Saturday, April 19, 2008

Werner Herzog's wild world

Werner Herzog directing Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn
Herzog directs Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn

The director's passion for film-making has taken him from tropical jungles to the Antarctic, he tells Marc Lee

  • In pictures: Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn
  • Werner Herzog is one of the great visionaries of modern cinema. His films are strange, daring and tinged with a kind of madness, a madness that the director seemingly shares with his subjects. His shoots are never easy, largely because he chooses to tell stories - or record real life - in the most extreme environments on earth.

    The films for which he is best-known illustrate the point perfectly. In Fitzcarraldo (1982), a European adventurer decides to build an opera house in the South American jungle, a task that involves lugging a 350-ton steamboat over a mountain - so Herzog did exactly that with the help of local tribesmen.

    His most successful feature documentary, Grizzly Man (2005), charts the bizarre life of a social misfit hell-bent on befriending wild bears who is then eaten by them. Location: remotest Alaska.

    Then it was back to the jungle - this time in hot, humid Thailand - for his latest drama, Rescue Dawn, based on the experiences of an American fighter pilot shot down and captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War.


    Rescue Dawn

    Most recently, he got as far from the tropics as possible by travelling to Antarctica's howling snowscapes for the documentary Encounters at the End of the World... [article continues, Telegraph, 12/4/2008]

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