When I began Project Herzog, my deep-dive into every film ever made by Werner Herzog, I was naively hopeful that maybe my attempt would outlast the coronavirus. Alas, it's pretty clear to me now that "going back to normal this fall" isn't going to happen. It might in Korea, with its robust tracing program, but I don't see it happening in the US or UK, not by a long shot.
Anyhow, I'm running into a bit of problem as I reach the "hidden gem / thankfully forgotten" phase of things. YouTube is pretty generous with material, especially some of the early, short experiments that I figured I might never find. Strangely though, even some of Herzog's relatively recent feature films have been really difficult to find. (Thankfully, some might say.)
There have also been a few films where I couldn't find a set of English close captions. This is actually not as big of a deal as I once thought, because one of my theories is that Herzog's main theme is the excruciating difficulty, if not impossibility, of genuine human communication. (I speak no German, obviously.)
My students will be taking their final exams in two weeks (very late, I know) but I do have some spare time this weekend to push though on my final assault to the peak of Mount Werner. It's been worthwhile, but I'm also confident in saying that there are more than a handful of his projects that you can avoid and still live the happiest of lives. I am eager to point them out!
And there are definitely a few obscurities that you should deal with, warzen and all. I think that's the main goal here, but I will have a little something to say about each and every work I was able to watch.
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