Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)

          Like a novelist practicing with short stories before attempting the grand statement of a first novel, the singular German filmmaker Werner Herzog made a number of documentaries and short-subject fiction films before mounting his first two fictional features, Signs of Life (1968) and this strange picture. Yet because he followed up these intimate projects with the ambitious Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), it’s tempting to look at early projects including Even Dwarfts Stated Small as the byproducts of apprenticeship. For while Even Dwarfs Started Small contains some of Herzog’s signature themes and is suffused with his idiosyncratic style, it’s trifling compared to the powerful allegories he made later.

          Plus, truth be told, Even Dwarfs Started Small is a gimmick picture, because it’s a black-and-white oddity featuring only little people. The limitations of gimmickry become evident as Even Dwafts Started Small trudges along: It’s hard to get emotionally invested in a fictional feature populated exclusively by nonprofessional actors playing interchangeable roles. There’s something bold about the way Herzog asks viewers to plunge into the deepest waters of his imagination, but boldness only goes so far.

          Set on a remote island off the northern coast of Africa, the picture depicts a rebel uprising at an asylum or some other sort of institution. The gist is that the inmates/patients/residents dislike the way they’re treated, so they cut off communication with the outside world and lay siege to administrators until chaos reigns. Despite copious amounts of dialogue, much of which is deliberately cryptic and/or peculiar, so it’s never especially clear just what’s happening, though the film seems to take an antiauthoritarian stance. (For instance, rebels toss rocks at an administrator while he speaks to them from a high rooftop.)

          Mostly, the threadbare plot provides Herzog with an excuse to capture weird images. A camel too groggy or ill to stand on its forelegs. Rebels shoving a car down a seemingly bottomless hole in the ground. A driverless vehicle spinning in circles. A man holding a tube of cream over his crotch and spurting the cream onto a nearby woman. And so much giggling. At times, it feels like half this film’s screen time is devoted to shots of characters laughing idiotically. Herzog has never been afraid to stop a story dead so he can linger on some odd tangent, but Even Dwarfts Started Small is nothing but tangents, and the lack of a larger purpose renders the whole enterprise somewhat pointless, beyond the inherent value of putting onscreen people whose life experiences are rarely explored in popular culture.

Even Dwarfs Started Small: FUNKY

Stroszek (1977)

          Not much in Werner Herzog’s early filmography suggests a strong sense of humor—his breakthrough movie, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), is a harrowing saga involving incest, madness, murder, and obsession—but Stroszek is probably as close as the filmmaker ever came to making an outright comedy. To be clear, Stroszek is very much a Herzog film, because the storyline is bleak, fatalistic, and tragic. However, there’s a strong sense of irony and satire running through the picture, and Stroszek offers a skewed outsider’s vision of rural America, since most of the picture was shot in Wisconsin. The strangeness one often associates with Herzog’s movies is present, as well. For example, poultry plays a major role in the final scenes.

          Stroszek opens in Berlin, with the release from prison of simple-minded Bruno Stroszek (played by real-life artist/musician Bruno S.). After receiving a long speech from the prison warden about how Bruno needs to avoid booze because excessive drinking gets him into trouble, Bruno happily exits the prison—carrying his accordion and trumpet—and walks into a nearby establishment called “Beer Heaven.” Picking up the pieces of his old life, Bruno reconnects with elderly eccentric Mr. Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz) and friendly prostitute Eva (Eva Mattes). Together, they form a surrogate family, even though each is basically a loser. After Eva gets roughed up one too many times by her pimp, the trio relocates to America, where Mr. Scheitz’ nephew, Clayton (Clayton Szalpinksi), operates a low-rent auto garage in the boonies. While Bruno works for Clayton and Eva works as a waitress, the Germans pursue their version of the American Dream, even buying a large mobile home. Alas, their spending outpaces their income, so domestic strife emerges.

          On every possible level, Stroszek is both exactly what it appears to be—a simplistic travelogue performed by nonactors—and so much more. Herzog’s use of untrained performers creates an oddly credible vibe, because the behavior of the people onscreen is so peculiar that it rings true. Haven’t we all met people who seem out of sync with the rest of the world, as if they take commands from voices only they can hear? Similarly, the straightforward narrative, which is almost completely bereft of plot twists, has the mundane quality of real life. Things just happen. And, this being a Herzog film, most of those things are disorienting and/or disappointing.

          Leading man Bruno S., a former mental patient in real life, doesn’t really act, per se; rather, he simply exists on camera, delivering his singular mix of childlike enthusiasm and deep-seated ennui. In one scene, he makes a sculpture from what appear to be Lincoln Longs, then says, “Eva, I have constructed a schematic representation of how Bruno feels when they’re gently closing all the doors to him.” Indeed, the myriad scenes in which life removes the character’s sense of security are unexpectedly moving. By the time this film’s offbeat protagonist responds to a series of setbacks by making his escape with a frozen turkey as a traveling companion, he becomes something of a hero, even though his predicament is a direct result of drunkenness. To cite a metaphor that will only make sense after seeing Stroszek, we’re all just chickens dancing our way to oblivion.

          Herzog has expressed his nihilistic worldview more powerfully in other films, but he’s rarely done so with a tonality so closely approaching warmth.

Stroszek: GROOVY

Heart of Glass (1976)

          Despite having made a sizable number of important films, German director Werner Herzog is infamous for the extremes he took on various projects in the ’70s and ’80s, notably an incident (probably apocryphal) during which he pointed a gun at leading man Klaus Kinski in order to make the reluctant Kinski perform a scene. Somewhat in a similar vein, Herzog had nearly his entire cast hypnotized before each take while making Heart of Glass, a lyrical saga about the residents of a remote Bavarian village in the 18th century. The plot is an interesting fable revolving around a special kind of red glass that the residents of the town manufacture. After the only blower who knows the formula for the glass dies, the residents literally drive themselves mad trying to re-create the formula. Meanwhile, a mystic living in the hills over the town—played by the only leading actor who performed without hypnosis—observes the dissipation of the village and provides philosophical commentary. Like many of Herzog’s best films, Heart of Glass is about the cost of pursuing an impossible quest, a story archetype that Herzog often uses to remark upon what he perceives as the futility of the human experience.

          In terms of sonic and visual style, Heart of Glass represents Herzog at his apex. The images are painterly and often mesmerizing; the music, by Popol Vuh, is atmospheric; and the unique gimmick of hypnotizing actors results in a beautifully consistent aesthetic. Furthermore, although he’s made interesting films with modern settings, Herzog thrives in historical and primitive settings because he creates such immersive worlds, a gift very much in evidence throughout Heart of Glass. No other movie feels or looks quite like this one. And if normal considerations of characterization and plotting get subordinated beneath the more ethereal qualities of mood and vibe, so be it—in Heart of Glass, Herzog explores primal themes of existence and meaning and purpose.

          Per the director’s norm, Heart of Glass is also surpassingly weird. In one sequence, a dazed musician plays a hurdy-gurdy while a drunk laughs, a bereaved man dances with the corpse of his best friend, a prostitute with a shaved head cradles a duck, and a narcotized man waves his hands as if he’s conducting an unseen orchestra. Elsewhere in the film, two hypnotized actors sit across a table from each other as one cracks a glass over the other’s head, and then the victim pours a drink onto the first man’s head in response. Some of the vignettes in Heart of Glass are bewildering, some are compelling, and some are sad. Yet they all share a strange sort of mythological quality, as if the film retells some story that’s been handed down through generations. Achieving that effect with original material is no small feat, and yet it’s something Herzog has done again and again throughout his career.

          Working with cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein, a frequent collaborator, Herzog creates many painterly images, especially with transitional landscape shots filmed at various locations around the world, and he achieves pure poetry with the picture’s final massage, a story-within-a-story about the residents of a tiny island venturing out to sea. Heart of Glass is loose and unhurried, so some viewers may feel as if they’ve been hypnotized into submission just like the actors. For those willing to go the distance, however, a singular experience awaits.

Heart of Glass: GROOVY

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)

          “Why is everything so hard for me?” That simple question epitomizes the poignant impact of The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, a drama from German writer-director Werner Herzog that’s also known as Every Man for Himself and God Against All. Based on the true story of a mysterious youth who appeared in a Bavarian village during the 19th century claiming to have spent his entire life locked in a basement—hence his inability to speak or even to perform basic life skills—the picture unfolds like a sad fairy tale. Shot in a minimalistic style but energized with artful compositions and lighting, the movie opens in a grim dungeon, where Kaspar (Bruno S.) is chained to the floor. Capable only of eating and playing with simple toys, Kaspar is perplexed when his guardian frees him, carries him outside for quick lessons in how to walk and how to speak an introductory sentence, and then delivers him to a small village.

          The residents of the village discover Kaspar soon afterward, standing in a courtyard with a bewildered expression on his face and a bizarre handwritten letter from his guardian held in his hand. According to the letter, Kaspar was given to the guardian when Ksapar was an infant, but the guardian was too poor and too preoccupied with his own children to raise the boy properly. The villagers accept Kaspar as a ward of the state, teaching him hygiene and manners. The most melancholy and provocative scenes in the film depict Kaspar’s reactions when people try to explain religion. Beyond his inability to grasp abstract concepts, Kaspar cannot fathom the notion of almighty being who could tolerate the kind of loneliness and suffering that characterizes Kaspar’s life. Equally maddening is a scene of a university professor “testing” Kaspar’s ability to exercise logic: Kaspar proves clever and thoughtful, but because he cannot articulate his notions via the accepted vernacular of the intelligentsia, he’s deemed an idiot by default. As Kaspar says in a moment of existential despair, “I am so far away from everything.”

          Throughout his career, Herzog has displayed a special ability for discovering obscure true-life stories that are suitable for conveying his singular worldview. Like the grim fictional feature Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) and the harrowing documentary Grizzly Man (2005), among many others, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is filled with questions about the meaning of life. In Herzog’s best films, existence is portrayed a grind of hardship and suffering redeemed only by fleeting moments of compassion and transcendence. That’s why Herzog’s casting of Bruno S. in the lead role works so well, even though on many levels the casting is bonkers. In addition to being a nonactor, Bruno S. was in his 40s when he made Kaspar Hauser; the real Kaspar was a teenager when he first appeared. A former mental patient who worked as a laborer and a street musician, Bruno S. seems just as detached from the normal world as the real Kaspar must have been.

          Since Herzog maintains a tight focus on the principal storyline, instead of venturing off into the tangents that dilute many of his films, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is one of the director’s strongest efforts. Like David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is a profound examination of society’s unwillingness to embrace those who are truly different. As seen through the unusual prism of Herzog’s directorial perspective, Kaspar comes across as a being so closely connected to the basic rhythms of the universe that his otherness is a living condemnation of the walls society builds to protect itself from natural forces.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser: RIGHT ON

Fata Morgana (1971)

          Challenging, enigmatic, and strange, the quasi-documentary Fata Morgana was among the iconoclastic German director Werner Herzog’s earliest feature-length projects. Working with a tiny crew, Herzog filmed weird images in the Sahara Desert, most of which illustrate the titular optical phenomenon of hazy sights playing against a flat horizon. Additionally, Herzog filmed such random things as decaying animal carcasses, impoverished laborers doing miserable work in punishing heat, and the wreckage from a plane crash. Fusing all of this material together in the editing room, Herzog married the footage with gloomy music (including several songs by Mr. Sunshine himself, Canadian tunesmith Leonard Cohen) and then layered ponderous narration atop the singular mix. In the first section of the movie, titled “The Creation,” Herzog engages questions about the beginning of the world. “Invisible was the face of the Earth,” the narrator drones. “There was only nothingness.” Some of this material is interesting in an abstract sort of way, but the fact that the picture begins with about a dozen repetitious shots of planes landing indicates Herzog’s utter disinterest in creating anything that could be characterized as entertainment. This is Art with a capital “A,” complete with all the positive and negative connotations that statement suggests.

          Eventually, the movie segues into its second section, “The Paradise,” which seems to convey Herzog’s signature philosophy that man is a toxic influence on the planet, and that the planet is inherently destructive and hostile, anyway. Herzog shares a few truly compelling images, then empowers them in his distinctive way by lingering on the images until they become hypnotic—as with a menacingly beautiful shot of flame (presumably from a burning oil deposit) rumbling against a perfect blue sky. Occasionally, Herzog’s fancy leads him toward images that seem trivial by comparison, such as a long vignette of a young boy proudly displaying his pet cat while flies buzz around the boy and the cat. By the time the picture reaches its brief final segment, “The Golden Age,” the viewer’s patience has been mightily tested. During this last segment, Herzog fixates on the kitschy sight of a singing drummer belting out tunes through an awful PA system while a stocky woman accompanies him on piano. “In the Golden Age, man and wife live in harmony,” the narrator says as the musicians play. “Now, for example, they appear before the lens of the camera, death in their eyes, a smile on their faces, a finger in the pie.” In his strongest films, Herzog presents existential mysteries that demand deeper investigation. In Fata Morgana, he merely presents things that are, at best, puzzling.

Fata Morgana: FUNKY

Woyzeck (1979)

          Iconoclastic German director Werner Herzog was outrageously prolific in the ’70s, generating eight narrative features and five documentaries. Given this frantic pace, it’s inevitable that some of his projects got short shrift, and Woyzeck is an example. Herzog sped into production on Woyzeck literally just days after completing the filming of his soulful horror film Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), using the same leading man, Klaus Kinski, and the same crew. As such, there’s a temptation to view the spare visual style of Woyzeck as a casualty of crew fatigue, especially since Nosferatu the Vampyre is one of Herzog’s most aesthetically lush films. Furthermore, the pacing and tone of Woyzeck lack Herzog’s usual lyricism, although his singular cinematic voice surges back to the fore in a climactic murder scene, which Herzog films with disturbingly ecstatic slow-motion. In any event, the themes of Woyzeck fit neatly into both the director’s grim filmography and the special body of work that Herzog and madman actor Kinski created together.

          Adapted from an incomplete play by Georg Büchner (which the author began writing in the mid-1830s), Woyzeck tells the sad tale of a soldier from a low social class who suffers humiliation at the hands of cruel superiors, a meddling doctor, and an unfaithful lover. On a deeper, metaphorical level, the protagonist also falls victim to the caprices of fate, God, or whichever force is responsible for his life of ignominy. The gist of the piece is that a basically good man can be driven to madness and violence by the emasculating machinations of society—exactly the sort of fatalistic material that Herzog and Kinski excelled at exploring.

          Set in a tiny German town in the 19th century, the picture tracks the myriad travails of Freidrich Woyzeck (Kinski). Belittled by his commanding officer (Wolfgang Reichmann), an aristocrat who considers Woyzeck virtually sub-human simply because Woyzeck is poor, Woyzeck is a scandalous figure because he raises a child out of wedlock with Marie (Eva Mattes). Later, the long-suffering soldier seeks aid from a doctor (Willy Semmelrogge), who prescribes nonsensical treatments such as eating a diet consisting solely of peas. Already prone to peculiar behavior, such as rushing through life at a hyperkinetic pace, Woyzeck succumbs to bleak delusions and eventually hears voices that give him instructions; this thread of the story culminates when Woyzeck receives “orders” to kill Marie, whom he learns is sleeping with a handsome drum major (Josef Bierbichler).

          Herzog never quite fully translates the allegorical, episodic nature of the source material into pure cinema, because much of the movie unfolds in long takes defined by a nearly stationary camera. Nonetheless, vitality of performance compensates for the lack of visual panache. In particular, no one plays crazy quite like Kinski. With his bulging eyes, flaring nostrils, and gleaming teeth bared like those of a jungle predator, Kinski is a vision of dangerous insanity in every frame, even when his character attempts to enjoy “normal” moments. The single act of casting Kinski gives Woyzeck innate credibility, even if Herzog’s script is mechanical and slight. This actor/director combination went to the same well many times, and most of their other efforts to chart the outer reaches of lunacy were more effective than Woyzeck. Nonetheless, whether it’s taken as a minor part of the Herzog/Kinski oeuvre, as a worthy attempt to complete a literary fragment, or simply as a bizarre study of one man’s descent into a sort of psychological hell, Woyzeck is a unique experience.

Woyzeck: GROOVY

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

          Nearly a decade after their astonishing first collaboration, 1972’s historical allegory Aguirre, the Wrath of God, German director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski reteamed for this audacious remake of a silent-cinema classic: F.W. Murnau’s 1922 frightfest Nosferatu. In addition to being one of the titanic works of early German film, the Murnau picture is infamous because the filmmaker didn’t get permission to adapt his story from Bram Stoker’s classic novel, Dracula. To disguise the source material, Murnau ditched Stoker’s character names and replaced the suave bloodsucker of the book with a ghoulish spectre whose pale skin, pointed ears, and talon-like fingers added up to a horrific vision.

          Herzog’s remake retains the look of the 1922 vampire, but by adding dialogue and a script filled with weirdly humanistic nuances, he transforms the monster of the original film into a pathetic creature. As played by Kinski with a beguiling mixture of pathos and villainy, Count Dracula (Herzog reverted to Stoker’s character names) is a desperately lonely being doomed to outlive everyone he knows and fated to survive on the blood of the very people whose company he craves.

          In this context, an existential love triangle develops between Dracula, the German real-estate agent who travels to Dracula’s castle, and the agent’s beautiful wife. Dracula subsists on the agent’s blood, and then he falls for the wife, who in turn risks sacrificing herself to the vampire’s bite as a way of releasing her husband from supernatural servitude. Herzog captures this bizarre dynamic in an appropriately odd style, employing lyrical montages of the European countryside and long dialogue scenes to convey a sense of otherworldly ennui.

          Yet Herzog’s most extravagant flourishes are the scenes depicting the terrible pestilence that arrives with Dracula when the ghoul relocates from his native Transylvania to Germany. According to the lore surrounding this movie, Herzog let thousands of rats loose into the town where he was shooting because he wanted “real” shots of vampire-loosed vermin stalking the streets; in addition to irking animal-safety experts, Herzog was reportedly chased from the town.

          Whatever the circumstances, there’s no question that Herzog captured something truly singular with his cameras: Nosferatu somehow manages to be one of the coldest vampire films ever made and also one of the most emotional. Kinski’s eccentric performance dominates, but New German Cinema stalwart Bruno Ganz provides a stalwart presence as the real-estate agent, and fearless French leading lady Isabelle Adjani (playing the wife) nearly qualifies as a special effect. In addition to providing offbeat soulfulness, she’s so beguiling that it’s easy to understand why she drives Dracula batty.

          Take note that Nosferatu is widely available in two versions, which were shot simultaneously. The incrementally superior German-language version is called Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht, and the English-language version is a decent alternative for the subtitle-averse.

Nosferatu the Vampyre: RIGHT ON

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

          Fearless filmmaker Werner Herzog and madman actor Klaus Kinski began one of world cinema’s most unique collaborations with the German film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, a hypnotic masterpiece that explores titanic themes of ambition, fate, lust, and the savagery of nature through Herzog’s singular prism. Although both men have allowed myths about their on-set friction to fester—Kinski went to his grave cursing Herzog’s name, and Herzog named a documentary about the actor My Best Fiend—the work they created is just as interesting as the apocryphal story about Herzog holding Kinski at gunpoint until the performer completed filming an Aguirre scene.
          Based on an obscure historical episode, Aguirre takes place in 16th-century South America, when a gang of conquistadors broke off from Pizarro’s legendary expedition to search for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. Although an ineffectual nobleman is nominally in charge of the gang, the real power is psychotic soldier Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski), who ascends to supremacy through attrition and treachery.
          Woefully unprepared for a long journey deep into the unforgiving rainforest, the conquistadors wear heavy battle armor and drive their native bearers to such extremes that several bearers flee into the wilderness every night, eventually leaving the Spaniards to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, Aguirre’s dreams of glory become more and more insane, until he imagines himself a living god destined to form an incestuous dynasty with his beautiful young daughter, Flores (Cecilia Rivera), as his bride. The story delivers Aguirre to a poetic fate, which Herzog presents in one of the most haunting final images of modern cinema.
          Although it’s imperfect from a technical perspective, Aguirre, the Wrath of God has undeniable power thanks to the relentless commitment of the director and the leading man. Herzog drove his crew nearly as hard as Aguirre pushed his people, and the auteur’s maniacal drive to film the visions he saw in his head produced startling results. Among the unforgettable moments in the film are the spellbinding opening shot, which features a seemingly mile-long train of men and women navigating a treacherous mountain path, and the heartbreaking scene in which a raft filled with explorers gets trapped against a rock wall by brutal whitewater rapids.
          Herzog’s storytelling is idiosyncratic and unpredictable, so he regularly stops the forward momentum of the narrative to linger on beguiling natural wonderments or peculiar human faces. Adding to the movie’s strangeness, Herzog recruited the adventurous German band Popul Vuh to record the score. Their overwhelming washes of choral sounds and electronic patterns give the film an elemental quality.
          While the bulk of the supporting cast delivers utilitarian work, Kinski more than compensates with a raging performance that’s genuinely frightening. His deep-set eyes and high cheekbones giving him a cadaverous mien, Kinski looks like a supernatural creature set loose on a sinful earth, destroying everything in his path. He becomes a living metaphor of hubris, and thus a perfect vehicle for Herzog’s nihilistic statement about the destruction wrought by man’s pointless war against nature. Herzog and Kinski returned to this thematic well many more times in their respective careers, but they never matched the raw incandescence of their first conflagration.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God: OUTTA SIGHT