Within hours - there was surge of hits on my personal web site (http://www.julianayrs.com/) - from far-flung locales overseas such as Germany, the Netherlands, and England as die-hard fans scoured the web site for delicious tidbits of news to gobble up!
Post: 07/30/09
http://ijulian.blogspot.com/2009/07/werner-herzogto-sign-conquest-offering.html
Now that it has been announced that Mr. Herzog will head up the Jury at the much-anticipated annual Berlin Film Festival, I expect there will be more frenzied searches to pin down the man-of-the-hour.
Berlin Film Festival: Feb. 11 thru Feb. 21
Herzog was born in Munich to Dietrich Herzog and Elizabeth Stipetic.
When he just a boy, his parents elected to reside in a tiny Bavarian Village in the Chiemgau Alps (Sachrang) for a duration of a dozen years or so, until their eventual migration back to big city environs (Munich) where Hezog was undoubtedly impacted at a tender age.
Although Herzog has tended to focus on feature film projects over his illustrious five-decade-long career, he is also known as a keen documentarian.
The respected director is known for using people from the locality in which he is shooting - to ultimately - benefit from what he refers to an "ecstatic truth" (accomplished by having his subjects play themselves).
Intriguing!
Herzog's first major award was the "Silver Bear" for his first feature film "Signs of Life".
Another Werner classic - Nosferatu the Vampyre - was nominated for a Golden Bear (1979).
Prior to those honors, Herzog won a "Special Jury Prize" award for "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" (known as the prestigious Silver Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975.
Other films directed by Herzog which were nominated for Golden Palm Awards include offerings such as "Woyzeck" and the much-loved "Where the Green Ants Dream".
Other world-renowned film festivals gave Herzog the nod, too, over the years: the César Awards (Aguirre, The Wrath of God), the Emmy Awards (Little Dieter Needs to Fly), the European Film Awards (My Best Fiend) and the Venice Film Festival (Scream of Stone and The Wild Blue Yonder).
To name a precious few!
The down-to-earth gutsy director has quite a sense of humor, too.
For example - he once vowed to eat his shoe if filmmaker Errol Morris completed the movie project on pet cemeteries that he had been working on - in order to motivate and inspire Morris who appeared to be dragging his feet un-necessarily on the project.
In 1978 when the film "Gates of Heaven" premiered - true to his word - Werner Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe.
Later, the highly-publicized shenanigans were incorporated into a short documentary:
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (by Les Blank)
With tongue firmly in cheek, Herzog expressed the hope that the symbolic act would serve to encourage anyone ever having difficulty completing a project, and then some.
In recent months, his off-beat sensibilities reared their ugly head once again when he noted at one Q & A session, that he was inclined to title his new feature "Bad Lieutenant" (starring Nicolas Cage) the "Bad Ass" Lieutenant instead (because it suited his wicked side to do so).
No matter what career path Herzog heads down in the future, it sure will be a joy to go along for the ride!
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