Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer review - master director's passionate idealism

[Doc Sportello]

With pop-culture brand recognition like no other auteur, he walks the walk and talks the talk … in that inimitable voice. Werner Herzog – film-maker, visionary, adventurer and first among equals of the New German cinema – is now the subject of a highly enjoyable new documentary from Thomas von Steinaecker, who has assembled an A-list gallery of interviewees to talk about knowing or working with the great man; these include Wim Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, Nicole Kidman, Chloé Zhao, Joshua Oppenheimer, Robert Pattinson and many more.

There’s something almost Wellesian or Hitchcockian in the way Herzog uses celebrity to keep getting pictures made, and his work rate is one of the marvellous things about him. Calling a film-maker a “dreamer” sounds hackneyed, but it does justice to his idealism. Perhaps no other description will do.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/16/werner-herzog-radical-dreamer-review-master-directors-passionate-idealism

Herzog breaks the mold in another way: he proves wrong the saying about never meeting your idols. I've been a big fan of him ever since I saw Stroszek back in the late 70s. I got a chance to meet him at a film festival and he was as gracious and open in person as he appears on tv and other interviews. I was just going to say how much I admired his work and then walk away, but he engaged me in conversation and asked me questions about my work. It was memorable for me. He does indeed walk the talk.