Werner Herzog - Radical Dreamer

We have to imagine Werner Herzog as a child. Thomas von Steinaecker’s entertaining portrait suggests that the celebrated filmmaker’s art is born from an astonishment most of us lost upon entering puberty. The films plays like a highlight reel that successfully summarizes the first 80 years of Herzog’s life and career in chronological order, featuring all the scenes and unlikely events those in love with the last defender of German Romanticism would expect. Herzog’s tirelessness seems to derive from an almost innocent joy, which is equally tangible when he talks about his life.
With his tender, impish candor, he survives as a self-declared poet seeking rainbows in a desert. But can we believe that? The director has long become one with his protagonists. He speaks of fiction like Don Quixote. He smiles about it like Cervantes. Herzog knows that the world is not real. Only his films are real to him. There is no other living filmmaker who works as consistently on his own myth. He narrates to a point at which a visit to the fascinating Museum of Jurassic Technology becomes as important as the man this film is about. Suddenly, we understand that there is no such a thing as a film about Herzog, it’s always a journey with Herzog. (Patrick Holzapfel)

In the presence of Werner Herzog.

Thomas von Steinaecker: STOCKHAUSEN – MUSIK FÜR EINE BESSERE WELT (2008, TV), JOHN CAGE – ALLES IST MÖGLICH (2011, TV), RICHARD STRAUSS UND SEINE HELDINNEN (2014, TV), BEWEGTE REPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND (2014, TV), VON DADA BIS GAGA – 100 JAHRE PERFORMANCE-KUNST (2015, TV), ELECTRONIC VIBRATIONS – EIN SOUND VERÄNDERT DIE WELT (2021, TV)