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Features a public conversation with filmmaker Werner Herzog and Karen Beckman about aliens as a fixture of our imagination, the fundamental achievement of the human race, and the ecstasy of ski-flying. Includes a booklet with selected writings by Werner Herzog, and photographs from Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde by Beat Presser. During the 2007-2008 academic year, students in the RBSL Bergman Foundation Curatorial Seminar at the University of Pennsylvania collaboratively engaged in research spanning disciplines such as literature, visual culture, urbanism, geo-politics, and technology. One residue of these endeavors was this publication that attempts to construct an archive of the temporal—in particular, this site-specific conversation on October 25, 2007 at Slought Foundation in Philadelphia.
Born in Munich, director, screenwriter, producer, and actor Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and never saw films, television, or telephones as a child. He started traveling on foot from the age of 14 and made his first phone call at the age of 17.
During high school he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce films and made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has become one of the most influential filmmakers in the world producing, writing, and directing more than fifty films, publishing more than a dozen books of prose, and directing as many operas. Werner Herzog has created some of the most fantastic narratives in the history of cinema, pushing himself and his crew to unprecedented lengths to achieve the effects he demanded. His films include: Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Even Dwarfs Started Small, Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, and Encounters at the End of the World.
Further Information:
"When I start a film, I always have the feeling of home invasion. I have not invited my films, I have never welcomed them, and yet they are there and they push me, and they pressure me, and they disquiet me in such a way that I try to articulate them and try to get them out of the way. Of course at the same time I know that I can grapple with them because I can articulate them. I can articulate stories, I can articulate concepts, I can articulate images. These images are commonly not seen, yet I see them fairly clearly out there in the horizon… I am the one who has to articulate them, who has to make them visible." -- Werner Herzog (Slought Foundation, 2007)
| Catalog Number: MC-824 |
Type: Feature |
Genre: Documentary |
| Copyright: 2007 |
Length: 63 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 (All) |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: 978-0-9815409-1-7 |
UPC: 796873076555 |
| Label: |
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Exhibition:
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2009-03-11 Educational Media Reviews Online
By Rob Sica
In October and November of 2007, the University of Pennsylvania’s Cinema Studies program co-sponsored , Ecstatic Truth: Documenting Herzog ‘Documenting’, a multi-media exhibition at the Slought Foundation galleries in Philadelphia. As its title suggests, the organizing themes of the exhibition were the legendary German film-maker’s often-invoked pursuit of “ecstatic truth” and its connection to his singular manner of blending fabrication with documentary elements in both feature narrative films (The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser, Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre the Wrath of God) and various nonfictional forays (Lessons of Darkness, Little Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Grizzly Man). Associated with the exhibit, and broaching these themes among many others, this DVD records an hour-long conversation between Herzog and Karen Blackman, a film studies professor and director of the aforementioned Cinema Studies program.
Herzog is an indefatigably compelling, provocative, eloquent and generous interviewee, as anyone can confirm by perusing the web, which abounds in video footage of previous interviews. What most distinguishes this no-frills production is its unbroken duration, which enables one to enjoy the cumulative charms of an extended and intimate conversation with a brilliantly resourceful and penetrating mind. Herzog here boldly reflects upon a broad range of topics – such as his view of the true nature of cinematic art, his sources of inspiration and influence, his trepidations about the impact of modern media technologies on cinema, his use of music in films, his ambivalence towards academia, and his attitude toward the nonhuman natural world. The conversation is followed by a brief question-and-answer session featuring probing queries from film students.
Although no extra features appear on the DVD, the booklet features several texts written by Herzog, including his 1999 “Minnesota Declaration.” Recommended for film studies programs. |
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