“Is
there such a thing as insanity among penguins?” The question is one of many,
just as striking, that legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog has posed through his
work. The Montgomery Fellow returned to Dartmouth last month for a five-day
residency, the highlights of which included a memorable presentation Wednesday, September
18 in Spaulding Auditorium that I was lucky enough to attend.
A
landmark of the New German Cinema—although he prefers “Bavarian Cinema”—and the
creative force behind over 60 films, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo
and Nosferatu and documentaries such
as Grizzly Man, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog presented a reel of
clips from his work and sat down with Film and Media Studies Associate
Professor Jeffrey Ruoff for an onstage conversation followed by an audience
Q&A session.
Introduced
by Ruoff as “one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, working at the height of
his creative powers,” Herzog’s long and varied career eludes classification.
The writer-director-producer sees thematic unity in his films, provided by the
“common denominator of the universe: chaos, hostility and murder.”
