Werner Herzog – Radical Dreamer

Those who want to get to know the man behind such film classics as ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’ and ‘Fitzcarraldo’ will enjoy Thomas von Steinacker's portrait of Werner Herzog, ‘the last German Romantic’. An exhaustive portrait of a man who still wonders like a child, like a poet—and manages to capture that wonder with his camera—this memorable chronicle gets beneath the surface of this cult idol for whom filming and living are one. For Herzog, making films is a nosedive into the unknown, a process in which you become aware that behind the everydayness of things there is a deeper truth that can be horrifyingly beautiful, terrifying, or moving.

‘“Werner Herzog – Radical Dreamer” is slow-paced, though that only adds to the dream quality of the filmmaker’s surreal imagery and statements. It’s nice hearing from his perspective because his words are often poetic and deep… You just have to sit back and enjoy the dream and the dreamer for the wild ride they bring you on. Fans will appreciate the retrospective, while the uninitiated will be taken by the subject’s eccentricity.’—Jason Delgado, Film Threat