Werner Herzog is such a gratifying director to be getting into now. More and more of his movies and documentaries are coming out on DVD, and more critics are celebrating his work/influence. Roger Ebert, one of my favorite critics*, brought Herzog to my attention 2 or 3 years ago, but I didn’t really start getting into Herzog until Vice magazine published a series of interviews with Herzog this past fall.
If you’d like to start watching Herzog, this is my recommended viewing order:
- Grizzly Man – Though 5 years old now, and Herzog has released 5 features since it came out, this documentary’s technique of simultaneously exploring subject, Timothy Treadwell, and director, is a great introduction to Herzog’s methods in both his features and documentaries.
- Lessons of Darkness – This “documentary” on the Kuwaiti oil fires after the first Gulf War radically re-contextualizes documentary technique, twisting the desert landscape to reflect Herzog’s prejudices. Famously, Herzog shows his firefighters as animals, asking at one point: “Has life without fire become unbearable for them?”
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – The only non-documentary Herzog film I have watched all the way through. Although I am not sure how well it holds up to the fiction other critics might recommend, like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, I think the movie’s fantastic, and I personally enjoy it more than any of Herzog’s earlier non-documentary films.
* Shut up! I like his writing! Even though I don’t agree with a lot of what he says!