Werner Herzog (German:[ˈvɛʁnɐˈhɛʁtsoːk]; néStipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer ofNew German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams,[1] people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature.[2] His style involves avoidingstoryboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film on which they are working.
French filmmakerFrançois Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important film director alive".[3] American film criticRoger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular".[4] He was named one of the world's100 most influential people byTime in 2009.[5]
Herzog was born Werner Stipetić[6] inMunich,German Reich, on 5 September 1942, the son of Elisabeth Stipetić and Dietrich Herzog. His mother was Austrian with Croatian ancestry, while his father was German. When he was two weeks old, his mother took refuge in the remote Bavarian village ofSachrang in theChiemgau Alps, after the house next to theirs was destroyed during anAllied bombing raid inWorld War II.[7]
Alongside his older brother Till and younger half-brotherLucki, he grew up without running water, a flushing toilet, or a telephone. Herzog recounted that his family had "no toys" and "no tools" and said that there was a sense of anarchy, as all the fathers of the village's children were absent.[8] He never saw films, and did not even know cinema existed until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang.[9]
When Herzog was 12, he moved back to Munich with his family. His father had abandoned the family early in his youth, but he later adopted his father's surname (which isGerman for "duke"), as he thought it sounded more impressive for a filmmaker.[10] Herzog once told journalist Brandon Kosters that cave paintings were his "very first intellectual fascination independent of my family or independent of school. A fascination that I developed myself when I was 12 or 13 years, and it has never left me completely," and this inspired later film projects.[11] Herzog made his first phone call when he was 17. Two years later, he started work on his first film,Herakles.[8]
Herzog says that when he eventually met his father again, "fairly late in life", his mother had to translate Werner's German into theBavarian language, which his father spoke, so the two could communicate.[12] Herzog, aged 13, was told by a bullying music teacher to sing in front of his class at school in what Herzog described as an effort "to break my back." When he adamantly refused, he was almost expelled. The incident scarred him for life.[8] For several years, Herzog avoided music entirely; he didn't listen to it, sing it, or study any instrument. But when he turned 18, he threw himself into it with sudden, intense devotion.[8]
At an early age, he experienced a dramatic phase in which he converted toCatholicism, which lasted only a few years. He started to embark on long journeys, some on foot. Around this time, he knew he would be a filmmaker and learned the basics from a few pages in an encyclopedia that provided him with "everything I needed to get myself started" as a filmmaker—that, and the35 mm camera he stole from theMunich Film School.[13] In the commentary forAguirre, the Wrath of God, he says, "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".
During Herzog's last years of high school, no production company was willing to take on his projects, so he worked night shifts as a welder in a steel factory to earn the funds for his first featurettes.[14] When he finished school, but before he formally graduated, he followed his girlfriend toManchester, England, where he spent several months and learned to speak English. He found the language classes pointless and "fled".[15][16] After graduating from high school, he was intrigued by the post-independenceCongo, but in attempting to travel there, reached only thesouth of Sudan before falling seriously ill.[17] While already making films, he had a brief stint at theUniversity of Munich, where he studied history and literature.[18] Herzog subsequently moved toPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study atDuquesne University.[19]
Herzog, along withRainer Werner Fassbinder,Wim Wenders, andVolker Schlöndorff, led the beginning of theNew German Cinema, which included documentarians who filmed on low budgets and were influenced by theFrench New Wave. He developed a habit of casting professional actors alongside people from the locality in which he was shooting. His films, "usually set in distinct and unfamiliar landscapes, are imbued with mysticism."[20] Herzog says his youthful experience with Catholicism is evident in "something of a religious echo in my work".[21]
In 1971, while Herzog waslocation scouting forAguirre, the Wrath of God inPeru, he narrowly avoided takingLANSA Flight 508. Herzog's reservation was cancelled due to a last-minute change in itinerary. The plane was later struck bylightning and disintegrated, but one survivor,Juliane Koepcke, lived after a free fall. Long haunted by the event, nearly 30 years later, he made a documentary film,Wings of Hope (1998), which explored the story of the sole survivor.
Herzog once promised to eat his shoe ifErrol Morris completed a film project on pet cemeteries that he had been working on, to challenge and motivate Morris, as he perceived Morris to be incapable of following up on the projects he conceived. In 1978, when the filmGates of Heaven premiered, Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe; the event was later incorporated into a short documentary,Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), byLes Blank. Herzog suggested that he hoped the act would serve to encourage anyone having difficulty bringing a project to fruition.[24]
In the winter of 1974, German-French writerLotte H. Eisner, a friend and mentor of Herzog's since the late 1950s, fell gravely ill. Herzog walked fromMunich toParis, believing that she would not die if he did so.[25] During these travels, which took him three weeks, he kept a diary that was eventually published asOf Walking in Ice. Eight years later, the 87-year-old Eisner allegedly complained to Herzog of her infirmities and told him, "I am saturated with life. There is still this spell upon me that I must not die—can you lift it?". He says that he agreed to do so, and she died eight days later.[26]
Werner Herzog moved to Los Angeles with his wife in the late 1990s. He said of the city, "Wherever you look is an immense depth, a tumult that resonates with me. New York [City] is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn't create culture, only consumes it; most of what you find in New York comes from elsewhere. Things actually get done in Los Angeles. Look beyond the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and a wild excitement of intense dreams opens up; it has more horizons than any other place. There is a great deal of industry in the city and a real working class; I also appreciate the vibrant presence of the Mexicans."[27]
Grizzly Man, a documentary directed by Herzog, was awarded theAlfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2005Sundance Film Festival. He seemed to attract danger even in more suburban settings. In 2006, Herzog was shot in the abdomen while on Skyline Drive in Los Angeles. He had been giving an interview onGrizzly Man toMark Kermode of theBBC.[29][30] Herzog continued the interview without seeking medical treatment, stating "it's not significant". The shooter later turned out to be a crazed fan with anair rifle. Regarding the incident, Herzog later said, "I seem to attract the clinically insane." In a 2021 episode ofDiminishing Returns podcast covering Herzog's filmStroszek, presenterDallas Campbell called this incident a hoax, claiming to be friends with the director of the piece and that the incident was "set up".[31]
Dissatisfied with the way film schools are run, in 2009, Herzog founded his own Rogue Film School.[43] For the students, Herzog has said, "I prefer people who have worked as bouncers in a sex club, or have been wardens in the lunatic asylum. You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Costa Ricans have a very nice word for it:pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia."[44] Notable alumni includeKeirda Bahruth, Nir Sa'ar,Bob Baldori,Sean Gill,Frederick Kroetsch, andGeorge Hickenlooper.[45]
In 2010, he expanded his reach by performing a voiceover for an animated television program for the first time, appearing inThe Boondocks in its third-season premiere episode "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman". In the episode, he played a fictional cameo of himself filming a documentary about the series' cast of characters and their actions during the 2008 election ofBarack Obama.[49]
He appeared in person oppositeTom Cruise as the villain Zec Chelovek in the 2012 action filmJack Reacher. Herzog gained attention in 2013 when he released a 35-minutepublic service announcement-style documentary,From One Second to the Next, demonstrating the danger of texting while driving and financed byAT&T,Sprint,Verizon, andT-Mobile as part of their It Can Wait driver safety campaign. The film, which documents four stories in which texting and driving led to tragedy or death, initially received more than 1.7 million YouTube views and was subsequently distributed to over 40,000 high schools.[51] In July 2013, Herzog contributed to an art installation entitled "Hearsay of the Soul", for the Whitney Biennial, which was later acquired as a permanent exhibit by theJ. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. In late 2013, he voiced some of the English-language dub ofHayao Miyazaki'sThe Wind Rises.[52]
In 2019, Herzog joined the cast of theDisney+ live-actionStar Wars television seriesThe Mandalorian, portrayingThe Client, a character with nebulous connections to theEmpire.[53] Herzog accepted the role after being impressed with the screenplay,[54] although he said he had never seen any of theStar Wars films.[55]
In June 2022, Herzog published his debut novel, titledThe Twilight World, telling the story ofHiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who had refused to surrender for decades while hiding in the jungle of a Philippine island. Herzog had met Onoda in Tokyo more than two decades before, and the two had discussed the jungle; Herzog used jungles as settings of many of his important works. Herzog said his novel was a fictional account of Onoda's ordeal of being stranded in a jungle fighting a war that had officially ended. He has said, "Most details are factually correct; some are not".[56][57][58]
Herzog's films have received considerable critical acclaim and achieved popularity on theart 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 isFitzcarraldo, in which the obsessiveness of the central character was reflected by the director during the making of the film.Burden of Dreams, a documentary filmed during the making ofFitzcarraldo, explored Herzog's efforts to make the film in harsh conditions. Herzog's diaries during the making ofFitzcarraldo were published asConquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo.Mark Harris ofThe New York Times wrote in his review: "The movie and its making are both fables of daft aspiration, investigations of the blurry border between having a dream and losing one's mind."[59]
Herzog has said that our civilization is "starving for new images". In a 1982 interview withRoger Ebert, he explained, "We do not have adequate images for our kind of civilization...We are surrounded by images that are worn out, and I believe that unless we discover new images, we will die out." He has said it is his mission to help us discover new images: "I am trying to make something that has not been made before."[60] He is proud of never usingstoryboards and often improvising large parts of the script. He explains this technique in the commentary track toAguirre, the Wrath of God.
In 1999, before a public dialogue with critic Roger Ebert at theWalker Art Center, Herzog read a newmanifesto, which he dubbed Minnesota Declaration: Truth and Fact in Documentary Cinema.[61] Subtitled "Lessons of Darkness",after his film of that name, the 12-point declaration began: "Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants." Herzog explained, "There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization" and "facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable."[62] Ebert later wrote of its significance: "For the first time, it fully explained his theory of 'ecstatic truth.'"[63] In 2017, Herzog wrote a six-point addendum to the manifesto,[64] prompted by a question about "truth in an age of alt-facts".[65]
His treatment of subjects has been characterized asWagnerian in its scope, but film theory has in recent years focused on the concept of the ecstatic and the nomadic character of his film. The plot ofFitzcarraldo is based on the building of an opera house and his later filmInvincible (2001) touches on the character ofSiegfried.[66] Herzog's documentaryThe Transformation of the World into Music goes behind the scenes of theBayreuth Festival. Herzog has directed several operas, including Mozart'sThe Magic Flute, Beethoven'sFidelio, and Wagner'sParsifal.
Critical of film schools,[67] Herzog has taught three cinema workshops. From 2009 to 2016, he organized the Rogue Film School, in which young directors spent a few days with him in evocative locations.[68] What exactly goes on at the rogue film school has been clouded in secrecy, but director and writer Kristoffer Hegnsvad report from his stay there in his bookWerner Herzog – Ecstatic Truth and Other Useless Conquests: "The first thing you notice is his enormous presence. His self-confidence sends shockwaves through a room every time he opens his mouth or make eye contact; he adopts a stance of exalted calm, as though he has achieved some kind of mastery – not just over his own mind, but over the capriciousness of the world."[69] Lessons ranged from "How does music function in film?" to "The creation of your own shooting permits".
In 2018, he held "Filming in Peru with Werner Herzog", a 12-day workshop in the Amazonian rainforest, close to the locations forFitzcarraldo, for new filmmakers from around the world. Each made a short film under Herzog's supervision.[70] Herzog was enthusiastic, and said of the resulting films, "the best 10 of them are better than the selections for best short film at the Academy Awards".[71] Herzog is also on the websiteMasterClass, where he presents a course on filmmaking, entitled "Werner Herzog teaches filmmaking".[72][73][74] In a discussion withErrol Morris at theToronto Film Festival, Morris, who was influenced by Herzog's early films, joked that he considered himself one of the first students of the Rogue Film School. Regarding Herzog's influence on him, Morris quotedGabriel García Márquez's reaction to readingKafka for the first time: "I didn't know you were allowed to do that."[75]
Herzog has been married three times and has three children. In 1967, he married Martje Grohmann. They had a son named Rudolph Amos Achmed, born 1973.[76] They divorced in 1985.[77] He later began dating Austrian-German actressEva Mattes. They had a daughter named Hanna Mattes, born 1980, before splitting up.[78] He married Christine Maria Ebenberger in 1987,[79] and they had a son named Simon, born 1989.[80] They divorced in 1997.[81] Herzog moved to Los Angeles in 1996 and married Russian-American photographerElena Pisetski in 1999.[82]
Herzog has been described as anatheist.[84] In addition to standard German and his native Bavarian, he speaks English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish.[85] He can also readLatin andAncient Greek.[12]
Since 1962, Herzog has directed 20 fiction feature films, seven fiction short films, and 34 documentary feature films, as well as eight documentary short films and episodes of two television series. He has also been the screenwriter or co-writer for all his films and for four others, and has appeared as an actor in 26 film or television productions.
^"Herzog is an avowed atheist, but in a certain sense his films, especially in recent years, have become highly spiritual in focus. Due to its subject and its characters "Into the Abyss" is suffused with a Christian religiosity that the director treats with great respect." Andrew O'Hehir,Salon.com, 11 November 2011.[2]Archived 7 June 2017 at theWayback Machine
