The Worlds of Werner Herzog in Events on DFGDocs – The British Documentary Website

The Worlds of Werner Herzog

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Summary

A mini-season of films from the incomparable director

Full description

Since the start of his film career in the mid 1960s, director Werner Herzog has taken his own, very personal journey through a range of themes, characters and locations to create a filmography that is like no one else's. Having made almost 50 features and documentaries, the director's profile is currently the highest it's been since the 1970s, thanks to two relatively mainstream recent films - the documentary Grizzly Man and the new Christian Bale action-adventure Rescue Dawn. However, that populist pair offers only a glimpse at what he's been up to lately: this small season of recent work shows you more of the world through Werner's eyes.

For dates see below. Screening times can be found on the ICA website.

9, 10, 14, 17th, 19th, 28th June

Grizzly Man
Using footage shot firsthand by his subject, Herzog pieces together the story of Timothy Treadwell, an animal rights activist who for 13 summers lived in the Alaskan wild with grizzly bears as his main companions. A fascinating portrait of obsession, that extends out from the personal to become a disquieting exploration of mankind’s uneasy relationship with the natural world.
USA 2005, 103 mins

10th, 16th 21, 30h June

Fitzcarraldo
Herzog’s legendary film about one man’s quest to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. A film about obsession became an obsession in itself, with the director and his crew transporting a real 340-tonne steamship over a mountain while dealing with leading man Klaus Kinski’s violent rages.
Germany 1982, 158 mins, subtitles

15th – 21st June, Cinema 1
22nd – 28th June, 1st July, Cinema 2

The Wild Blue Yonder
A lyrical, haunting and amusing trip through outer- and inner-space, with Herzog assembling NASA footage, beautiful underwater photography, interviews and archive film to tell the twin stories of alien migration to Earth and humanity’s own attempt to find a hospitable alternative home.
UK/US/Germany 2005, 81 mins

16th, 18th, 23rd, 26th June

Wheel of Time
A patient and beautifully observed documentary, with Herzog following the key Buddhist ritual, the Kalachakra Initiation, in which Tibetan Buddhist monks are ordained. The film travels with pilgrims as they make their way on foot to the holy spot of Mount Kailash before ending up in an exhibition hall in Graz, Austria with the final sweeping away of the intricate sacred mandala that gives the film its name.
Germany 2003, 81 mins, subtitles

17th, 20th, 22nd, 24th, 25th, 30th June

Little Dieter Needs To Fly
A deceptively simple portrait of Dieter Dengler, a German fighter pilot serving in the US Air Force when he was shot down over Laos in 1966 and forced to survive as a POW. Herzog takes Dengler back to the jungles of south-east Asia to re-live his harrowing experiences, including a daring escape attempt. This is one of Herzog’s most direct and compelling films, and formed the basis of his recent feature film Rescue Dawn, in which Christian Bale played Dengler.
France/UK/Germany 1997, 80 mins, some subtitles

21st; 23rd, 24th, 25th, 27th; 30th June; 1st July

The White Diamond
Herzog lifts off in a specially-built airship that floats high above a remote Guyanese rainforest in an attempt to locate rare animal and plant-life. Although the rapturous imagery means that the main character is the tropical canopy itself, the film also spends a lot of time with the airship’s inventor Graham Dorrington and diamond miner Mary Anthony Yhap. With Herzog acting as a typically curious but removed guide, this combination of images, characters, places and ideas makes for one of the director’s most fascinating and thrilling films.
Germany 2004, 90 mins, subtitles

Tickets:
£8 / £7 Concessions / £6 ICA Members

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