Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer
Thomas von Steinaecker’s documentary is a rewarding yet limited study of an extraordinary filmmaker.
The career of Werner Herzog is one of the most extraordinary in cinema and since he is a director who is also a striking on-screen presence, be it as himself or in acting roles, it is hardly surprising that several documentaries concerned with both the man and his work have appeared. Now an octogenarian, his output for cinema and for television incorporates well over seventy titles and Herzog, also a writer and a poet, is a visionary who has always made works expressive of himself. Indeed the 1978 documentary about him made by Erwin Keusch and Christian Weisenborn was actually entitled I Am My Films. Yet the best-known film study of Herzog is undoubtedly Les Blank’s 1982 Burden of Dreams, a work that is centred on the filming of Fitzcarraldo, that epic drama in which the titular figure, played by Klaus Kinski, conveyed a ship over a mountain in Peru. Later, in 1999, Herzog himself would provide a documentary study of his relationship with Kinski, My Best Fiend, and that film could be seen as a portrait of two extreme obsessives.
All these years later and with Herzog’s career still continuing, there is good reason to make a fresh study of this kind and Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer finds the German filmmaker Thomas von Steinaecker stepping up to do just that. Herzog himself is a willing participant and good value as you would expect since, whether as an interviewee or as a voice-over narrator, he has become celebrated for his very individual tone of voice and expression. Indeed, it is suggested here that in recent years his work (including acting roles in mainstream movies) has turned him into the best-known German in America and has in the process created a fresh and positive image of how Germans can be viewed. But this degree of fame and the existence of those documentaries does create a challenge for any new work about him: while necessarily duplicating material touched on previously, any such film calls out to be really special in its own right. In the event, however, what we have here, although never less than watchable, fails to reach the heights.
One difficulty that confronts any filmmaker engaging in a project like this is the need to make a work equally appealing to viewers already familiar with Herzog’s films and to those, especially a younger generation, who may be discovering here an artist unfamiliar to them or else known only for one or two titles. In this respect it is hardly an encouraging sign when images flash up from Herzog’s films which strike a chord with those that have seen them but which, appearing very briefly, are not actually identified. It's also the case that, in addition to members of Herzog’s family including both his present and his former wife and his half brother Lucki Stipetić who is also his producer, a number of famous names are to be found among the interviewees included. It's pleasing to find Wim Wenders, who could be thought of as a rival to Herzog, so readily acclaiming him, but the praise of others however sincere is expressed without any special insights that would give depth and value to them. These admirers include fellow directors (Chloé Zao, Joshua Oppenheimer, Volker Schlöndorff), the photographer Thomas Mauch and a number of actors including Christian Bale and Carl Weathers. But the relatively shallow nature of this footage is most evident in the praise for Herzog given by Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson (they may have loved having Herzog as their director but the 2015 film Queen of the Desert sunk like a stone).
Even if the material around the films Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982) offers little that is new, those works are so striking that the footage regarding them earns its place and of course the extraordinary Klaus Kinski could not but be featured. But, just as so many Herzog films get no mention at all, even the portrait of his relationship with his controversial star lacks any real references to the two films that they made together in 1979, Nosferatu, the Vampyre and Woyzeck. We do get something about Herzog’s childhood years in the village of Sachrang in Bavaria before the film moves on to his early work in cinema (1967’s Signs of Life and Even Dwarfs Started Small from 1970 are featured). But there is so much that cannot be covered in a single feature documentary that one feels that Thomas von Steinaecker might well have been better advised to opt for a work in several parts made for television.
But, limited as this piece is, Herzog himself does emerge as a unique figure, somebody in his own way as strong-willed as Kinski. We see a man determined to take on foolhardy commitments (the more foolhardy, the more irresistible?) and driven by a need to find material which on screen would provide images never seen before. That this film tells us virtually nothing about his private life does not matter, but one regrets that it does not dig deeper into the psychology and character of its unique subject even if he himself might not want to go there (the film’s final scene captures something of that reluctance and is the most telling moment in this documentary).
Just because the man himself is so intriguing, one recognises that Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer offers less than one might have hoped for. But that certainly does not make it worthless. Indeed, it leaves me with the impression that viewing it might be the best possible introduction for anybody about to embark on a study of his films. That's because it is an enticement to explore for oneself, to see how much further you can get beyond what emerges here by way of viewing the work of the man who said that his films are him.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Werner Herzog, Lucki Stipetić, Lena Herzog, Martje Herzog, Tilbert Herzog, Wim Wenders, Joshua Oppenheimer, Volker Schlöndorff, Chloé Zhao, Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Nicole Kidman, Carl Weathers, Patti Smith, Thomas Mauch, Guillermo de Oliveira.
Dir Thomas von Steinaecker, Pro André Singer, Bernhard Von Hülsen and Maria Willer, Screenplay Thomas von Steinaecker, Ph Henning Brümmer Ed Volker Schoner, Music Philip Stegers.
3B-Produktion/Spring Films/Real Fiction Filmverleih-BFI Distribution.
90 mins. Germany/UK. 2022. UK Rel: 19 January 2024. Cert. 15.
