Werner Herzog is my favorite director.  Since 1962 he has made 52 films on a wide variety of subjects.  He has made feature films and documentaries, often blending the two.  Until very recently he was most known for his film Fitzcaraldo although after the recent success of his documentary Grizzly Man he might be more known for that.  Many of his subjects feature driven people that go after something so obsessively they may seem insane.  Of all of his subjects, he might be the most interesting of all.  He literally moved a huge ship over a mountain, he threatened to kill one of his actors, he was shot during a TV interview, he walked thousands of miles across Europe because he thought it would cure a sick friend, and he once ate his shoe on film because he lost a bet.  Over the last few weeks Film Forum has done a retrospective of his non fiction films, as well as some documentaries that he loves.  They also showed several documentaries about him.  In three days I saw 12 of his films and two documentaries about him.  I am going to give little short reviews of each film I saw.  Of his 52 films I have now seen all but 13 of them, but Herzog just released a 6 disc set of his short films for sale on his website so I should get that number down very quickly.   

I Am My Films (Erwin Keusch & Christian Weisenborn, 1979)

Of all the films I saw this had the least amount of value to me.  Most everything covered in this documentary I had known from my readings on Herzog and other documentaries I have seen about him.  I did enjoy seeing footage of him as a younger man, and at times the film was very emotional.
Portrait Werner Herzog (1986)

A short self portrait.

The Ball Is a Scumbag (Rudolph Herzog & Christian Weisenborn, 2000)
Herzog’s son documents a conversation between soccer coaching legend Rudi Gutendorf and Herzog.  Gutendorf is an extremely interesting man and his conversations about soccer and life are wonderful, however some of my favorite parts were when he remembers actor Klaus Kinski, Herzog’s close friend and sworn enemy. 
Ten Thousand Years Older (2001)

This was the only film that I saw that I had seen before.  It was part of a collection of shorts called The Trumpet.  It documents one of the last civilized tribes 20 years after they first came into contact with white men.  Many of their tribe were wiped out by the chicken pox and they are now all wearing baseball caps and Disney tshirts.  The best part of the film is the interviews with tribesmen about having sex with white women.

Part 2 to follow soon.  Check below for the amazing footage of Herzog being shot while doing an interview.

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