Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog is an Academy Award-nominated German film director, screenwriter, actor, and opera director. One of the most eccentric figures in the New German Cinema, Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man) has been characterized as the “romantic visionary” of the movement as well as its most notorious selfpromoter who possesses an almost legendary need to confront danger in making his films. Through his well documented production difficulties - dragging a ship over a mountain, attempting to film the eruption of a volcano, hypnotizing an entire cast on set and Herzog’s obsession with quasi-mystical images and landscapes, it is not surprising that many consider his “documentaries” to be his best work.

Only a few weeks after his 70th birthday the film director Werner Herzog met in Berlin with the composer and cellist Ernst Reijseger, the voice of Senegal, Mola Sylla, the Dutch jazz pianist Harmen Fraanje, the characteristic male voices of the Voches de Sardinna and the music producer Stefan Winter to perform »Eroberung des Nutzlosen« (»Conquest of the Useless«) with music and soundscapes. On two evenings in October 2012 Werner Herzog read (in German) excerpts from his text, which he has written during the adventurous production of his film »Fitzcarraldo«, that would become his most famous movie. Reijseger and his ensemble provided the musical accompaniment, and this double CD is a document of the occasion.

Disc contains such masterpieces: Herakles (1962), The Unprecedented Defense of the Fortress of Deutschkreuz (1966), Last Words (1967), Die Fliegenden Arzte von Ostafrika (1969), Massnahmen gegen Fanatiker (1969), Fata Morgana (1970).