Last week the LA Times had a good piece on my favorite working film director, Werner Herzog. Click here to read it.

I’m not sure precisely what compels me to go back over and over again to Herzog’s films, as I do. They’re simultaneously spellbinding and somewhat inept: While he continually dwells too long in scenes that don’t matter, or elides important parts of the narrative flow, or provides you with what seems like exactly the wrong shot, his films nevertheless have a raw immediacy — a power — that is almost entirely lacking elsewhere. Most movies just don’t interest me; all of Herzog’s do. Including especially:

• “Aguirre, Wrath of God,” which I keep returning to even as I’m “improving” its storytelling with my own director’s cut in my mind;
• “Fitzcarraldo,” also starring his frequent co-conspirator, the maniacal Klaus Kinski; in some ways this is the prototypical Herzog drama, about a fantastical and impractical pursuit (in this case, dragging a steamboat up and over a mountain in the Amazon to get it to another river);
• The documentary “My Best Fiend,” about Kinski, who was either seriously disturbed or flat-out the most convincing portrayer ever of mania — on-screen and in real life;
• The documentary “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” (imminently to be released in a fictionalized version called “Rescue Dawn” and starring Christian Bale). The ending has an unexpected majesty that I still don’t understand;
• And finally, “Grizzly Man,” which while Herzog says reminds him that life is about chaos, renews my faith in order because the nice naive man who views grizzly bears as his friends finally gets eaten by one.

All of these films are in some way a mess. But that chaos is what gives them life, and what makes every scene flawed and astonishing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 11:30 pm and is filed under On reading, On seeing, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.