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“I am my films.” -Werner Herzog
With a career that spans more than six decades, Werner Herzog has created an exceptional body of work that encompasses nonfiction and narrative filmmaking, prose writing, directing opera and theater, and appearing as both a subject and an actor in film and television. His involvement is total.
Coming up as a filmmaker in the 1960s, Herzog gained recognition as one of the brilliant young filmmakers of the New German Cinema movement. Herzog has always had a great facility for storytelling (he holds the screenwriting credit on nearly all his films), and his fascination with eccentric characters, whose lives and endeavors he observes, allows him to illuminate the human condition. Central to his aesthetic is his interest in location shooting and his ability to create powerful images of the natural world. One only has to think of the dramatic opening scenes of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the North African sand dunes in Fata Morgana, the blazing oil field fires of Lessons of Darkness, or the rainforest canopies in The White Diamond to understand the importance of landscape in Herzog’s cinema and his quest to expand our sense of the infinite. He has worked with exceptional cinematographers through the years, including Thomas Mauch (Signs of Life; Aguirre; Fitzcarraldo), Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein (Fata Morgana; The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), and Peter Zeitlinger (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans). In 2019 Herzog decided to direct his microfilm Family Romance, LLC from behind the camera, allowing him the benefit of filming with a small footprint, at times as a crew of one.
Herzog graciously joins us November 9-12 for the launch of this major retrospective, which continues into 2024. No doubt his in-person presentations will offer audience members a chance to learn firsthand about his approach to filmmaking and his experiences working under diverse and challenging conditions.