Werner Herzog films: c/d/s/d

Sure, but he could have explored that more. Fair point about him making essays rather than docs tho, I guess that frees him from any requirement for objectivity.

nothing funnier than cute animals dying a sad and lonely death.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:12 AM

it wasn't the death part so much as the unknowing penguin scampering off like its on a vision quest, and then the workers told to stand still and don't disturb the already confused penguin as it walks by, as if turning the fucking thing around is going to make the ecosystem collapse. add werner's questioning on top and its a funny moment. on the other hand if your audience treated the entire film like a knee-slapping yukfest then it sux 2 b u in nyc!

He's sort of a fallen romantic -- he doesn't believe in things but he is still reluctantly excited by other people who believe in things.
The whole reason he's in the caves is presumably their role in human history.

Encounters and Grizzly were certainly both more about looking at the crazy awesome people who choose to study this stuff than the stuff itself. Which is something i really enjoyed, and probably made it all much more interesting to watch than some narrator rattling off facts about geology.

If you pick up a book on cave paintings you are getting scientific conjectures -- highly educated guesses but guesses nonetheless -- about what it all means, why it all happened. You don't really learn much about the person behind the conjecture, which is why his films are so valuable. By putting a personal touch on the science of the study, it lends a personal touch to the caves themselves. I think it's fantastic.

i am SURE i've told this story (and probably on this thread) before but it's my Werner story and I like it and it supports the "he's got a sense of humor about this" point:

saw grizzly man's US premiere at the Museum of Natural History and Werner, Treadwell's ex girlfriend ("you must never listen to this") and a bear expert who happened to be a bear mauling victim (face was all messed up) were on a post show panel. During the Q&A after the show, some plucky kid asked werner "What's the point of this movie?" and Werner, with no pause and totally deadpan, replies "What's the point of children."

The whole reason he's in the caves is presumably their role in human history.

― already president FYI (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 16, 2011 9:50 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah, but asking questions like 'is this where the human soul is born?' isn't likely to shed much light on that subject. i don't mind him paying attention to the scientists--i like that part--but there's not much of a strong sense of method or structure. he loses the opportunity to say more about the scientists or about the paintings the more he indulges (his admittedly amusing) schtick.

xpost haha werner herzog win

the crowd cracked up btw and he did not elaborate further

bear mauling victim (face was all messed up)

his name is Barrie Gilbert
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/53264168.jpg%3Fv%3D1%26c%3DIWSAsset%26k%3D2%26d%3D77BFBA49EF878921F7C3FC3F69D929FD2808D2857B1B4F596AED59CB9FAFE9D86B1E7F8C830B462BF06BF04B24B4128C

meh, here:
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/53264168.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF878921F7C3FC3F69D929FD2808D2857B1B4F596AED59CB9FAFE9D86B1E7F8C830B462BF06BF04B24B4128C

here's the story:
http://www.abc4.com/news/local/story/When-Bears-Attack-What-to-do-if-you-meet-bear-in/HSu19ZwN70WPfmIAEM-XkQ.cspx

"I'm quite convinced if i had collapsed and become neutral then I would have no longer been a threat to that bear. He might have grabbed me by the back and thrown me twenty feet or something, but it would give up pretty quickly because its fear would subside. It would say this is something that stumbled on to me and I'm gonna get outta here, which the bear eventually did. A surprised bear is an angry bear, and an angry bear is a dangerous bear. So don't surprise them. Don't start the chain you know?""

Good advice in just about any situation

I now believe the key to a successful WH impersonation is pronouncing "go-ink"

"Don't start the chain you know?"

i am hearing this in the voice of ice-t for some reason. ice-t being a well-known expert on bear safety.

fwiw land of silence and darkness is one of the most powerful and unsettling films i've ever seen.

Yes, totally underrated film of his. As far as the humour qualities of his films, I can't imagine that 'is it supposed to be funny?' would get a straight answer from him, nor should it.

there's actually a video of him out there where he says he's funnier than eddie murphy

I now believe the key to a successful WH impersonation is pronouncing "go-ink"

― already president FYI (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 16, 2011 1:40 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

he is terribly difficult to impersonate, for me anyway - which seems weird since he has such a distinct way of speaking that i can easily imagine in my head

whenever I try I usu get Arnold

nothing funnier than cute animals dying a sad and lonely death.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:12 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

comedy in herzog's poker-faced narrative analysis, not in penguin death (jeez)

i bet that penguin shit was staged.

It was totally heading south.

penguin was clearly a paid actor.

Herzog dressed up as a leopard seal and chased it towards the poll.

Someone should stop this man.

saw grizzly man's US premiere at the Museum of Natural History and Werner, Treadwell's ex girlfriend ("you must never listen to this") and a bear expert who happened to be a bear mauling victim (face was all messed up) were on a post show panel. During the Q&A after the show, some plucky kid asked werner "What's the point of this movie?" and Werner, with no pause and totally deadpan, replies "What's the point of children."

― weird bibby fetish (forksclovetofu), Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:48 PM Bookmark

Ha, a former roommate was there and related this story. It stuck with me.

Is there a thread for that kids' book, btw?

two of my friends on Facebook are now FB friends with Werner Herzog.

one thing I have noticed about Herzog is that nearly every film he does features a bear or bears.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388586/june-06-2011/werner-herzog

"He's sort of a fallen romantic -- he doesn't believe in things but he is still reluctantly excited by other people who believe in things"

For what's worth, I think he's more like some kind of Middle Age man (his interest in tradition is never nostalgic), also it seems to me that considering his maniacal attention to notions like truth and human nature he's definitely a "believer", albeit a rather paradoxical one (see also his hatred for postmodernism).

i think of him as deeply humanist and ultimately optimistic in his pessimism; "little dieter needs to fly" is pivotal

Exactly - he's always somewhere between images of utter cruelty and desperation (the dancing chicken in Stroszek, the smoking chimpanzee of Echos aus einem düstern Reich) and the stark humaneness, totally devoid of any sentimentalism, of Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit.
Probably because of some personal reasons, his early TV documentary Behinderte Zukunft about a group of young disabled always struck me for its almost unbearable intensity.

he seems a little too ready to dominate the proceedings in his recent films. in his earlier ones you get a strong sense of his personality without him being all up in your grill.

i saw "cave.." in 2 dimensions and loved it. great soundtrack.

Saw this last night, for me his best since at least The White Diamond.

http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/into-the-abyss

(No bears, and he just interviews, doesn't narrate.)

excited

oh wow, that's high praise; weren't people sceptical about this one, idk why

New reality show starts march 9
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/on-death-row-what-werner-herzogs-prison-series-can-teach-us-about-journalism/

first ep of "On Death Row" is quality Herzog filmmaking but wrapped in odd cognitive Court TV/ID TV/Whatever the fuck they're calling it TV dissonance: each ten minute section is bookended by Paula Zahn intros and ads for Glade and fabric softener.
the show itself is Werner speaking one on one with people on death row in Grizzly Man tones and also interviewing family and painting a broader picture of the crime and the criminal. it's actively anti-death penalty rhetoric but as he puts it at the start of the first ep "that doesn't mean i like them"

this is on in the UK starting on thursday at 10 on ch4

Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man Tones

Cosmic Herzog Grizzly Man Tones For Mental Therapy

His next, Queen of the Desert (about Gertrude Bell, of whom I've never heard) will feature Robert Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/15/robert-pattinson-lawrence-arabia

A bunch of auteurs are clearly seeing something in pattinson that I don't, but okay.

i think they're mostly seeing that he can get their movies financed

even one w/ Naomi Watts? seems like that was taken care of, tho I don't doubt it makes the producers happier.

also the RP solo vehicles thus far haven't set the b.o. on fire.

canks otm

I'm still curious about how this will turn out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/05/werner-herzog-one-shot-lee-child

Casting on One Shot, the first adaptation of a Lee Child novel, has already met with a mixed reaction. Many were up in arms at the announcement that Tom Cruise would star as saturnine bruiser Jack Reacher (6ft 5in, 250lb), a former Army man who travels the world with just a toothbrush and a formidable sense of justice.

But the project's credibility took a dramatic rise with the announcement that the director Werner Herzog is to appear in the film as chief baddie The Zec, a former prisoner of war who arranges a conspiracy which frames a sniper for the murders of five people – a conspiracy which Reacher investigates.

Many news organisations quote a source who describes The Zec as an "ageless and shadowy figure". In the book his age (80) is, in fact, fairly precise, likewise his mobility (he's wheelchair-bound) and the number of fingers he has left (not a lot). He's a silent puppetmaster who commands such power over his subordinates that when he tells one of them to shoot themselves, they do so without question.

bel ami was terrible not just because of robert pattinson but he is a very very bad and rubbish actor haven't seen anything else he's been in

Wd love to see Pattinson give Bel Ami another crack.