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If the name sounds like Woyzeck, it should -- Herzog's original intention was to make a film based on Buchner's play, but he instead made a movie about three very strange Germans who make their way to Wisconsin, buy a trailer home, become (respectively) a prostitute, an acolyte of Mesmer and a car mechanic, and who end up (respectively) in Vancouver, in jail and dead on a ski lift holding a big butterball Turkey. I encourage everyone to see this film, which I saw last night on DVD. The actress, Eva Mattes, is not in the photo below, which features Clayton Szlapinski (an American car mechanic that Herzog met when his truck broke down), Clemens Scheitz and the amazing latter-day miestersanger Bruno S. -- read about him below. I've only been disappointed with Herzog once, in that crappy made for TV thing about mountain climbing that starred Donald Sutherland, but otherwise he is simply too rich to describe, and quite often he is just letting the camera run on things he knows are overwhelmingly strange and beautiful.
The story behind its making is almost as interesting as the film itself. Documentarian Errol Morris wanted to make a film about the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, from which eight serial murderers came, including the infamous Ed Gein, inspiration for Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Morris discovered that Gein dug up all the graves in a circle around that of his mother, and he and his friend Herzog decided that the only way to find out if he dug up his mother's grave too was to dig it up themselves. Morris never showed up for their meeting, and Herzog's car broke down in Plainfield. His experiences, and many of the people he met there, are here in this film. That story is seamlessly blended into the life story of Bruno S., the star. Bruno was abused by his drug-addict mother and abandoned when he was three. He spent the next 23 years of his life in various mental hospitals and prisons. Herzog discovered him as a gifted street musician and cast him in his The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, whose story also echoed Bruno's life. (Read rest at link above.)
Posted by Brian Stefans at June 24, 2003 01:34 PM | TrackBackAnother recommendation...Just watched Herzog's Heart of Glass the other night. The film in which he hypnotized most of the cast prior to shooting. Amazingly weird. My favorite of his is Mystery (Enigma?) of Kaspar Hauser. The way he manipulates the characters and plotlines redeems itself through a certain sincerity. Also cinematically beautiful although overstepping the record a bit is Lessons of Darkness his-so called-documentary concerning the Gulf War. Ah, the cunning like a fox genius Herzog....
Posted by: kristine at June 24, 2003 03:57 PMYes, Kasper Hauser... this could be a cast photo from that movie as well!
What do you think of the Kinski ones -- overstepping there also?
I'm a bit undecided now about whether Kinski or Bruno S. is the more better Herzog actor -- they're both incredibly interesting, and Kinski obviously did more movies, but Bruno S. is so unique to films (and a first, of sorts -- I think those slow-paced naif characters in Gus Van Sant's films owe something to him) and so mesermerizing and "of his time" that he's the more pertinent "find" -- the stronger anti-hero.
Posted by: Mr. Arras at June 24, 2003 04:10 PMTo me Kinski and Bruno S. are the flip sides of Herzogs failed german romanticism. Innocence and experience sincerely parodied (if that's possible). My heart is w/ Bruno but my sick modern intellect loves Kinski. I couldn't begin to decide who's the more satisfying. Herzogs relationship w/ Kinski seems more fruitful here though because of Kinski's ability to *play* the fiend rather than embody it. In other words, I think he's more of an equal partner and thus on to/in on Herzog's tricks.
Speaking of insane movies (were we?) have you seen Fassbinder's In the Year of the 13th Moon? watched it as doubleheader w/ Heart of Glass (fun night). Granting that Fassbinder was influenced by Douglas Sirk I would guess, in an interesting cultural exchange, that Van Sant could've been influenced by Fassbinder and/or Herzog. Or maybe I'm wrong....
I'd imagine both...
(Actually, turns out I was thinking of Hal Hartley's characters in Henry Fool, not just Van Sant, who I thought directed HF also.)
The influence game is tough without hard evidence, it's just that damaged goods like the heroes of Private Idaho and Henry Fool seemed reminiscent of Bruno S. in Stroszek.
I've seen a fair amount of Fassbinder -- Querelle, Ali Fear Eats the Soul, Petra Van Kant -- and a few others I don't remember the names of (there was a Fassbinder festival every summer here in NY for a long time).
I don't have a strong read on him. I've read his interviews however -- I considered myself a fan for a long time though in fact I was bored by Petra Van Kant.
Anyway, yeah, Kinski was the real nightmare -- you have to see My Best Fiend to really know. I've just ordered his autobiography through interlibrary loan, which I'm sure will be dreadful trash.
funny I was just thinking about Henry Fool. Hartley's movies sometimes drive me insane but HF sstcuk w/ me for some reason. course only thing I now remember is one line, and I'm paraphrasing, "He takes complex ideas and simplifies them, I appreciate that". Ha!
And Kinski's autob. is glorious trash...well worth the picking up. I think it's in My Best Fiend where Herzog talks about encouraging/helping along the most sadistic Kinski rants re: Herzog himself. You'll like....
Posted by: kristine at June 26, 2003 09:36 AMYes it is... they would meet on some isolated hill located halfway between their homes and concoct the most vile epithets to describe Herzog. There's also the story of when H. tried to murder Kinski but was stopped in his tracks by the guard dog. That movie ends with footage of Kinski playing, most delicately, with a buttefly, a little ballet for the camera that stands in stark contrast to the Jesus schtick he was engaged in at the beginning.
Posted by: Mr. Arras at June 26, 2003 11:14 AMGlad to see mention hereabouts of Stroszek. Its final sequence is one of the best things I've seen move about on a glass rectangle. Check out asap two other Herzog films: The Land of Silence and Darkness, and Even Dwarves Started Small. Both terrific. I heard that the latter is a satire on the May 68 insurrection in Paris, which threw the whole film into a bizarre slant. Herzog is also the best thing in Julien Donkey Boy. What did people think of the recent film Invincible?
Posted by: Keston Sutherland at July 29, 2003 09:07 PMTim Roth was great in the Alan Clarke films -- he's just a good actor in this one -- Herzog should either have hypnotized him or sent him on a trip through the Amazon.
I liked the movie, but it almost felt like Steven Spielberg had completed it for him, just as one felt the spirit of Kubrik in AI without the Dada edge and the willingness to move into ethically unsure dimensions.
The politics were similar to most Spielberg films -- family over all (the young poetic brother being the behind-the-scenes orchestrator of the protagonist's sentiments), the exceptional being who, through self-knowledge, rises up to conquer mass indifference, etc. Though with true failure in the end, laced with historical irony.
The scenes that seemed most Herzogian to me in Invincible were the opening sequences -- the shot of the rooster especially, also the montage of Jewish life in the Polish ghettoes, echoes of Woyzeck etc. -- and the scene of the stupid trick in which the protagonist sticks a nail in his leg. (Half of his fictional films seem to be restagings of Woyzeck.)
The dullness of the lead's acting was also very Herzog-like, which I liked. But the movie either wasn't flat enough, or not wild enough, to rank among his best.
I've seen Dwarves, but not the other one -- which is the documentary on deaf people, no?
Posted by: Mr. Arras at July 30, 2003 01:50 PMThis was the movie that Ian from Joy Division watched the night he hung himself. Interesting twist! Searching for this movie is how i found your blog :)
Posted by: byron miller at October 31, 2003 12:40 PM