Werner Herzog

[A Tribute By
Carletto di San Giovanni:]
myspace.com/giancarletto
www.directorspotlight.com
Werner Herzog (born Werner Stipetic on September 5, 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often associated with the German New Wave movement (also called New German Cinema), along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders and others. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams or people with unique talents in obscure fields.
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

EARLY LIFE Herzog was born "Werner Stipetic" (IPA pronunciation: [st?p?t?t?]) in Munich. He adopted the name Herzog, which means "duke" in German later in life. His mother was of Croatian descent and his father abandoned them early in Herzog's youth.[1] He grew up in a remote village in Bavaria. When he was thirteen he and his family shared an apartment with Klaus Kinski in Elisabethstr. in Munich-Schwabing. About this, Herzog recalled, "I knew at that moment that I would be a film director and that I would direct Kinski".The same year, Herzog was told to sing in front of his class at school and he adamantly refused. He was almost expelled for this and until the age of eighteen listened to no music, sang no songs and studied no instruments. At fourteen he was inspired by an encyclopedia entry about film-making which he says provided him with "everything I needed to get myself started" as a film-maker - that, and the 35mm camera that the young Herzog stole from the Munich Film School.[2] He received his post-secondary education at the University of Munich and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.In the early 1960s Herzog worked night shifts as a welder in a steel factory to help fund his first films.
FAMILY Herzog has been married three times and has had three children. In 1967 Herzog married Martje Grohmann, with whom he had a son in 1973, Rudolph Amos Achmed. In 1980 his daughter Hanna Mattes was born to Eva Mattes. In 1987, Herzog married Christine Maria Ebenberger. Their son, Simon David Alexander Herzog, was born in 1989. In 1999 Herzog married photographer Lena Pisetski (now Herzog). They now live in Los Angeles.
FILMS AND CRITICISM Herzog's films have received considerable critical acclaim and achieved popularity on the art 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 is Fitzcarraldo, in which the obsessiveness of the central character is mirrored by the director in the making of his film. His treatment of subjects has been characterized as Wagnerian in its scope, as Fitzcarraldo and his later film Invincible (2001) are directly inspired by opera, or operatic themes.Herzog directed five films starring the German actor Klaus Kinski: Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde. In 1999 he directed and narrated the documentary film My Best Fiend, a retrospective on his often rocky relationship with Kinski.
“But Werner believes in the motto, when one wants something enough, one can do it! He is a visionary and he managed to realize the impossible. He has surpassed himself. To me, Fitzcarraldo is a poetic and brilliant adventure. Only Werner could have transformed this utopia into reality. Nothing is impossible for him.”
--Claudia Cardinale
QUOTES:
...centuries from now our great-great-great-grandchildren will look back at us with amazement at how we could allow such a precious achievement of human culture as the telling of a story to be shattered into smithereens by commercials, the same amazement we feel today when we look at our ancestors for whom slavery, capital punishment, burning of witches, and the inquisition were acceptable everyday events.The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing. They just screech in pain. …Taking a close look at what’s around us, there is some sort of harmony: it’s the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.I do not believe in the Cinema verite. Sometimes a really good lie is better than any truth.I try to understand the ocean beneath the thin layer of ice that is civilization. There's miles and miles of deep ocean, of darkness and barbarism. And I know the ice can break easily.(In response to being shot by a sniper with an air rifle during a BBC interview) "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."We comprehend... that nuclear power is a real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the greatest danger of all. We have understood that the destruction of the environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes? I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs.
What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark. It would be like sleep without dreams.