Werner Herzog
Sun 24.11.
18:00
Cinema
Arsenal 1
According to Werner Herzog, his interest in self-written and -delivered commentaries that have since become his trademark began with the two medium-length documentaries DIE GROSSE EKSTASE DES BILDSCHNITZERS STEINER (1974) und LA SOUFRIÈRE – WARTEN AUF EINE UNAUSWEICHLICHE KATASTROPHE (1977).
Director
Werner Herzog
FRG / 1974
45 min.
/ 16 mm
/ Original version with English subtitles
Original language
German
In his portrait of Swiss ski jumper Walter Steiner, Herzog still appears in front of the camera as a sort of sports reporter in order to express his enthusiasm for the extreme sportsperson: “for me, the greatest ski jumper that has ever existed” (WH). How little separates fascination and risk is shown through Steiner’s jumps and falls on the Yugoslavian ski jumping resort of Planica.
Director
Werner Herzog
FRG / 1977
31 min.
/ 16 mm
/ Original version
Original language
English and French
In LA SOUFRIÈRE, Herzog enters great danger himself, or at least that’s what his “report” of the upcoming eruption of a volcano on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe says, as one of the first intertitles is labelled. Ghostly images of an evacuated town, streets empty of people, tree-covered mountains, steam rising from the gaps in the rock and thick fog meet Herzog’s commentary, which is now spoken entirely in voiceover, moving verbally ever closer to the edge of the crater both literal and figuratively before moving back again. (mg)
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