In general, I don’t care too much about film directors — I’m more interested in theatre and literature, and the auteurs I follow are writers as well as directors: Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Paul Schrader… and Werner Herzog, who is in a class by himself.

As I’ve remarked before, Herzog’s films are simultaneously wonderful and bad. He always seems to miss precisely the shot he needs to convey the story. In fact, entire scenes seem to go missing, with plot threads dangling in the wind. At the same time, every single one of his films is loaded with individual moments so startling, so compelling and odd, that it will never leave you. In “Aguirre, Wrath of God,” one of those moments is the little raft that gets caught in a pool of turbulence, eventually drowning part of the expedition. (Which, in typical Herzog form, almost actually happened to a member or two of the cast.) In “Fitzcarraldo,” it’s Klaus Kinski’s character awakening to find that the riverboat he’s on is careening toward a waterfall. In “Grizzly Man,” it’s the shot of the supremely naive Timothy Treadwell swimming serenely with one of his bear brethren and then seeing that bear swing about to take a swipe at him in an awful premonition of Treadwell’s ultimate fate. These films, plus “Rescue Dawn,” “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” “Where the Green Ants Dream,” “My Best Fiend,” and several Herzog short subjects have given me hours of delight (mixed with frustration over the errant storytelling.

But who knows what delights await me in this boxed set, pictured above, which arrived just today, new and unopened and for about forty bucks? (Thank you, eBay.)  The set includes  “The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser,” “Even Dwarfs Started Small,” “Fata Morgana,” “Lessons Of Darkness,” “Heart Of Glass,” “Strozsek,” and “And Little Dieter Needs To Fly.” I imagine many hours of enjoyable late-night viewing by myself.

Why by myself? Except for two close friends whose schedules rarely match with my own, and a third friend who lives on the East Coast, I can’t think of anyone who’d like to come watch these. (And I’m not even sure that two of those three would enjoy these. In fact, sometimes I’m not sure I “enjoy” Herzog’s films — I’m just compelled by them.)

A story I’d like to share. Several months ago, “Where the Green Ants Dream” arrived at my house, courtesy of Netflix. My wife and I were both home that night (a rarity), and as we lay in bed, she wondered aloud what had come from Netflix. Now usually, Valorie rips open my Netflix envelope, reads the sleeve, shakes her head and sighs and slips the disk back into the envelope. At least, that’s what our son Lex reports. I’ve offered to set up her own queue of things she’d like to see, but she’s not interested, so the queue is entirely my own and it’s not generally things found at your local cineplex four months ago. My tastes range from obscure documentaries to obsessive narratives courtesy of German directors. This time, though, she thought why not, and agreed to watch “Where the Green Ants Dream.” In this film, a mining company is blowing up whole landscapes of the Australian outback — at least until a group of Aborigines set up camp expressly to block further dynamiting. From there, not much happens, except an old woman pulls up a lawn chair and waits patiently for her dog to emerge, said dog having entered the system of artificial caves. Much later, either the dog returns or Herzog simply forgets about it — I can’t remember which. We start watching this film at about a quarter after midnight, in bed, both of us wondering what if anything is going to happen. Finally, Valorie sits up and announces that she’s going to do the laundry. At 1 a.m. And she did. After watching half the movie and already being in bed.

To me, this episode speaks volumes about why I’ll be enjoying the Herzog oeuvre alone.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 9:32 pm and is filed under On being, On seeing. 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.