despite my efforts to maintain a personal film viewing inventory, rich with diversity and exemplary skills in the art of film making... i have never seen a herzog movie--- gasp!!! i know, i know, its simply rotten of me to proclaim a love of documentary film making and still i have not viewed one of the true masters within the documentary film genre. i can't say i recall having ever heard a disparaging comment on his works, always the contrary--- fascination and intrigue come to mind when he is mentioned.
so i have plotted my first viewing of his works to be fitzcarraldo. has anyone out there in the blog-o-sphere seen it? do you recommend another one of his films to deflower mine eyes and ears?
on another note:
"The best way to see through muddy waters is to give them a chance to settle."
5 comments:
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a really good first Herzog movie...
i have the documentary 'burden of dreams,' which chronicles the making of fitzcarraldo. if you have seen 'hearts of darkness,' the making-of Apocalypse Now, then imagine a smaller scale film, with larger production related problems, the most insanely problematic and frustrating actor ever to be on screen (klaus kinski, natassja's father) and stretch principal photography over the course of several years. herzog is a great filmmaker, no question, he's 'hip' au courant, etc. 'grizzly man' is incredible. if you really want to stretch your film taste to intellectual extremes, seek out rainer werner fassbinder's film 'the marriage of maria braun,' released in 1979. he died of a drug overdose in 1982, the same year 'fitzcarraldo' was released. after wrestling german cinema, you can spend the next few years trying to figure out pier paolo pasolini, who was murdered upon completion of the film Salo...which was a graphic but not quite gratuitous expose of Benito Mussolini's Italy and the play the Marquis de Sade...
Fitzcarraldo is awesome - once you see it, it's burned on your brain forever.
Klaus Kinski's real life mania seeps through into his character. And more than once, when you realise from what you're seeing what went into making the film, you think holy fuck, how did they manage that?
Get into it.
STROSZEK! the best film (besides Paris, Texas) of a foreign film director trying to decipher the American Landscape (Wisconsin in this case) and a heartbreaking portrait by Herzog reliable standby actor Bruno S.
The short documentary THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER by Herzog would make a great double feature with the above, and the DVD of that film comes with a hilarious documentary on men who strut their stuff as auctioneers.
Ah, herzog....
barnism-
juuuust now read your comment.
thanks for the tip.
curious as to how you found my wee little blog?
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