Unlike their counterparts in the French New Wave, the primary filmmakers of the New German Cinema (Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, and Werner Herzog) always managed to transcend their time and place, establishing themselves as auteurs not immediately associated with a particular movement. Werner Herzog, in particular, stands apart as a filmmaker of startling independence. His role as a major figure in the New Wave that revived European filmmaking in the 60s and 70s is easily obscured by his intense (and infamous) personality and work ethic—even his most extreme peers seem light by comparison.

             Undoubtedly, Herzog has a penchant for precarious shoots and treats filmmaking as a kind of extreme sport. He has climbed impassable mountains and braved volcanoes to capture shots when other directors would have relied on special effects. He has threatened his actors at gunpoint and endangered the lives of his crew members; he has personally faced death numerous times throughout his directorial career. He has repeatedly relied on non-actors in his films, sometimes casting mentally challenged and socially handicapped individuals in key roles.

             At age 13 he shared an apartment with his future collaborator, Klaus Kinski, a paranoid-schizophrenic who regularly threw violent tantrums in the home. At age 15 he wrote and won an award for his first screenplay. At age 19 he worked in a steel factory to fund his first film and later stole a 35 mm camera from a film school in Munich (or so the legend goes) for his third film. At age 24 he shot his first feature-length film, Signs of Life, which went on to win the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

             If he were a lesser talent, his persona would threaten to overwhelm the impact of his films.

             This is decidedly not the case, though Herzog’s uniqueness makes his cinematic kinship hard to place. He is usually cited as the heir of German giants F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang; his influence can be seen among young filmmakers in South America and the Middle East, yet, Herzog sits uneasily among his peers. Perhaps Herzog’s closest cinematic equivalent is Stanley Kubrick, the great American director of 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film as Herzogian as it is Kubrickian). And like Kubrick, Herzog’s genius is protean while remaining unmistakably himself.

             In fact, it would seem that Herzog and Kubrick share an intense visionary streak. They are both interested in humanity’s view of itself, which they often set ironically against a bleak and sober portrayal of humanity’s true nature. They share an obsession with human violence: subtle references to the great 20th century wars and genocide pepper their work. They both seem fascinated with human eyes (dead and shark-like in Kubrick, wild and bestial in Herzog). Even the contrasts between them illuminate their kinship: Kubrick portrays humankind’s troubling future, while Herzog grapples with its troubling heritage. Where Kubrick is cold and cerebral, Herzog is hot and visceral.

             Obvious barriers have prevented Herzog from enjoying a success comparable to Kubrick’s. Most of Herzog’s major films are in German. His films rarely feature prominent or established actors. And although Kubrick worked between several genres throughout his career, he never shifted as often as Herzog between fiction and the least commercially viable of all genres: documentary filmmaking.

             Ironically, Herzog’s most recognized and accepted film to date may be his 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man, which has exposed many to the works of Werner Herzog for the first time.

             The diversity of the Herzog canon can be overwhelming, and many may wonder how to proceed. Herzog has made fifty-two individual films in his career, and even to limit oneself to the films available on DVD is daunting. Now, for anyone interested in further exploring the major works of Herzog, I offer the following itinerary of twelve films:

Augirre, The Wrath Of God
(1972)

There is no better place to begin a journey through Herzog than the opening shots of his masterpiece, the story of a 16th century Spanish expedition into South America. Augirre is Herzog’s first film with Klaus Kinski, who gives his greatest performance as the title character, a crazed conquistador in search of El Dorado. The film highlights one of Herzog’s key images: mad human ambition set against the cruel ambivalence of nature, as if every Herzog hero is a variation of Captain Ahab.

Fitzcarraldo
(1982)

A companion piece to Augirre, and its equal on almost every level, Fitzcarraldo is the true story of a 19th century Irish businessman who dreamed of building an opera house in the Amazon. During the production, Herzog forced his crew to drag a full-scale steamboat up a mountain (as the real Fitzcarraldo had done) and ride it down the other side. The result was one of the most infamous film shoots in history, but the finished product is haunting and beautiful.

Burden Of Dreams
(1982)

This documentary, directed by Les Blank, is a logical conclusion to Augirre and Fitzcarraldo. It details the tumultuous production of Fitzcarraldo and provides key insight into Herzog’s philosophy and methods. Bonus Feature: Les Blank’s Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. Herzog challenged aspiring filmmaker Erroll Morris (The Fog of War) that if Morris finished his first film, Herzog would eat his own shoe. When Herzog made good on the promise, Blank was there with a camera. The film reveals a thoughtful, chatty Herzog.

Even Dwarves Started Small
(1970)

A bizarre but representative early Herzog film, Even Dwarves Started Small is the tale of a mutiny at a mental institution set on a small island featuring only dwarves. Not a film for the easily disturbed, it nonetheless brings into focus almost all the key images and motifs that Herzog will revisit throughout his career: wheels; vehicles and objects senselessly spinning in circles; animals defecating; chickens (Herzog’s childhood terror); and long, awkward takes.

Stroszek
(1977)

With many of his films set in the Western hemisphere and several English-language features, Herzog is as much an American as he is a German filmmaker. Stroszek is his great American film, and features Bruno S, a mentally handicapped non-actor discovered in an asylum by Herzog. The film deals with the peculiar struggles of unique German immigrants in the American Midwest. Obsessed with what Roger Ebert described as “the voodoo of location,” Herzog chose to shoot Stroszek in the Wisconsin hometown of serial killer Ed Gein. The film doesn’t deal directly with Gein (a murder is only briefly mentioned), but a sense of decay and horror permeate the whole fabric of this disturbing comic-tragedy.

Heart Of Glass
(1976)

This slow, meditative, terrifying film is the story of a small 19th century German community whose economy collapses after their resident glass-maker dies and takes his secret techniques to the grave. The most beautiful of Herzog’s period pieces, Heart of Glass is also famous for the strange details of its production: Herzog reportedly hypnotized all his actors during the shoot, a rumor seemingly substantiated by the film’s hypnotic quality. Heart of Glass concludes with a bizarre voyage to the edge of the world, one of Herzog’s most memorable and haunting endings.

Land Of Silence And Darkness
(1971)

Herzog’s greatest documentary, Land of Silence and Darkness reveals the often overlooked humaneness (if not quite optimism) that underlies most of his films. Examining the lives of deaf-blind Germans, the film details their fears, hopes, and daily activities. Dividing itself between individuals who were born deaf-blind and those who developed the condition later in life, Land of Silence and Darkness remains one of the most profound and moving documentaries ever made.

Every Man For Himself and God Against All: The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974)

The title seems to describe Herzog’s whole ethos, yet this film belies its title by expressing remarkable faith in humanity. Kasper Hauser is the strange, true story of a young man who arrived mysteriously one day in a small German town, fully-grown and unable to speak or socialize. He was trained to be a dutiful citizen and became something of a celebrity in 19th century Germany. Bruno S plays the title role in one of the best performances in cinema.

Nosferatu, Phantom of the Night
(1979)

I do not know whether one should see Murnau’s silent Nosferatu before watching Herzog’s. This remake is spiritually connected to the original (even using many of the same locations) but stands on its own as a remarkable film. Coupled with Murnau’s film, Phantom of the Night is a meditation on German cinema and heritage—on its own, it is one of the greatest vampire movies ever made.

Grizzly Man
(2005)

Much has been made of Grizzly Man’s moral argument: Timothy Treadwell’s fanatically optimistic environmentalism clashing with Herzog’s darker views of the cosmos. Herzog has spent his career presenting those views, and he generously allots Treadwell the majority of the film to make his case (tempered by the posthumous understanding that Treadwell’s beliefs ultimately killed him). But Herzog never cedes total control of the film, and Grizzly Man remains quintessential Herzog: a grand tragedy of man in nature.

The White Diamond
(2004)

The yin to Grizzly Man’s yang, The White Diamond may be Herzog’s most humane, optimistic, and spiritual film. Set in the rain forests of Guyana, the documentary follows an ambitious British aviator as he builds a zeppelin meant for photographing the elusive wonders of the canopy. Numerous other elusive wonders make their way into the film, wandering on and off the screen as Herzog carries several threads haphazardly toward a brilliant and peaceful conclusion.

Invincible
(2001)

Of the great filmmakers of the New German Cinema, Herzog is the most firmly rooted in the traditions of German music, literature, cinema, and philosophy. But unlike Wenders, Fassbinder, or Schlöndorff, Herzog never dealt directly with the German experience in the 20th century—Nazism and the subsequent division of Germany did not traditionally appear in his films. This changed with Invincible, a troubling film that directly confronts issues to which Herzog usually only alludes. The film is troubling because it is as evasive as it is direct—the actors are not German and do not speak German, yet the film is shot in Berlin and set in the 1930s. It tells the story (once again, based on fact) of a Jewish strongman who works a circus sideshow for the chief clairvoyant of the Third Reich. The central concern is, of course, the Holocaust. Genocide is a reoccurring but usually silent motif in the films of Herzog (a German) and Kubrick (a Jew). Invincible is as close as Herzog comes to confronting the theme head-on, yet veers away at the end, perhaps wisely. The final image of the film is powerful, and the closest Herzog may ever come to portraying the Holocaust. The crimes of the Nazis and the great tragedies of the 20th century are the central, silent theme in Herzog’s canon: in his films, human ambition leads inevitably toward destruction, whether through its own sheer force or the cruel apathy of nature.