Werner Herzog

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Werner Herzog

#101 Post by knives » Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:30 pm

That's nice and all, but what does it have to do with Herzog?

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tarpilot
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:48 am

Re: Werner Herzog

#102 Post by tarpilot » Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:53 pm

You mean you're not hotly anticipating Kaspar Hauser 2: Isolate Harder?

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knives
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Re: Werner Herzog

#103 Post by knives » Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:58 pm

I haven't seen that one so the reference was lost on me.

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manicsounds
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Re: Werner Herzog

#104 Post by manicsounds » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:21 am

Well, looks like Herzog has something for his next documentary subject...

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zedz
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Re: Werner Herzog

#105 Post by zedz » Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:53 pm

The Little Dieter effect in reverse?

onedimension
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Re: Werner Herzog

#106 Post by onedimension » Tue Feb 07, 2012 1:20 am

Apologies if this is not the best thread, but what's up with the lack of older Herzog stuff on blu ray? Anchor Bay had those two big box sets years ago..

I also recommend his reading of 'Go The F*ck To Sleep'


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domino harvey
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Re: Werner Herzog

#108 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:22 pm


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miless
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Re: Werner Herzog

#109 Post by miless » Wed Jul 13, 2016 2:20 am

What other animals do I like...I like cats, because they're so strange sometimes. And you see them on the internet, the crazy cat videos for example, and I'm a fan of them. What else, what other animals? Well that's basically it.
I really want to watch a Werner Herzog "crazy cat video" reaction video

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hearthesilence
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Re: Werner Herzog

#110 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:11 am

Before Grizzly Man, the only time I ever saw Herzog's name was when Roger Ebert would mention him, as part of his lifelong championing of his work, so I'm glad he's no longer an obscure figure unknown to most. But it's also a bit off putting how his star persona has sucked up most of the attention rather than his work, especially since some of it has been quite good (Grizzly Man, the death row docs). Much of it's his doing and but some of it is no fault of his own (I recall too many casual viewers spending way too much attention on his thick accent when Grizzly Man blew up), so there's plenty of blame to go around.

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
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Re: Werner Herzog

#111 Post by Drucker » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:14 am

Within my circle of friends and acquaintances, the people most in love with viral Herzog stories/videos are also the people that have seen his films, so there's plenty of room for both!

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Manny Karp
Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2016 5:22 am

Re: Werner Herzog

#112 Post by Manny Karp » Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:48 pm

I do think it's a shame, though, that his work simply isn't what it used to be in terms of challenging content and beguiling, awe inspiring style, and it's hard not to correlate this dip with his popular reverence among the general public and his status as a "personality" as much as a filmmaker.

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knives
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Re: Werner Herzog

#113 Post by knives » Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:20 pm

That's a unique opinion. Certainly for me, but this seems to have some wider critical consensus, his work as a documentarian is where he is at his strongest with some of his best works coming after this popularity arose (I'm sticking with Grizzly Man as the time). Since then he's made Into the Abyss, Encounters at the End of the World, Happy People, and a few smaller things which at least maintain the level of his previous work.

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Manny Karp
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Re: Werner Herzog

#114 Post by Manny Karp » Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:50 pm

His post-Lessons of Darkness doc work just doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the previous stuff, though I do like Little Dieter, Gesualdo, and Encounters. His fiction films offer an even more marked decline, in my opinion, since as far back as Cobra Verde, though I liked Wild Blue Yonder and Rescue Dawn.

I also think it's not his work as a documentarian that is what should be rated so highly, as his willingness to smudge the lines between doc and fiction, which I don't think he does so much or as well any more. There's also the issue of those he influenced using his tactics: Harmony Korine, Joshua Oppenheimer, Carlos Reygadas, etc. While poor imitators don't necessarily reflect poorly on the original, it does give pause that time has passed and the artist has reached a saturation point where he needs to dig in or try something new. All I see Herzog doing is a sort of dilution of his earlier work.

I understand his delight at having a larger audience, and I've never once seen or read an interview with him that embarrassed me, but there is still something a little unseemly about the cult of personality. Well, money and status are what get films made, understandably.

I just cannot take seriously any claim that something like Grizzly Man is greater than Lessons of Darkness, but again I understand why the former is so critically and popularly loved, being much easier to write about (gawk at) and distance yourself from as an audience.

Raymond Marble
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Re: Werner Herzog

#115 Post by Raymond Marble » Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:57 pm

knives wrote:That's a unique opinion. Certainly for me, but this seems to have some wider critical consensus, his work as a documentarian is where he is at his strongest with some of his best works coming after this popularity arose (I'm sticking with Grizzly Man as the time). Since then he's made Into the Abyss, Encounters at the End of the World, Happy People, and a few smaller things which at least maintain the level of his previous work.
You're forgetting Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which grossed over $5 million in the U.S. box office alone. I do agree with the crux of your argument, though. As for Manny Karp's side, sometimes I find myself wishing his modern fiction films (so much as that distinction accurately applies to any of Herzog's films, ever) were as good as what he was making in the 70s and early 80s, but it's hard to get too upset about that, what with the great documentary work he's been doing. Besides, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is pretty great.

Of course it is also worth pointing out that, shortly after Grizzly Man, Mr. Herzog started popping up more commonly in mainstream entertainments as an actor: Jack Reacher, and episode of Parks & Recreation, that kind of thing. So of course a whole lot of people know him and his personality from that stuff, and have little to no idea of his work as a director.

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knives
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Re: Werner Herzog

#116 Post by knives » Wed Jul 13, 2016 7:02 pm

I left it off because I think it is a fair bit weaker then the other films. His making of for the score, Ode to the Dawn of Man, actually works better for me though this is all subjective.

I don't fully understand the comment of reality mixing. Sometimes he has by incident done that like with Fitzcarldo, but since Even Dwarfs Started Small I can't think of any of his films which earnestly mix documentary and stagings in the way I'm understanding the comments to mean.

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Manny Karp
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Re: Werner Herzog

#117 Post by Manny Karp » Wed Jul 13, 2016 7:27 pm

knives wrote:I don't fully understand the comment of reality mixing. Sometimes he has by incident done that like with Fitzcarldo, but since Even Dwarfs Started Small I can't think of any of his films which earnestly mix documentary and stagings in the way I'm understanding the comments to mean.
His frequent use of non-actors (often disabled or the like) in fiction films (Even Dwarfs, Bruno S.) often incorporating some of their own history or experiences, his methods for particular films (such as the supposed hypnotizing of the entire cast for Heart of Glass), his somewhat Marker-esque use of stock or location footage to augment or even suggest a film's content (Lessons, Wild Blue Yonder) as well as films like Fata Morgana or Where the Green Ants Dream which I think are pretty well accepted as examples of what I'm talking about.

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knives
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Re: Werner Herzog

#118 Post by knives » Wed Jul 13, 2016 7:49 pm

I figured you might bring up Green Ants, but I think it very decisively should not count since it is shot as a regular scripted film and the mythology of the film is openly admitted as a fiction. It really should not count in the least. Hypnotizing as well seems just a method of developing performance, but doesn't really insist documentary onto the fictional works. You could be making a point with Bruno S, but casting people as themselves is a fairly common technique even done regularly in Hollywood with figures such as Eminem and Jackie Robinson among others. It adds to a sense of realism, but doesn't blur the lines into making one think that what they are seeing is anything other then a staging. Even considering the choice of a disabled or otherwise unusual actor it only works to create a sort of realism typically (though I think like Lynch Herzog's usage is more toward surrealism) rather then intruding the ideas of documentary. It also is a relatively common technique with war and horror movies using amputees with intense regularity. I simply don't see here the type of blending that, say, Robert Kramer does.

That said you do have me on Fata Morgana and maybe Lessons.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Werner Herzog

#119 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:13 pm

I think it's worth noting that he's not shy of making stuff up in his non-fiction films, either- the entirely fanciful albino alligator segment in the aforementioned Cave comes to mind, but I know it's something he's done before. Also, while he's not actually the director, Incident at Loch Ness is pretty explicitly a fictional film in the guise of a non-fiction one.

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solaris72
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Re: Werner Herzog

#120 Post by solaris72 » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:18 pm

In Encounters the bucket head "training" sequence is his own invention.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Werner Herzog

#121 Post by knives » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:22 pm

I think his lies are a major reason why his documentaries, especially lately, are more interesting then his staged films. Herzog's a more compelling myth maker then he is a teller of truth. Also he seems much more interested in expanding upon reality until it no longer exists then shrinking it.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Werner Herzog

#122 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:07 pm

I think I've heard him describe what he's interested in is 'ecstatic truth', which he defines as,
Only in this state of sublimity [Erhabenheit] does something deeper become possible, a kind of truth that is the enemy of the merely factual. Ecstatic truth, I call it.
I think that's a major part of the Herzog mythos- his admiration for maniacs and dreamers springs from it, somewhat, as Herzogian heroes are almost universally people who themselves refuse to be constrained by the merely factual.

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Antarctica
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Re: Werner Herzog

#123 Post by Antarctica » Sat Jul 30, 2016 12:17 am

Herzog on Pokemon Go

https://www.facebook.com/LoandBeholdFil ... 199012500/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Quot
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Re: Werner Herzog

#124 Post by Quot » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:18 am

One more notch in the Herzog legacy belt...

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World Official Trailer 2

His responses to Elon Musk and the guy who talks about robot-filmmaking are priceless, and oh so typically Herzogian.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Werner Herzog

#125 Post by Roger Ryan » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:55 am

Herzog deadpans quite a few zingers in his narration for Lo and Behold, enough that it's obvious how aware he is regarding his narration-style's impact on popular culture. Then again, he seems to be having more fun with the subject matter of the new film than with his last few documentaries.

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