Werner Herzog (born September 5, 1942, Munich, Germany) is a German motion-picture director whose unusual films captured men and women at psychological extremes. With Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, Herzog led the influential postwar West German cinema movement.
During his youth, Herzog studied history, literature, and music in Munich and at the University of Pittsburgh and traveled extensively in Mexico, Great Britain, Greece, and Sudan. Herakles (1962) was an early short, and Lebenszeichen (1967; Signs of Life) was his first feature film. He became known for working with small budgets and for writing and producing his own motion pictures.
Herzog’s films, usually set in distinct and unfamiliar landscapes, are imbued with mysticism. In Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (1970; Even Dwarfs Started Small), the microcosm of a barren island inhabited by dwarfs stands for a larger reality, and in Fata Morgana (1971), a documentary on the Sahara, the desert acquires an eerie life of its own. One of Herzog’s best-known films, Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972; Aguirre, the Wrath of God), follows a band of Spanish explorers into unmapped territory, recording their gradual mental and physical self-destruction. Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (1975; Every Man for Himself and God Against All or The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser) is a retelling of the Kaspar Hauser legend. Herzog’s most realistic film, Stroszek (1977), is a bittersweet tale of isolation concerning a German immigrant who, with his two misfit companions, finds the dairy lands of Wisconsin to be lonelier and bleaker than the slums of Berlin. Herzog’s other films included Herz aus Glas (1977; Heart of Glass), Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979; Nosferatu the Vampyre, a version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that is an homage to F.W. Murnau’s film of the same name), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Schrei aus Stein (1991; Scream of Stone).
Later in his career Herzog focused primarily on documentaries, including Glocken aus der Tiefe (1995; “Bells from the Deep”), which examines religious beliefs among Russians, and Grizzly Man (2005), an account of Timothy Treadwell, an American who studied and lived among grizzly bears in Alaska but was mauled to death along with his girlfriend. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) centres on a German American pilot shot down in the jungle during the Vietnam War; the story inspired Herzog’s narrative film Rescue Dawn (2007), the screenplay of which was the first Herzog wrote in English.
Among Herzog’s later documentaries were Encounters at the End of the World (2007), which highlights the beauty of Antarctica; Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), which explores in 3D the prehistoric paintings at the Chauvet cave in France; Into the Abyss (2011), a sombre examination of a Texas murder case; and Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016), about the Internet. In Meeting Gorbachev (2018; codirected with Andre Singer), he chronicled the life of the former president of the Soviet Union. Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019) centres on the British author who was known for such travel writings as In Patagonia (1977). Herzog later directed (with Clive Oppenheimer) Fireballs: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020), which centres on meteorites. His other narrative films included Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), a drama about a police officer (played by Nicolas Cage) struggling with drug and gambling addictions, and the biopic Queen of the Desert (2015), in which Nicole Kidman portrayed Gertrude Bell. Family Romance, LLC (2019) centres on the “rent-a-family” industry in Japan; shot in a documentary style, the movie stars the actual owner of the business referenced in the title.
Herzog’s films are characterized by a surreal and subtly exotic quality, and he is hailed as one of the most innovative contemporary directors. He often employed controversial techniques to elicit the desired performances from his actors: he ordered that the entire cast be hypnotized for Heart of Glass, forced the cast of Aguirre, the Wrath of God to endure the arduous environment of South American rainforests, and required his actors to haul a 300-ton ship over a mountain for Fitzcarraldo. Herzog’s subject matter has often led to such offbeat casting choices as dwarfs in Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen and Bruno S., a lifelong inmate of prisons and mental institutions, in The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser and Stroszek.
Herzog’s volatile love-hate relationship with the brilliant but emotionally unstable actor Klaus Kinski resulted in some of the best work from both men, and both are best known for the films on which they collaborated. Herzog celebrated their partnership with the well-received documentary film Mein liebster Feind (1999; My Best Fiend). In addition, Herzog occasionally took acting jobs himself, with notable roles including a stern father in the experimental drama Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) and a criminal mastermind in the big-budget action movie Jack Reacher (2012). He also lent his voice to various movies, notably the animated comedy Penguins of Madagascar (2014).