Werner Herzog Biography
Werner Herzog (1942 - ) was born in 1942 in Munich, Germany. With Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, Herzog led the influential post-war West German film movement. During his youth, Herzog studied history, literature and music in Munich and at the University of Pittsburgh and traveled extensively in Mexico, Great Britain, Greece and Sudan. Herakles (1962) was one of his first short films, and Lebenszeichen (1967; Signs of Life) was his first feature film. He became famous for working with small budgets and for writing and producing his own films. Herzog's films, usually set in distinct and unfamiliar landscapes, are steeped in mysticism. Later in his career Herzog focused primarily on documentaries, including Glocken aus der Tiefe (1995; "Bells from the Deep"), which examines religious beliefs among Russians, and Grizzly Man (2005), an account of Timothy Treadwell, an American who studied and lived among grizzly bears in Alaska, but was mauled to death along with his girlfriend. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) centers on a German-American pilot shot down in the jungle during the Vietnam War; the story inspired Herzog's narrative film Rescue Dawn (2007). His latest documentaries include Encounters at the End of the World (2007), which highlights the beauty of Antarctica; Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), which explores in 3-D the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet Cave in France; and Into the Abyss (2011), a dark examination of a Texas murder case. Herzog's other narrative films include Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), a drama about a police officer (played by Nicolas Cage) struggling with drug and gambling addiction, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) and Queen of the Desert (2014) with Nicole Kidman, James Franco and Damian Lewis.
