Werner Herzog says the success of Disney Plus series “The Mandalorian,” in which he plays The Client, has made him think it’s time to park his acting career.
Speaking to Oscar-winning “Amy” director Asif Kapadia on Monday as part of the BFI at Home series on BFIYouTube, Herzog said, “I have done a lot more acting recently, and I have to review it, because it takes away too much attention from the real things that I’m doing.”
By “real,” Herzog is referring to his work as a filmmaker. Ostensibly, the German director was chatting to Kapadia about “Family Romance LLC,” which has just launched on the BFI Player in the U.K. However, the prolific Herzog spent as much time enthusiastically talking about his upcoming documentary “Fireball,” which looks at how shooting stars, meteorites and deep impacts have fired up the human imagination to learn more about the universe.
Speaking to Oscar-winning “Amy” director Asif Kapadia on Monday as part of the BFI at Home series on BFIYouTube, Herzog said, “I have done a lot more acting recently, and I have to review it, because it takes away too much attention from the real things that I’m doing.”
By “real,” Herzog is referring to his work as a filmmaker. Ostensibly, the German director was chatting to Kapadia about “Family Romance LLC,” which has just launched on the BFI Player in the U.K. However, the prolific Herzog spent as much time enthusiastically talking about his upcoming documentary “Fireball,” which looks at how shooting stars, meteorites and deep impacts have fired up the human imagination to learn more about the universe.
- 7/28/2020
- by Kaleem Aftab
- Variety Film + TV
Fritz Lang’s third wartime anti-Nazi film is an Alfred Hitchcock-type spy chase taken from a psychological novel by Graham Greene, with the psychology angle transferred mostly to physical threats — ticking clocks, a mystery cake, and German bombs in the Blitz. Ray Milland is cool and collected for a man just released from a mental asylum, and proves up to the task of defeating a Nazi conspiracy.
Ministry of Fear
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date August 27, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99
Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, Byron Foulger.
Cinematography: Henry Sharp
Film Editor: Victor Young
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Seton I. Miller from the novel by Graham Greene
Produced by Seton I. Miller
Directed by Fritz Lang
Why do we go for certain Region B Blu-ray imports, even...
Ministry of Fear
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date August 27, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99
Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, Byron Foulger.
Cinematography: Henry Sharp
Film Editor: Victor Young
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Seton I. Miller from the novel by Graham Greene
Produced by Seton I. Miller
Directed by Fritz Lang
Why do we go for certain Region B Blu-ray imports, even...
- 8/28/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In the late 1970s, an associate professor in the Philosophy department at Johns Hopkins (thesis title: "The Nature of the Natural Numbers") began publishing essays on Hollywood movies. George M. Wilson wasn't the first person to undergo this shift in specialism. At the start of the decade, Stanley Cavell had published The World Viewed, a series of "reflections on the ontology of film." But Cavell had always been concerned with how works of art enable us to think through philosophical themes such as knowledge and meaning, and he held a chair, at Harvard, in Aesthetics. Wilson differed in that he brought a range of analytic gifts to an ongoing revolution: the close reading of American cinema, conceived as part of the "auteur" policy of Truffaut and other writers at Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s, and concertedly developed in the following decades by critics in England such as V. F.
- 12/11/2017
- MUBI
Hard-media home video is making a comeback, and Kino Lorber shows its faith in the medium with an extravagant collection of its entire silent holdings of the Fritz Lang library. Mythical heroes, sacrificing heroines, criminal madmen and uncontrolled super-science are his themes; it’s a paranoid’s view of the first half of the 20th Century, expressed with fantastic innovations that literally re-write the rules of cinema.
Fritz Lang The Silent Films
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1919-1929 / B&W / 1:37 Silent Aperture / 1894 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / “The Complete Silent Films of German Cinema’s Supreme Stylist” / Available through Kino Lorber / 149.95
Films: The Spiders, Harakiri, The Wandering Shadow, Four Around the Woman, Destiny, Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, Spies, Woman in the Moon, The Plague of Florence.
Directed by Fritz Lang
Kino Lorber has been a happy home for many marvelous discs of silent German classics. Thanks to their ongoing...
Fritz Lang The Silent Films
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1919-1929 / B&W / 1:37 Silent Aperture / 1894 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / “The Complete Silent Films of German Cinema’s Supreme Stylist” / Available through Kino Lorber / 149.95
Films: The Spiders, Harakiri, The Wandering Shadow, Four Around the Woman, Destiny, Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, Spies, Woman in the Moon, The Plague of Florence.
Directed by Fritz Lang
Kino Lorber has been a happy home for many marvelous discs of silent German classics. Thanks to their ongoing...
- 11/21/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Fritz Lang continues his take-no-prisoners indictment of America’s curious relationship with crime; this time he presents the thesis that an innocent man can be a pawn in cosmic game of injustice. Three-time loser Henry Fonda, the glummest actor in ’30s films, doesn’t mean to rob or kill, but gosh darn it, They Made Him a Criminal. Those considerations aside, it’s a wonderful cinematic achievement, made all the better by a decent digital restoration.
You Only Live Once
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1937 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / 29.98
Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon,
William Gargan, Jerome Cowan, Charles ‘Chic’ Sale, Margaret Hamilton, Warren Hymer,
Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Ward Bond, Jack Carson, Jonathan Hale
Cinematography: Leon Shamroy
Art Direction: Alexander Toluboff
Film Editor: Daniel Mandell
Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Written by Graham Baker and Gene Towne
Produced by Walter Wanger
Directed by Fritz Lang...
You Only Live Once
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1937 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / 29.98
Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon,
William Gargan, Jerome Cowan, Charles ‘Chic’ Sale, Margaret Hamilton, Warren Hymer,
Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Ward Bond, Jack Carson, Jonathan Hale
Cinematography: Leon Shamroy
Art Direction: Alexander Toluboff
Film Editor: Daniel Mandell
Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Written by Graham Baker and Gene Towne
Produced by Walter Wanger
Directed by Fritz Lang...
- 7/31/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
- 10/1/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
He's back and more diabolically ruthless than ever! Berlin cowers under the influence of a gambler-mastermind, the secret architect of an 'Empire of Crime.' Restored to near its full length (4.5 hours!), Fritz Lang's monumental pulp masterpiece is a Euro-classic lover's delight. Dr. Mabuse The Gambler Blu-ray Kino Lorber Classics 1922 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 270 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Alfred Abel, Aud Egede Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Bernhard Goetzke, Robert Forster-Larrinaga, Paul Richter Cinematography Carl Hoffmann Art Direction Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, Karl Stahl-Urach, Karl Vollbrecht Writing credits Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou & Norbert Jacques from the novel by Norbert Jacques Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Fritz Lang really upped his game, directing-wise, between his 1921 fantasy epic Destiny and his next thriller extravaganza Dr. Mabuse The Gambler. Transcending contemporary notions of a popular release, the...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Fritz Lang really upped his game, directing-wise, between his 1921 fantasy epic Destiny and his next thriller extravaganza Dr. Mabuse The Gambler. Transcending contemporary notions of a popular release, the...
- 9/12/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
When Fritz Lang began in film he was a better writer than director. This lavish two-part thriller sees him concocting a multi-genre mashup, shoehorning cowboy action thrills and an exotic lost Incan civilization into dagger-and-poison serial skullduggery. The Spiders Blu-ray Kino Classics 1919 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 173 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / Die Spinnen / available through Kino Classics / 29.95 Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Lil Dagover, Georg John. Cinematography Karl Freund Designers Otto Hunte, Carl Ludwig Kirmse, Heinrich Umlauff, Hermann Warm Music (2012) Ben Model Produced by Erich Pommer Written and Directed by Fritz Lang There appears to be nothing new under the sun, even if lovers of Indiana Jones don't realize that most everything he did, had been done long before in silent serials. I have a lazy habit here of claiming that Fritz Lang invented most of the basic ideas we see in every adventure genre except the western. But these...
- 8/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty Expressionist fable is as German as they get -- a morbid folk tale with an emotionally powerful finish. Destiny Blu-ray Kino Classics 1921 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 98 min. / Street Date August 30, 2016 / Der müde Tod / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg John. Cinematography Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner Film Editor Fritz Lang Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...
- 8/6/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Mubi is showing Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana April 21 - May 20, 2016 in the United States.Fata MorganaI have a bone to pick with conventional wisdom about the films of Werner Herzog. You will often hear it said in a film class or a Herzog article that his body of work, which is acclaimed equally for fiction and documentary films, “blurs the line” between those two storytelling poles. To my knowledge, no filmmaker with as regarded a name as Herzog’s has such a voluminous body of work within the fiction and documentary bounds. Countless filmmakers have reached heights in both, but few have done it as consistently and repeatedly. Making Herzog rarer still are his other films (or sometimes just scenes in his films) which cast aspersions on this kind of talk that separates documentary and fiction as opposites meant to be mixed. The experimental works, of which the beguiling...
- 4/23/2016
- by Nate Fisher
- MUBI
Fritz Lang applies rigorous realism and excellent science in the first half of his final silent film, a treat for fantasy fans and those impressed by a Nasa-like moon rocket forty years before the reality. The action on the moon is pure green-cheese fantasy, with breathable air, deposits of gold and evidence of a human civilization. Let's go! Woman in the Moon Blu-ray Kino Classics 1929 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 169 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Willy Frisch, Gerda Maurus, Gustav von Wangenheim, Klaus Phol, Fritz Rasp, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography: Curt Courant, Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Otto Kanturek Art Direction: Joseph Danilowitz, Emil Hasler, Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht, Prof. Gustav Wolff Technical Advisors Willy Ley, Hermann Oberth Special Effects Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet Original Music Willy Schmidt-Gentner Written by Fritz Lang, Hermann Oberth, Thea von Harbou Produced and Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...
- 2/10/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Diary of a Lost Girl
Written by Rudolf Leonhardt
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Germany, 1929
In just two collaborations, the German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and the Kansas-born Louise Brooks created a screen personality that left a permanent mark on the history of film. The iconic Brooks—impeccably dressed, seductively smirking, short, jet-black hair—had been seen in films prior, most notably in Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port (1928), but it was in Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both released in 1929) that this embodiment of tumultuous 1920s mores struck a strong and enduring chord.
Brooks in these two Pabst features could not be more dissimilar, however. Lulu, the freewheeling temptress of Pandora’s Box, is miles away from Thymian, the young, naive innocent of Diary of a Lost Girl. As this latter feature begins, Thymian enters the picture all in white, in accordance with her recent confirmation.
Written by Rudolf Leonhardt
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Germany, 1929
In just two collaborations, the German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and the Kansas-born Louise Brooks created a screen personality that left a permanent mark on the history of film. The iconic Brooks—impeccably dressed, seductively smirking, short, jet-black hair—had been seen in films prior, most notably in Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port (1928), but it was in Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both released in 1929) that this embodiment of tumultuous 1920s mores struck a strong and enduring chord.
Brooks in these two Pabst features could not be more dissimilar, however. Lulu, the freewheeling temptress of Pandora’s Box, is miles away from Thymian, the young, naive innocent of Diary of a Lost Girl. As this latter feature begins, Thymian enters the picture all in white, in accordance with her recent confirmation.
- 10/27/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Read More: Watch: Nicole Kidman is the 'Queen of the Desert' in Trailer for Werner Herzog Epic German filmmaker Werner Herzog has always nurtured an affection for lunacy. His continual recasting of the outrageous actor Klaus Kinski serves as an obvious example of this, as does Herzog's on-foot trek across Europe (from Munich to Paris, in the middle of winter) to see film critic Lotte Eisner when she was dying. He has long displayed an aggressive rejection of bourgeois, behavioral norms. You might consider him deranged, potentially detrimental to himself and those around him; the cold, deliberate German accent in which he says many a sadistic thing does not always reveal his sardonic sense of humor. Herzog famously allows his actors and crew to attempt certain chancy stunts only after he himself has tried them. He doesn't like to work in studios, something he feels kills spontaneity. Studio-filming...
- 9/4/2015
- by Anya Jaremko-Greenwold
- Indiewire
In 1974, director-madman Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris in a show of support for his friend, the cancer-stricken fellow filmmaker Lotte Eisner. During his epic trek, Herzog kept a blessedly typical (for him) mystical and philosophical diary, which was eventually published in 1978 as Of Walking in Ice. To commemorate his journey, University of Minnesota Press has published a new edition of the book — Herzog will also be speaking about the text on June 15 at Manhattan's NeueHouse — and we have the first chapter for you here. Saturday 23 November 1974 Right after five hundred meters or so I made my first stop, near the Pasinger Hospital, from where I wanted to turn west. With my compass I gauged the direction of Paris; now I know it. Achternbusch had jumped from the moving Vw van without getting hurt, then right away he tried again and broke his leg; now...
- 5/21/2015
- by Werner Herzog
- Vulture
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Directed by Robert Wiene
Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Germany, 1920
In the period of Germany’s Weimar Republic, a unique and volatile pre- and post-war era within a window of less than 20 years, the German people were experiencing a torrent of new ideological, social, and political shifts. What was once traditional and normal was giving way to the modern and unusual. What was typically viewed as quintessentially German was now being inundated by outside influences, by strange and foreign people and their imported cultural baggage. Whether or not these elements were as directly and obviously portrayed in movies as some like Siegfreid Kracauer and Lotte Eisner would argue (quite convincingly in many ways), there can be little doubt that film was influenced to one degree or another by this state of the German populous. The times were surely changing, and in no film...
Directed by Robert Wiene
Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Germany, 1920
In the period of Germany’s Weimar Republic, a unique and volatile pre- and post-war era within a window of less than 20 years, the German people were experiencing a torrent of new ideological, social, and political shifts. What was once traditional and normal was giving way to the modern and unusual. What was typically viewed as quintessentially German was now being inundated by outside influences, by strange and foreign people and their imported cultural baggage. Whether or not these elements were as directly and obviously portrayed in movies as some like Siegfreid Kracauer and Lotte Eisner would argue (quite convincingly in many ways), there can be little doubt that film was influenced to one degree or another by this state of the German populous. The times were surely changing, and in no film...
- 11/22/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Das Gespenst (1982)
“I always have a simple story, but I tell it so fanatically and wildly and tenderly and cursingly and on fire and in need of being loved that you’ll find a slice of life in front of you.”
The first time I saw Herbert Achternbusch he was hypnotizing a chicken in Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Anybody who has seen the film might recall the chicken, but who is Herbert Achternbusch? It is a question that cannot be simply answered. Achternbusch captions his entire artistic output with a paradox: ‘You don't have a chance, but use it’. Trying to make sense of his work, this epigram sounds appropriate.
Matters are not helped by the unavailability of most of his films on DVD. In Germany, a boxset devoted to Achternbusch is now out of print, although two key works—Heilt Hitler (1986) and Das Gespenst (1982)—remain in circulation.
“I always have a simple story, but I tell it so fanatically and wildly and tenderly and cursingly and on fire and in need of being loved that you’ll find a slice of life in front of you.”
The first time I saw Herbert Achternbusch he was hypnotizing a chicken in Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Anybody who has seen the film might recall the chicken, but who is Herbert Achternbusch? It is a question that cannot be simply answered. Achternbusch captions his entire artistic output with a paradox: ‘You don't have a chance, but use it’. Trying to make sense of his work, this epigram sounds appropriate.
Matters are not helped by the unavailability of most of his films on DVD. In Germany, a boxset devoted to Achternbusch is now out of print, although two key works—Heilt Hitler (1986) and Das Gespenst (1982)—remain in circulation.
- 11/10/2014
- by Yusef Sayed
- MUBI
Werner Herzog is one of my all time favourite directors. Ever since watching his take on Nosferatu, I knew I was hooked. Exploring both his fictional and documentary films, you will find a fascinating body of work. Sure, some of his opinions I really don’t agree with (I’m talking about you, Into the Abyss and Death Row) but whether you agree with the content or not, a film with Herzog’s name on it will at least touch you in one way.
The British Film Institute recently released a 10 disc box set of some of Herzog’s films. Over the coming weeks (and maybe months) I will be going through each disc. Part review. Part retrospective. Hopefully you will join me on my Herzogian journey.
Whether you are a fan of Herzog or a newcomer to his work, I hope you at least get something out of this.
The British Film Institute recently released a 10 disc box set of some of Herzog’s films. Over the coming weeks (and maybe months) I will be going through each disc. Part review. Part retrospective. Hopefully you will join me on my Herzogian journey.
Whether you are a fan of Herzog or a newcomer to his work, I hope you at least get something out of this.
- 10/3/2014
- by Mondo Squallido
- Nerdly
Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana (Mirage) is about as experimental as I have seen from the director and it's not at all easy to come to an understanding as to his full intent. In such situations I believe it is perfectly fine to be confusing and perhaps leave audiences unable to understand what's going on at all, but the audience should at least want to understand what they're watching and with Fata Morgana I can't say I cared much at all. After an opening montage, watching planes land on a runaway we continue on with what is referred to as part one, "Creation", and we're traveling through the not-so-scenic Sahara Desert with voice over provided by German film critic Lotte Eisner, reading excerpts from the mystical text the Popul Vuh and what it has to say about creation. This part of the film is largely empty, sandy landscapes with a...
- 6/18/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Sunrise
Scenario by Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Hermann Sudermann
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1927
William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made,...
Scenario by Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Hermann Sudermann
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1927
William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made,...
- 1/17/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
No, German Angst is not a Uwe Boll biopic, although that would seem pretty damned appropriate. What we have here, kids, is a new anthology film featuring the works of Jorg Buttgereit (Nekromantik, Der Todesking), Andreas Marchall (Tears of Kali, Masks), and Michael Kosakowoski (Zero Killed).
In 1920 Germany became the most influential production location for fantastic films. Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac, Paul Wegener’s The Golem earned the German cinema the label The Demonic Screen (Lotte H. Eisner). German filmmakers told stories of the underworld beneath urban life, about the invasion of the subconscious. The frontiers between reality and dreams blurred and the fear of dark eros emerged. These masterpieces of German Expressionist cinema are the ancestors of the contemporary fantastic genre. Their influence is still felt in almost every modern film. With the Nazi dictatorship...
In 1920 Germany became the most influential production location for fantastic films. Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac, Paul Wegener’s The Golem earned the German cinema the label The Demonic Screen (Lotte H. Eisner). German filmmakers told stories of the underworld beneath urban life, about the invasion of the subconscious. The frontiers between reality and dreams blurred and the fear of dark eros emerged. These masterpieces of German Expressionist cinema are the ancestors of the contemporary fantastic genre. Their influence is still felt in almost every modern film. With the Nazi dictatorship...
- 11/22/2013
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Like Night of the Hunter, Tod Browning’s Freaks or Leonard Kastle’s The Honeymoon Killers, The Road to Yesterday can be ranked among the UFOs of cinema. It’s place in the heart of Cecil B. DeMille’s work proves to be in itself very distinctive. We know that, during his entire life, DeMille had virtually only one producer—Paramount (the former Famous Players Lasky)—just like Minnelli was MGM’s man and Corman American International’s. Sixty-three of his films (out of seventy) were produced at Paramount. And, oddly enough, it is among the seven outsiders, situated within a brief period from 1925 to 1931, that his best activity is to be found (I’m thinking of Madam Satan, The Godless Girl, and The Road to Yesterday)–his most audacious undertakings. To top it off, for this uncontested king of the box office, his best films were his biggest commercial failures.
- 3/18/2013
- by Luc Moullet
- MUBI
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
"A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane
 
That man can be found at the center of Werner Herzog's films. He is Aguirre. He is Fitzcarraldo. He is the Nosferatu. He is Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzlies. He is Little Dieter Dengler, who needed to fly. She is Fini Straubinger, who lived in a land of silence and darkness since she was 12. He is Kaspar Hauser. He is Klaus Kinski. He is the man who will not leave the slopes of the Guadeloupe volcano when it is about to explode. He is those who live in the Antarctic. She is Juliana Koepcke, whose plane crashed in the rain forest and she walked out alive. He is Graham Dorrington, who flew one of the smallest airships ever built...
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
"A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane
 
That man can be found at the center of Werner Herzog's films. He is Aguirre. He is Fitzcarraldo. He is the Nosferatu. He is Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzlies. He is Little Dieter Dengler, who needed to fly. She is Fini Straubinger, who lived in a land of silence and darkness since she was 12. He is Kaspar Hauser. He is Klaus Kinski. He is the man who will not leave the slopes of the Guadeloupe volcano when it is about to explode. He is those who live in the Antarctic. She is Juliana Koepcke, whose plane crashed in the rain forest and she walked out alive. He is Graham Dorrington, who flew one of the smallest airships ever built...
- 2/2/2013
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Looking back at 2011 on what films moved and impressed us it becomes more and more clear—to me at least—that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, our end of year poll, now an annual tradition, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2011—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2011 to create a unique double feature. Many contributors chose their favorites of 2011, some picked out-of-the-way gems, others made some pretty strange connections—and some frankly just want to create a kerfuffle. All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2011 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative...
- 1/5/2012
- MUBI
Olga Tschechowa points the finger.
It's a listless country house gathering, broiling with intrigue under the surface: Bertie Wooster might appear, except we're in Germany. The hunt is rained off: nobody has anything to do except read the paper or gossip. And then Graf Oetsch arrives, suspected of murder, and they really have something to gossip about...
I first saw F.W. Murnau's Schloß Vogeloed (1921), under the misleading title The Haunted Castle, on a grey-market VHS bought on eBay. Grey was the word: the washed-out images were devoid of clarity, life and atmosphere, and the only thing that struck me asides from the pervasive theatricality was a double dream sequence which crashed into the plot for no real reason.
The first dream is scary, although the dreamer is the film's comedy relief character, "the anxious gentleman" played by Julius Falkenstein. As he slumbers, the window blows open and the diaphanous curtains blow in the gale.
It's a listless country house gathering, broiling with intrigue under the surface: Bertie Wooster might appear, except we're in Germany. The hunt is rained off: nobody has anything to do except read the paper or gossip. And then Graf Oetsch arrives, suspected of murder, and they really have something to gossip about...
I first saw F.W. Murnau's Schloß Vogeloed (1921), under the misleading title The Haunted Castle, on a grey-market VHS bought on eBay. Grey was the word: the washed-out images were devoid of clarity, life and atmosphere, and the only thing that struck me asides from the pervasive theatricality was a double dream sequence which crashed into the plot for no real reason.
The first dream is scary, although the dreamer is the film's comedy relief character, "the anxious gentleman" played by Julius Falkenstein. As he slumbers, the window blows open and the diaphanous curtains blow in the gale.
- 9/1/2011
- MUBI
Werner Herzog's presence in his own films – including the new Cave of Forgotten Dreams – marks him out as a romantic, eager to experience what he's trying to understand
Few film directors seem as directly present in their work as Werner Herzog. Not only does he have an instantly recognisable aesthetic, but unlike most European auteurs of his generation, he has become a familiar face in front of the camera. We are so accustomed to seeing him – playing football with Peruvian indians, arguing with Klaus Kinski, eating his own shoe at Chez Panisse – that we might mistake him for just another "personality", one of the celebrities who parade past at various scales, from cellphone to Times Square, on our screens. Directors are required to be showmen, particularly directors of documentaries, who always have to hustle to finance and screen their work. But Herzog's presence, his insistence on being in the middle of things,...
Few film directors seem as directly present in their work as Werner Herzog. Not only does he have an instantly recognisable aesthetic, but unlike most European auteurs of his generation, he has become a familiar face in front of the camera. We are so accustomed to seeing him – playing football with Peruvian indians, arguing with Klaus Kinski, eating his own shoe at Chez Panisse – that we might mistake him for just another "personality", one of the celebrities who parade past at various scales, from cellphone to Times Square, on our screens. Directors are required to be showmen, particularly directors of documentaries, who always have to hustle to finance and screen their work. But Herzog's presence, his insistence on being in the middle of things,...
- 4/18/2011
- by Hari Kunzru
- The Guardian - Film News
Werner Herzog has forever been a maverick of modern cinema and certainly never one to work within the constraints of the so-called ‘normal cinema’. A man who would rather forge his own path straight up the middle of the rock face of filmmaking, ignoring the easier Sherpa led routes on either side of that particular furrow.
Werner Herzog, the director of many classics of the left leaning art house cinema scene, including Aguirre The Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974) and Stroszek (1977). Not forgetting his most well known work Fitzcarraldo’ (1982) which emerged victorious from the epic struggles of which it was born, deep within the dark recesses of the Peruvian Jungle. It’s Herzog’s innate sense of persistence and drive which lends his films and Fitzcarraldo in particular a slight air of madness. You get the feeling that no matter what, Herzog’s projects will be finished...
Werner Herzog, the director of many classics of the left leaning art house cinema scene, including Aguirre The Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974) and Stroszek (1977). Not forgetting his most well known work Fitzcarraldo’ (1982) which emerged victorious from the epic struggles of which it was born, deep within the dark recesses of the Peruvian Jungle. It’s Herzog’s innate sense of persistence and drive which lends his films and Fitzcarraldo in particular a slight air of madness. You get the feeling that no matter what, Herzog’s projects will be finished...
- 1/7/2011
- by Kris Tebbs
- Obsessed with Film
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