On the shuttle from the airport into Berlin I snapped some pictures as we passed Brandenburg Gate, Victory Column and the Television Tower. My hotel was just a few blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, so several times a day, as I made my way to and from Potsdamer Platz, I would walk over the brick-drawn lines in the sidewalk that mark the former location of the Berlin Wall. East into west, west into east—that and a meal with friends at Stadtklause, the pub where Bruno S. would perform with his accordion, satisfied whatever interest I had in playing tourist. Except for […]...
- 3/3/2020
- by Darren Hughes
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
On the shuttle from the airport into Berlin I snapped some pictures as we passed Brandenburg Gate, Victory Column and the Television Tower. My hotel was just a few blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, so several times a day, as I made my way to and from Potsdamer Platz, I would walk over the brick-drawn lines in the sidewalk that mark the former location of the Berlin Wall. East into west, west into east—that and a meal with friends at Stadtklause, the pub where Bruno S. would perform with his accordion, satisfied whatever interest I had in playing tourist. Except for […]...
- 3/3/2020
- by Darren Hughes
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Legendary director Werner Herzog, one of the founders of the German New Wave, whose films embrace obsessive quests and maddening conflicts with nature, will receive the American Society of Cinematographers’ Board of Governors Award at the 34th annual Asc Awards on January 25 (at Hollywood & Highland’s Ray Dolby Ballroom).
“Werner Herzog is truly a unique storyteller, and we are honored to recognize him for his prolific contributions to cinema,” said Asc President Kees van Oostrum.
Herzog has produced, written, and directed more than 70 feature and documentary films. His volatile, love-hate relationship with actor Klaus Kinski resulted in such powerful films as “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo,” “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” and “Woyzeck.” Other masterpieces include “Stroszek” and “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” both starring street musician-turned actor Bruno S.
Herzog received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for “Encounters at the End of the World,” while “Little Dieter Needs to Fly...
“Werner Herzog is truly a unique storyteller, and we are honored to recognize him for his prolific contributions to cinema,” said Asc President Kees van Oostrum.
Herzog has produced, written, and directed more than 70 feature and documentary films. His volatile, love-hate relationship with actor Klaus Kinski resulted in such powerful films as “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo,” “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” and “Woyzeck.” Other masterpieces include “Stroszek” and “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” both starring street musician-turned actor Bruno S.
Herzog received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for “Encounters at the End of the World,” while “Little Dieter Needs to Fly...
- 1/9/2020
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
A noticeable improvement over Adam Sandler’s previous three Netflix originals — in much the same way that a glass of Manischewitz is a noticeable improvement over drinking one of those ominous puddles that forms in the groove of a New York City subway seat — “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)” isn’t the wittiest or most exciting movie that Noah Baumbach has ever made, but it might just be the most humane.
Too familiar to stand out from Baumbach’s career, but too funny and textured and true to not be one of its highlights, “The Meyerowitz Stories” harkens back to the more savage and sprawling comedies that Baumbach made before he teamed up with Greta Gerwig (whose ebullient influence is noticeably absent from this material, if not always missing from it). Still, this even-handed, mutually destructively, and inextricably Jewish-American family saga marks a major departure for Baumbach in one...
Too familiar to stand out from Baumbach’s career, but too funny and textured and true to not be one of its highlights, “The Meyerowitz Stories” harkens back to the more savage and sprawling comedies that Baumbach made before he teamed up with Greta Gerwig (whose ebullient influence is noticeably absent from this material, if not always missing from it). Still, this even-handed, mutually destructively, and inextricably Jewish-American family saga marks a major departure for Baumbach in one...
- 5/21/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Mubi is showing Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana April 21 - May 20, 2016 in the United States.Fata MorganaI have a bone to pick with conventional wisdom about the films of Werner Herzog. You will often hear it said in a film class or a Herzog article that his body of work, which is acclaimed equally for fiction and documentary films, “blurs the line” between those two storytelling poles. To my knowledge, no filmmaker with as regarded a name as Herzog’s has such a voluminous body of work within the fiction and documentary bounds. Countless filmmakers have reached heights in both, but few have done it as consistently and repeatedly. Making Herzog rarer still are his other films (or sometimes just scenes in his films) which cast aspersions on this kind of talk that separates documentary and fiction as opposites meant to be mixed. The experimental works, of which the beguiling...
- 4/23/2016
- by Nate Fisher
- MUBI
Partycrashers is an on-going series of video dispatches from critics Michael Pattison and Neil Young.The first Notebook appearance of the legendary Berlin establishment named 'Stadtklause' ("city retreat") was in 2009, when I described it as "an unremarkable-looking pub where, some evenings, a certain 'Bruno S' can be found playing his accordion and singing old Berlin songs. If you've seen Werner Herzog's Stroszek, you will know whom and what I am talking about. Bruno S was the star of that movie, and also of Herzog's Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and for my money he's at least as important Herzog-collaborator as the rather better-known (and much-lamented) Klaus Kinski." Seven years later and Bruno S. is sadly no longer with us, but the Stadtklause remains. It's still a handy and unpretentious watering-hole on Bernburger Strasse near Anhalter Bahnhof, just a short walk from Potsdamer Platz, the grimly modernistic epicentre of the Berlinale...
- 3/7/2016
- by Neil Young
- MUBI
It is finally time to look at the second disc of the BFI collection box set. Hope you enjoyed part one and potentially found it useful. This time round, there are only two titles to devour. One being my personal favourite Herzog film, and the other being an example of his early television documentary work.
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
“Nothing lives less in me than my life”
Up until his late teens, Kaspar Hauser (Bruno S.) was locked in a cellar by a man in an overcoat and top hat. Devoid completely of any human contact aside from his mysterious captor, Kaspar had only a toy horse to occupy his time. One day however, Kaspar is finally released by the man, taught some very basic phrases, handed a letter and a Bible, and left in a town square in Nuremberg. Understandably, the locals are intrigued by this mysterious fellow...
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
“Nothing lives less in me than my life”
Up until his late teens, Kaspar Hauser (Bruno S.) was locked in a cellar by a man in an overcoat and top hat. Devoid completely of any human contact aside from his mysterious captor, Kaspar had only a toy horse to occupy his time. One day however, Kaspar is finally released by the man, taught some very basic phrases, handed a letter and a Bible, and left in a town square in Nuremberg. Understandably, the locals are intrigued by this mysterious fellow...
- 10/23/2014
- by Mondo Squallido
- Nerdly
Stroszek
Written an directed by Werner Herzog
Germany, 1977
You really can’t go wrong with any of the 16 titles included in Herzog: The Collection, the recently released limited edition Blu-ray set. This stunning compendium features several of the incomparable Werner Herzog’s finest fiction and documentary films (including many that fall somewhere between those categories), most available for the first time on Blu-ray. Though the strongest cases could be made for Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, it would be difficult to necessarily pick the “best” film included here, but one movie that has always stood out as being among Herzog’s most unusual is Stroszek, from 1977. Well received upon its release, and now recognized as one of the German filmmaker’s finest films, Stroszek is something of an enigma in Herzog’s career full of enigmatic works.
The picture follows three Berliners as they flee their homeland for...
Written an directed by Werner Herzog
Germany, 1977
You really can’t go wrong with any of the 16 titles included in Herzog: The Collection, the recently released limited edition Blu-ray set. This stunning compendium features several of the incomparable Werner Herzog’s finest fiction and documentary films (including many that fall somewhere between those categories), most available for the first time on Blu-ray. Though the strongest cases could be made for Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, it would be difficult to necessarily pick the “best” film included here, but one movie that has always stood out as being among Herzog’s most unusual is Stroszek, from 1977. Well received upon its release, and now recognized as one of the German filmmaker’s finest films, Stroszek is something of an enigma in Herzog’s career full of enigmatic works.
The picture follows three Berliners as they flee their homeland for...
- 8/20/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Werner Herzog's Stroszek is exactly what you'd expect from the eccentric filmmaker, which is to say it's somewhat inexplicable, entrancing, honest and leaves us scratching our heads for meaning as much as it all seems crystal clear. I've seen it referred to as a comedy and I guess if you consider the premise it does sound like one of those "a rabbi, a priest and a minister walk into a bar" jokes, but therein lies the mystery of Herzog, a man that will take a mildly retarded ex-con, a prostitute and an elderly German man and offer a scenario wherein the trio pack up, leave Germany and make a new home in Wisconsin. Makes perfect sense... rightc The film's origins are as wild, if not more so, than the premise. Herzog originally intended to cast his lead actor, Bruno S. (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), in Woyzeck only to...
- 7/2/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In discovering Bruno S., Werner Herzog found exactly the kind of actor he needs, someone who doesn't necessarily "act" in a role, but someone that more-or-less is the character he/she was hired to portray. In this case, the story of Bruno S. (full name Bruno Schleinstein) holds eerie similarities to the title character in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, a 19th century Germany-set story of a man who was locked away in a dungeon for the first 17 years or so of his life only to one day be found in a small town square outside Nuremberg, alone and holding only an anonymous letter. The film is based on a true story, though Herzog holds little allegiance to reality as he cast Bruno (as I'll refer to him throughout the rest of this review), a man in his forties portraying what history would tell us is only a boy in his late teens.
- 6/24/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
On the surface, Kumiko is fanciful. As portrayed by Rinko Kikuchi, the isolated, lonely lead character of David and Nathan Zellner’s epic Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter dons an oversized red hoodie, sports a messy cropped bob, has one friend — a bunny named Bunzo — and leaves Japan on a quest to a buried treasure. Specifically, the briefcase full of cash that she sees buried in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo after she finds a distorted VHS copy of the 1996 film. It could have easily devolved into whimsy, but on film, she’s a driven folk adventurer on a high stakes,...
- 1/22/2014
- by Lindsey Bahr
- EW - Inside Movies
With his latest, somber Public Service Announcement on the dangers of texting-while-driving, One Minute to the Next and the new T. E. Lawrence/Gertrude Bell project, Queen of the Desert on the way, there seems to be no sign of slowing down for 71-year old Werner Herzog. The Film Society of Lincoln Center however, is taking a breather by hosting a mini-retro of the early films of Werner Herzog: Parables of Folly and Madness. It is a rare opportunity to watch the prolific German filmmaker's 8 earlier films all in stunning 35mm. These timeless parables showcase Herzog's consistent, singular view on human existence. The retrospective includes Herzog's much celebrated collaborations with Klaus Kinski (Aguirre, Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo and Woyzeck), and Bruno S. (Enigma of Caspar...
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[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 8/15/2013
- Screen Anarchy
Werner Herzog's take on the story of a semi-feral youth who turned up in 19th-century Nuremberg stays true in fact and spirit with the casting of the unforgettable Bruno Schleinstein
Director: Werner Herzog
Entertainment grade: A
History grade: A–
In 1828, an unknown and semi-feral youth turned up in the German town of Nuremberg. He could barely speak or walk and could only write a name: Kaspar Hauser. The mystery made him a celebrity across Europe.
People
Werner Herzog's film begins precisely as Hauser himself described his origins, once he began to speak. He claimed to have been imprisoned in a cellar for his entire life, given bread and water and allowed no possessions apart from a wooden toy horse. Finally, a man appeared who taught him to say one sentence – "I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was" – and the word "horse". The man left him...
Director: Werner Herzog
Entertainment grade: A
History grade: A–
In 1828, an unknown and semi-feral youth turned up in the German town of Nuremberg. He could barely speak or walk and could only write a name: Kaspar Hauser. The mystery made him a celebrity across Europe.
People
Werner Herzog's film begins precisely as Hauser himself described his origins, once he began to speak. He claimed to have been imprisoned in a cellar for his entire life, given bread and water and allowed no possessions apart from a wooden toy horse. Finally, a man appeared who taught him to say one sentence – "I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was" – and the word "horse". The man left him...
- 8/15/2013
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Rereleased to tie in with a two-month retrospective at BFI Southbank, it's been almost forty years since Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) debuted on screens. Although a little obtuse and raggedy at times, this beguiling and fable-like yarn sits within his finest work. Loosely based on a real-life tale, the film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno Schleinstein) who has spent the first seventeen years of his life chained up like an animal in a confined, grotty cellar. One day, the young man is mysteriously released into captivity, taught some phrases and how to walk, and taken to the town of Nuremberg.
Unsurprisingly, Hauser's looked upon as a genuine curio by the inquisitive townsfolk, and finds himself being entered into the freak show of a travelling circus, before a kindly Professor Daumer (Walter Ladengast) adopts him. Under close scrutiny from the authorities, Hauser appears to be a savant of sorts.
Unsurprisingly, Hauser's looked upon as a genuine curio by the inquisitive townsfolk, and finds himself being entered into the freak show of a travelling circus, before a kindly Professor Daumer (Walter Ladengast) adopts him. Under close scrutiny from the authorities, Hauser appears to be a savant of sorts.
- 7/4/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Uh-oh. Today is 10/10/10. That sounds binarily ominous…
Bill Plympton’s latest animated feature Idiots & Angels opened in New York this week, so there are a bunch of links about him this week. First, we have the New York Times review by longtime reviewer Stephen Holden who says the film is Plympton’s “best animated feature.” Plympton wrote an article for Truly Free Film chastising people for not considering animation a mature art form. IndieWire has a nice profile on Plympton and had the animator write a few words about himself. Zedura Magazine also has a long interview with Plympton. Paul Pritchard at Pulp Movies gives a glowing 4 star review to Carlos Atanes’ Maximum Shame. Pritchard and I agree: Great film, but difficult to write about. Very challenging work by Spain’s Atanes. Chicago’s Gapers Block interviews co-directors Brian Ashby, Ben Kolak and Courtney Prokopas of Scrappers, which won the...
Bill Plympton’s latest animated feature Idiots & Angels opened in New York this week, so there are a bunch of links about him this week. First, we have the New York Times review by longtime reviewer Stephen Holden who says the film is Plympton’s “best animated feature.” Plympton wrote an article for Truly Free Film chastising people for not considering animation a mature art form. IndieWire has a nice profile on Plympton and had the animator write a few words about himself. Zedura Magazine also has a long interview with Plympton. Paul Pritchard at Pulp Movies gives a glowing 4 star review to Carlos Atanes’ Maximum Shame. Pritchard and I agree: Great film, but difficult to write about. Very challenging work by Spain’s Atanes. Chicago’s Gapers Block interviews co-directors Brian Ashby, Ben Kolak and Courtney Prokopas of Scrappers, which won the...
- 10/10/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski on the set of Cobra Verde Top Ten Werner Herzog Films
The films of Werner Herzog haunt that hazy corridor between dream and reality, where madness and the true nature of the universe lurk. They're surreal, but not by any of the boiler-plate attributes we associate with head-trip cinema. They're horrific, but never by cheap shocks. They're beautiful, but not in a painterly sense. Each one is a tone poem searching for both new images and what Herzog calls the "ecstatic truth," a blending of fact and fiction for a higher cause. There's a uniqueness to his films that's unforgettable.
I not only admire Herzog's films, I admire the man behind them. Herzog's fearlessness is fascinating. He's an artist who risks it all to get "the shot." Studio backlot shooting is not an option. His obsessive, nearly self-destructive need to film in the hottest of...
The films of Werner Herzog haunt that hazy corridor between dream and reality, where madness and the true nature of the universe lurk. They're surreal, but not by any of the boiler-plate attributes we associate with head-trip cinema. They're horrific, but never by cheap shocks. They're beautiful, but not in a painterly sense. Each one is a tone poem searching for both new images and what Herzog calls the "ecstatic truth," a blending of fact and fiction for a higher cause. There's a uniqueness to his films that's unforgettable.
I not only admire Herzog's films, I admire the man behind them. Herzog's fearlessness is fascinating. He's an artist who risks it all to get "the shot." Studio backlot shooting is not an option. His obsessive, nearly self-destructive need to film in the hottest of...
- 9/20/2010
- by David Frank
- Rope of Silicon
Presumably, Werner Herzog needs no introduction. Like an atmospheric phenomenon or a law of physics, the German filmmaker has been some kind of constant for over more than four decades of world cinema. That he continues to be a major presence in the world of film -- churning out both documentaries and narrative features with supernatural regularity - certainly speaks to his uncompromising nature. But it also speaks to his adaptability - the same guy who made deranged German jungle adventures with Klaus Kinski is now making deranged American cop flicks with Nicolas Cage.
With the upcoming DVD release of his striking, impossibly strange thriller "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done," in which Michael Shannon plays an actor whose experiences with the far edge of civilization cause him to go mad and kill his mother with a sword, Herzog continues his exploration of the ways that myth and...
With the upcoming DVD release of his striking, impossibly strange thriller "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done," in which Michael Shannon plays an actor whose experiences with the far edge of civilization cause him to go mad and kill his mother with a sword, Herzog continues his exploration of the ways that myth and...
- 9/2/2010
- by Bilge Ebiri
- ifc.com
Actor and musician known as Bruno S, chosen by Werner Herzog to play social misfits in his films
Werner Herzog is a singular film director, drawn to bizarre characters and situations in strange surroundings, with a preoccupation with outsiders who refuse to conform to a limited social structure. So it was not surprising that he was drawn to Bruno Schleinstein, known and credited only as Bruno S, who has died of heart failure aged 78. Even if one had no idea of Bruno's history, one could not fail to sense that there was something extra-artistic in his performances in the title roles of the two films he made with Herzog: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für Sich und Gott Gegen Alle, 1974) and Stroszek (1977). With his jerky gestures, staccato speech and staring eyes, there seemed to be a thin line between the actor and the characters.
Bruno S, who never knew who his father was,...
Werner Herzog is a singular film director, drawn to bizarre characters and situations in strange surroundings, with a preoccupation with outsiders who refuse to conform to a limited social structure. So it was not surprising that he was drawn to Bruno Schleinstein, known and credited only as Bruno S, who has died of heart failure aged 78. Even if one had no idea of Bruno's history, one could not fail to sense that there was something extra-artistic in his performances in the title roles of the two films he made with Herzog: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für Sich und Gott Gegen Alle, 1974) and Stroszek (1977). With his jerky gestures, staccato speech and staring eyes, there seemed to be a thin line between the actor and the characters.
Bruno S, who never knew who his father was,...
- 8/22/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
So I'm bumping around the Web this morning looking for any morsel of sustenance in the Great News Drought of 2010 when I learn that the one and only Bruno S. died late last week. You know: Bruno S.? Berlin street musician and Werner Herzog's haunted, haunting leading man from Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Strozsek? Oh. Well, the only thing more troubling than arriving almost five days late to the news is that I had to hear it from Sasha Grey. Via Twitter.
- 8/16/2010
- Movieline
The heart of 78-year-old actor, painter and musician Bruno Schleinstein has failed him, reports the German Press Agency. From the Wikipedia entry: "Schleinstein was spotted by director Werner Herzog in the documentary Bruno der Schwarze - Es blies ein Jäger wohl in sein Horn (1970). Herzog promptly cast Schleinstein (under the name Bruno S.) as his lead actor in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), though he had no acting experience. Schleinstein also starred in Stroszek (1977), which Herzog wrote especially for him in four days. Stroszek has a number of biographical details from Schleinstein's life, including the use of his own flat as the home of Bruno Stroszek. He also plays his own instruments." The entry links to some of Schleinstein's drawings and Polaroids.
Rumsey Taylor at Not Coming to a Theater Near You on Kaspar Hauser: "Despite its fiction there is a reality that underlines the film's every scene. This...
Rumsey Taylor at Not Coming to a Theater Near You on Kaspar Hauser: "Despite its fiction there is a reality that underlines the film's every scene. This...
- 8/15/2010
- MUBI
I had in mind to write about something else this week, but our new software platform for the blog was acting up (as you might have noticed), and in the meantime I received an intriguing communication from a reader, the art critic Daniel Quiles, about Werner Herzog. Yes, there has been a lot about Herzog on the site recently, but in my mind there can never be too much. He and a few other directors keep the movies vibrating for me. Not every movie needs to vibrate, but unless a few do, the thrill is gone.
Herzog seems to react strongly to subjects he wants to make a film about. You never hear him saying someone "brought me a project," or his agent sent him a screenplay. Every one of his films is in some sense autobiographical: It is about what consumed him at that moment. The form of the film might be fiction,...
Herzog seems to react strongly to subjects he wants to make a film about. You never hear him saying someone "brought me a project," or his agent sent him a screenplay. Every one of his films is in some sense autobiographical: It is about what consumed him at that moment. The form of the film might be fiction,...
- 7/20/2008
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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