten films. He first began his career in the 1980s by directing and writing Love Birds In Bondage and writing, directing and starring in the black-and-white My Best Friend's Birthday, an amateur short film which was never officially released. He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1988), and briefly appeared in Eddie Presley (1992). As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote, and appeared in the violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992), which tells the story of six strangers brought together for a jewelry heist. Proving to be Tarantino's breakthrough film, it was named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Tarantino's screenplay for Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award. Also in 1993, he served as an executive producer for Killing Zoe and wrote two other films.
Martin Scorsese is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian whose career spans more than fifty years. To date, Scorsese has directed twenty-six feature length narrative films, seventeen feature-length documentary films, and has co-directed one anthology film.
Into the Abyss is a 2011 documentary film written and directed by Werner Herzog. It is about capital punishment, and focuses on a triple homicide that occurred in Montgomery County, Texas, in 2001. In the film, Herzog interviews the two young men convicted of the crime, Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, as well as family members and acquaintances of the victims and criminals, and individuals who have taken part in executions in Texas. The primary focus of the film is not the details of the case or the question of Michael and Jason's guilt or innocence, and, although Herzog's voice can be heard as he conducts the interviews, there is a minimal amount of narration, and he never appears onscreen, unlike in many of his films.
Nicolas Cage is an American actor whose career began with a role in the 1981 television pilot The Best of Times. The following year, Cage made his feature film acting debut with a minor role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the second and last time he went by his birth name Nicolas Coppola, which he changed professionally to avoid allegations of nepotism due to his connection to the Coppola family. In 1983, Cage starred in the teen romantic comedy Valley Girl alongside Deborah Foreman and had a supporting role in his uncle Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish.
Life Itself is a 2014 American biographical documentary film about Chicago film critic Roger Ebert, directed by Steve James and produced by Zak Piper, James and Garrett Basch. The film is based on Ebert's 2011 memoir of the same name. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. The 41st Telluride Film Festival hosted a special screening of the film on August 28, 2014. Magnolia Pictures released the film theatrically in the United States and simultaneously via video on demand platforms on July 4, 2014.
American actor and producer Morgan Freeman has had a prolific career on film, television and on the stage. His film debut was as an uncredited character in the Sidney Lumet–directed drama The Pawnbroker in 1964. Freeman also made his stage debut in the same year by appearing in the musical Hello, Dolly! He followed this with further stage appearances in The Niggerlovers (1967), The Dozens (1969), Exhibition (1969), and the musical Purlie (1970–1971). He played various characters on the children's television series The Electric Company (1971–1977). Freeman subsequently appeared in the films Teachers in 1984, and Marie in 1985 before making his breakthrough with 1987's Street Smart. His role earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later he appeared in war film Glory (1989), and starred as Hoke Coleburn in the comedy-drama Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Freeman won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in the latter and also earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) directed thirteen feature films and three short documentaries over the course of his career. His work as a director, spanning diverse genres, is regarded as highly influential.
Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds is a 2020 documentary film directed by Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer. The film explores the cultural, spiritual, and scientific impact of meteorites, and the craters they create around the globe.