Infinite Horizons: The Films of Werner Herzog

November 9, 2023–February 2024

German filmmaker Werner Herzog joins us November 9–12 for the launch of this major retrospective, which continues into 2024. Herzog’s great facility for storytelling (he writes nearly all of his screenplays) and his fascination with eccentric characters, whose lives and endeavors he observes, allow him to illuminate the human condition in his narrative and nonfiction films.

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  • Aguirre, the Wrath of God, © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek

  • Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

  • Family Romance, LLC

  • The White Diamond, © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek

  • Fitzcarraldo, © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek

  • Lessons of Darkness, © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Upcoming Films

  • Signs of Life

    Werner Herzog
    West Germany, 1968
    Thursday, November 9 4:30 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Werner Herzog’s breakthrough film garnered a special jury award at the Berlinale and this appraisal at the New York Film Festival: “A strange, intense work . . . influenced by Borges and Kafka. The hypnotic probing of cruelty, indifference, and unspoken horrors becomes a metaphysical comment on man and his ideologies.”

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  • Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

    Werner Herzog
    United States, 2009
    Thursday, November 9 7:30 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Bad Lieutenant benefits from Werner Herzog’s fearless direction and a delightfully unhinged Nicolas Cage, who brings a manic energy and humor to his performance. It is Herzog’s documentarian’s eye that brings an extra depth to the film. “He constantly frames the devastated New Orleans with heartbreaking poverty and ruin in the foreground and the gleaming metal towers of affluence in the background” (Toronto International Film Festival).

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  • Mosse Lecture: Werner Herzog

    Friday, November 10 1 PM
    Lecture by Werner Herzog

    The author of more than a dozen books of prose, Werner Herzog reads from the long-awaited Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir and engages in conversation with the audience.

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  • Fata Morgana

    Werner Herzog
    West Germany, 1971
    Friday, November 10 3:30 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    This film about the creation and transformation of things is between documentary and feature, utopia and reality, beauty and decay. Hallucinatory images of African deserts and dunes are combined with music by Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen; Lotte H. Eisner reads the Guatemalan creation myth.

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  • Aguirre, the Wrath of God

    Werner Herzog
    West Germany, 1972
    Friday, November 10 7 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Stunningly photographed in hazardous locations in Peru, Aguirre, the Wrath of God takes the viewer on a mad voyage as frightening and entertaining as one of Edgar Allan Poe’s maelstrom-bent epics of demented discovery. Featuring a seething, controlled performance from Klaus Kinski, who delivers an unforgettable portrait of madness and power.

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  • The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

    Werner Herzog
    West Germany, 1974
    Saturday, November 11 1 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Werner Herzog’s unforgettable 1974 classic is based on a real historical incident of an adult foundling. Bruno S. gives a revelatory performance as Kaspar Hauser, a man who literally has no concept of society, no language, and no knowledge, but who finds civilization terrifyingly uncivilized.

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  • The White Diamond

    Werner Herzog
    Germany, United Kingdom, 2004
    Saturday, November 11 4 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    The White Diamond is a film about the daring adventure of exploring the rainforest canopy with a novel flying device. Airship engineer Dr. Graham Dorrington embarks on a trip to the giant Kaieteur Falls in the heart of Guyana, hoping to fly his helium-filled invention above the treetops.

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  • Lessons of Darkness

    Werner Herzog
    Germany, France, United Kingdom, 1992
    Sunday, November 12 1:30 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Werner Herzog’s gripping documentary shows the disaster of the Kuwait oil fields in flames. In contrast to most documentaries—especially ones tackling the destruction of the planet—there’s minimal commentary and no talking heads. “An evocation of hell on earth . . . with an epic, elegiac musical backdrop” (Time Out).

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  • Family Romance, LLC

    Werner Herzog
    United States, 2019
    Sunday, November 12 4 PM
    Werner Herzog in Person

    Werner Herzog’s latest narrative focuses on Japan’s bizarre “rent-a-family” business, a professional stand-in service that provides clients with actors who portray a range of roles, including friends, family members, or even coworkers.

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  • Fitzcarraldo

    Werner Herzog
    West Germany, Peru, 1982
    Friday, November 24 3 PM

    “In a film of stunning spectacle and furious struggle, boat and task become centerpieces for two tales of obsession. Every bit as driven as Fitzcarraldo’s efforts to move the craft upward, Mr. Herzog’s determination to perform the feat in actuality inspired Les Blank’s documentary Burden of Dreams, also released in 1982, about the making of the film” (Peter M. Nichols, New York Times).

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  • Burden of Dreams

    Les Blank, Maureen Gosling
    United States, 1982
    Saturday, November 25 4 PM

    Acclaimed documentary filmmaker and longtime collaborator with Les Blank, Maureen Gosling was nominated for Best Editing for Burden of Dreams by the American Cinema Editors. Gosling joins us for the presentation of a new digital restoration of this celebrated film.

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