Herzog: even reading lists started small
Detail from the film poster for Fitzcarraldo (1982)
A selection of 10 English language items held at the bfi National Library which complemented the Werner Herzog season at the NFT.
This list has been produced to support further study of Herzog's work; it has some additional annotation to the version on the NFT programme notes.
Australian Film Institute. Herzog: transcript of a discussion... at the AFI's Longford cinema, Melbourne, 1983. The discussion ranges across a number of his films, with familiar themes (dreams; history; myth; Kinski) emerging; he also talks a bit about television, and about using music in films.
Blank, Les & Bogan, James (eds). Burden of Dreams. Screenplay, journals, reviews, photographs. North Atlantic Books, 1984. Particularly useful for the diaries kept by Herzog and others, and the various essays, all (of course) relating to Fitzcarraldo.
Carroll, Noel. Interpreting the moving Image. Cambridge University Press, 1998. (for the chapter:Herzog, Presence and Paradox).
Cheesman, Tom. Apocalpse Nein Danke - the fall of Werner Herzog (chapter in Green Thought in German Culture, by Colin Riordan). University of Wales Press, 1997. The writer attempts to defend Herzog against the charges of being an eco-criminal that have often been levelled against him especially regarding Fitzcarraldo.
Corrigan, Timothy (ed). The films of Werner Herzog - between mirage and history. Methuen, 1986. Still the standard English language work, but limited by the publication date. A collection of essays, the films Land of Silence and darkness and Heart of Glass are amongst those featured.
Elsaesser, Thomas (ed). The bfi Companion to German Cinema. bfi 1999. This is included in order to provide some context to Herzog's work in the broader canon of New German cinema and also in the context of German cinema generally.
Kinski, Klaus. Kinski Uncut, the autobiography, translated by Joachim Neugroschel. Bloomsbury 1996. Fairly stream-of-consciousness and bawdy writings, but at least there is an index to get you to the Herzog related pieces.
Klawans, Stuart. Film Follies: the cinema out of order. Cassell, 1999. (A book about going too far...) This focuses on the film Fitzcarraldo.
Norman, Neil. Audiotape of NFT stage interview with Werner Herzog, 1988. Cobra Verde was much on Herzog's mind,and of course he talks about Kinski, as well as storytelling, dreaming, the press, opera, poetry and much much more...
Rentschler, Eric (ed). West German film-makers on film: visions and voices. Holmes & Meier, 1988. (for Herzog's fulsome tribute to Lotte Eisner).
There are actually 30+ relevant books, numerous newspaper cuttings and 300+ journal references on our SIFT database, in various European languages available in the bfi National Library's collection.
