Herzog on Herzog

Herzog on Herzog is an invaluable career-spanning set of interviews with the legendary German filmmaker once hailed by François Truffaut as the most important director alive. Famous for his frequent collaborations with mercurial actor Klaus Kinski—including the epics Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, and the terrifying Nosferatu—Werner Herzog has built a body of work that is one of the most vital in post-war European cinema.

Most of what we think we know about Herzog is untrue: he is a director around whom a quite astonishing number of myths, rumors, and downright lies have accumulated. This book, offering innumerable insights into the making of his extraordinary films, also sets the record straight on the many controversies that have accomplished them. We learn of his adventures during the arduous production of Aguirre in the Peruvian jungle; of his casting of the previously institutionalized Bruno S. in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser; the hypnosis of the entire cast of Heart of Glass; his journey to an explosive volcanic Caribbean island to film La Soufrière; and his infamous dragging of a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo. Later chapters focus on his acclaim and unclassifiable "documentary" films, such as Lessons of Darkness, and Little Dieter Needs to Fly.

Herzog's place in cinema history is assured. Now Herzog on Herzog provides the definitive platform for his passionate, fascinating, and fiercely humorous views on the places, people and ideas that have preoccupied him across his career.