As I said at the end of part three Werner only concerned himself with documentary projects for the majority of the nineteen nineties. over the next decade he will tackle some unique and unusual subject matter including one topic that obviously inspired him but the next ten years will see Herzog hone his documentarian skills and become the
"Jag Mandir" (1991)
Directed by Werner Herzog, Written by Werner Herzog, Produced by Werner Herzog, Cinematography by Rainer Klausmann,
Wolfgang Dickmann & Anton Peschke, Edited by Michou Hutter, Starring André Heller,
Arvind Singh Mewar & Narrated by Werner Herzog.
The documentary film "Jag Mandir", sometimes known by its subtitle "The Eccentric Private Theatre of the Maharaja of Udaipur" is a 1991 television documentary. The bulk of the film consists of footage of an elaborate theatrical performance for the Maharaj Arvind Singh Mewar at the City Palace of Udaipur, Rajasthan staged by André Heller.
Franz Heller, Maharaj Arvind Singh Mewar
& Werner Herzog
Franz Heller is an Austrian artist, author, poet, singer, songwriter, and actor who was hired by Maharaj Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur India to put on a massive theater show.
In the film Herzog tells the story that the show was organized because a local wise man had a vision of the Maharaj's palaces sinking into the lake due to the deterioration and lack of local culture so a massive display of culture should prevent this tragedy.
Heller explains in the film that he sent several colleagues throughout India to find performers for the show, including dancers, musicians, contortionists, and magicians.
10,000 performers were located, and of these about 2,000 were chosen to appear in the show, which lasted several hours on a single day.
Herzog was invited to document the production by Franz Heller and footage was filmed at the actual show, with some segments filmed in the rehearsals in the previous days.
(Herzog's story about the wise man is a fabrication concocted by Herzog because he thought it was better than the truth that the Maharaj is rich and wanted a big show)
"Film Lesson" (1991)
This is a documentary film in 9 parts that are a series of interviews and demonstrations by various artists, authors and performers that featured at the 1991 Viennale film festival. Herzog conducts the interviews himself and features, tightrope walker Philippe Petit, the man who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, German filmmaker Volker Schlondorff, filmmaker Michael Kreihsl, Austrian playwright Peter Turrini, cosmologist Kamal Saiful Islam, Polish author Ryszard Kapuscinski & Magician Jeff Sheridan. The film concludes with Herzog himself talking about the orientation and sense of space used in filmmaking. A mixed bag!
"Lessons of Darkness" (1991)
This documentary film directed by Werner Herzog is an exploration of the ravaged oil fields of post-Gulf War Kuwait. Herzog captures the surreal nature of this unique landscape. The film is a meditation on catastrophe, contextualized through the literary modes of religion and science fiction.
There is not a great deal of commentary in the film as Herzog lets the imagery do the talking but the commentary he does supply interprets the images out of context.
In this film he comes out with some total bangers! I feel this work really is the birth of the "Werner Herzog" of pop culture with his stark almost nihilistic deadpan delivery with his incredible voice.
"A planet in our solar system/wide mountain ranges, clouds, the land shrouded in mist".
This statement has nothing to do with what is on the screen at the time and during the film Herzog makes no effort to explain the actual causes of the catastrophic scenes that are being filmed he merely interprets them with his rhetoric he describes the workers as "creatures" whose behaviour is motivated by madness and a desire to perpetuate the damage that they are witnessing.
In a climactic scene which involves the workers (I imagine accidentally) re-igniting the flow of oil, shortly after succeeding in stopping the fire. Herzog's narration asks,
"Has life without fire become unbearable for them?"
"Bells from the Deep" (1993)
AKA "Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia. In this film Herzog explores what faith and religion mean to Russians after the fall of communism. He gets an insight into the Russian Orthodox church as well as different folk and shamanic beliefs.
In the first half of the film we see a man who claims to be a new Jesus who seems to exploit disabled people, A man who can teach you to channel cosmic energy into water by using a photograph of him... that I am sure he will sell you, We see Yuri Tarassov a self described sorcerer and exorcist who appears to "cure" women exclusively and one of those extreme Russian Orthodox baptisms where the baby gets plunged and fully submerged in a giant font.
The second half of the film explores the legend of the lost city of Kitezh.
This myth is about a city that was in peril of being destroyed by marauding Mongols, but whose citizens prayed for rescue. Hearing their prayers, God placed the city at the bottom of a deep lake, where it resides to this day.
Some even say that one can hear the bells from the city's church. The story is recounted by a local priest and we see pilgrims visiting the lake and crawling around its perimeter.
Herzog like many documentary filmmakers fabricated or constructed situations to film. The story goes that pilgrims have crawled out on the lake when it freezes over hoping to see the lost city of Kitezh but there were no pilgrims on hand so Werner paid two drunks from the next town to crawl around on the ice. Herzog fully acknowledges his fabrications in his work.
"Little Dieter Needs to Fly" (1997)
This documentary film was written, directed and produced by Werner Herzog.
The film tells the story of the life of Dieter Dengler, in particular him being shot down during the Vietnam War and his capture, imprisonment, escape, and rescue.
The bulk of the film consists of footage from a trip Herzog took with Dengler back to Laos and Thailand to recreate his ordeal three decades after his ordeal. Herzog hired locals to play the part of the captors and had Dengler retrace his steps while describing his experiences.
After Dengler passed away in 2001 Herzog added a postscript to the film consisting of footage from Dengler's actual funeral.
Herzog went on to direct a dramatised version of the story "Rescue Dawn" (2006)
starring Christian Bale as Dengler.
My Best Fiend (1999)
The German title of this film is
"Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski"
literally "My Dearest Foe - Klaus Kinski"
Kinski passed away in 1991 from a heart attack at the age of 65.
Eight years later Herzog makes this film which both explains and celebrates the deeply turbulent, unorthodox yet productive relationship between himself and Kinski.
The pair made five feature films together between 1972 and 1987.
In the film we see Herzog tour a substantially renovated apartment that he and his family shared with Kinski and other boarders. Herzog then tours some of the countries and visits locations where he and Kinski filmed.
We get to see Herzog rewatch at the first film clip he ever saw of Kinski and Herzog shows footage from the sets of their various movies.
He recounts the heated and sometimes violent altercations between them, including the oft-repeated story of how he threatened to shoot Kinski eight times in the head if he left the production of "Aguirre, the Wrath of God".
He also uses footage from Burden of Dreams (1982), a documentary about the making of "Fitzcarraldo", which was one of the most challenging films to make ever in the history of cinema and was particularly difficult for their relationship.
Throughout the film Herzog expresses deep respect for Kinski's acting talent.
Herzog describes Kinski's death as the result of having lived so strenuously and fully, describing him as "like a comet".
As we entered a new millennium Herzog returned to making narrative feature films with...
Invincible (2001)
Directed by Werner Herzog, Written by Werner Herzog, Produced by Gary Bart,
Christine Ruppert, Lucki Stipetić & Paul Webster, Music by Klaus Badelt &
Hans Zimmer, Cinematography by Peter Zeitlinger, Edited by Joe Bini, Starring Tim Roth, Jouko Ahola, Anna Gourari & Silvia Vas.
Polish strongman Zishe Breitbart has phenomenal strength which sees him engaged in a Berlin nightclub in pre-war Germany.
Star turn at the club is psychic Hanussen, keen to rise to power in the embryonic Nazi Party, but when Breitbart reveals his Jewish background, he becomes a hero of the German Jews and an enemy of Hanussen, with both of them also in love with the same woman.
The film is a drama but Herzog based his strongman character on a real guy, Zishe Breitbart who was a Polish-born circus performer, vaudeville strongman and genuine Jewish folklore hero. He was known as the "Strongest Man in the World" and Eisenkönig ("Ironking") during the 1920s. Where the film is set in 1930's Germany during the rise of the fascist Nazi party Breitbart actually passed away in 1925 from sepsis after an accident during a performance.
This is a wonderful example of how Herzog can weave fact and fiction to make his films.
Again, full disclosure this is another film I haven't personally seen but it is on the list and i'm making it a priority. (By the time this blog is published I will own the Blu-ray)
The film received mixed reviews when it was released, With criticism being based around the films 2h 13m runtime as being over long. Remember when that was flagged as a negative!
Invincible has become a cult film with many film fans saying it could be Herzog’s forgotten treasure or hidden gem of a film.
End of Part Four
