Heart of Glass

Legendary as the film in which Herzog hypnotized nearly his entire cast to help create a trancelike, detached aura, Heart of Glass fittingly tells the story of a nineteenth-century German town whose inhabitants have lost touch with the technique of making their famous glassworks. With no past, there is little future: what follows is a nearly abstract vision of desolation, boasting some of Herzog’s most remarkable images. “It should be approached like a piece of music, in which we comprehend everything in terms of mood and aura, and know how it makes us feel even if we can’t say what it makes us think” (Roger Ebert).