Werner Herzog

An invaluable set of career-length interviews with the German genius hailed by François Truffaut as "the most important film director alive"

Werner Herzog è nato nel settembre del 1942 a Monaco di Baviera, in un momento di svolta della Seconda guerra mondiale. Presto la Germania sarebbe stata sconfitta e dalle macerie e dagli orrori sarebbe nato un mondo nuovo. In fuga dai bombardamenti alleati, la madre portò Werner e suo fratello maggiore in una località remota delle Alpi Bavaresi dove avrebbero trascorso gran parte della loro infanzia affamati, senza acqua corrente, in estrema povertà. Fu lì, negli anni del dopoguerra, che si formò uno dei cineasti più visionari dei successivi sette decenni. Fino all’età di undici anni, Herzog non sapeva dell’esistenza del cinema. Il suo interesse per i film iniziò quattro anni più tardi e presto si mise a lavorare di notte come saldatore per autofinanziare il suo primo cortometraggio, Ercole, nel 1962..

Werner Herzog is renowned for pushing the boundaries of conventional cinema, especially those between the fictional and the factual, the fantastic and the real. The Cinema of Werner Herzog: Aesthetic Ecstasy and Truth is the first study in twenty years devoted entirely to an analysis of Herzog's work.

In their final collaboration, Werner Herzog directs Klaus Kinski in the remarkable tale of Francisco Manoel da Silva, the flamboyant 19 century of Brazilian bandit known as Cobra Verde. When owner of a sugar plantation unknowingly hires the barefoot, gun-toting thief to keep his slaves in check, he gets more than he bargained for as Cobra Verde, in short order, impregnates all of his boss’s daughters. In revenge, he is sent on an impossible and deadly mission to sail to the West Coast of Africa and re-open the slave trade. Not only does Cobra Verde succeed at this he goes on to lead an unstoppable army of women in a savage war against the local king! Filmed on location with a cast of hundreds, Cobra Verde is a tale of adventure, greed and betrayal. It’s the story of two worlds in collision, and of the man who was trapped between them. Anchor Bay

The six-film Herzog/Kinski boxed set is a sleek compilation of a visionary cinematic collaboration. The history of cinema is dotted with great directors who have found an actor whose face, voice, and style capture that director's point of view: Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich; John Ford and John Wayne; Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro. In 1972, the German director Werner Herzog cast Polish actor Klaus Kinski in Aguirre, the Wrath of God–the result was perhaps the definitive film for both. Kinski had previously made almost 100 films, but his malevolent role–as a Spanish conquistador obsessed with finding gold–shot him into international stardom.