- November 09, 2006 - January 27, 2007
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Phyllis Wattis Theater
November through January, SFMOMA presents a retrospective on Werner Herzog, one of the most important filmmakers working today and a peer of Anselm Kiefer, whose art is on view in the galleries. The film series samples the full range of Herzog's work, from fictional features to documentaries and shorts. Beginning with a lineup of six films in November and December, the series continues in January with seven additional screenings.
Herzog has produced, written, and directed more than 40 films, published more than a dozen books, and directed more than a dozen operas. One of the leading figures of the New German Cinema of the 1970s, he has been called the "romantic visionary" of that movement for his ability to find the epic in all things, particularly the stories of remarkable individuals. His interest in mysticism and the legacy of postwar Germany links Herzog's work to that of his countryman Kiefer, whose heritage similarly influences his artistic explorations.
Herzog is the recipient of numerous awards, including Best Director at both the Cannes and Sundance film festivals and the 2006 Film Society Directing Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Supported by the Susan Wildberg Morgenstein Fund and the Goethe-Institut San Francisco.
Past
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
By Werner Herzog, 1972, 93 min. -
An ill-fated 1560 expedition into the Peruvian jungle provides the narrative genesis for Herzog's groundbreaking Aguirre, which imagines a grueling trek along the Amazon River by…
Read moreThursday, November 09, 2006
5:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Signs of Life and Early Shorts by Werner Herzog
Last Words, 1968, 13 min.
Precautions Against Fanatics, 1969, 12 min.
Signs of Life, 1968, 90 min. -
Two rarely seen early shorts provide the context for Herzog's acclaimed first major feature film, Signs of Life. Set during the Nazi occupation of Greece, Signs of Life is a strange…
Read moreSaturday, November 11, 2006
1:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Stroszek
By Werner Herzog, 1977, 107 min. -
In one of Herzog's most moving films, Bruno Stroszek is a remote and fragile street musician who flees ordinary persecution in Berlin for a new but unimproved life in the American…
Read moreSaturday, November 18, 2006
2:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
- Werner Herzog Retrospective
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Klaus Kinski stars (alongside Claudia Cardinale) as Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an opera-loving entrepreneur who sets out to make his fortune in the rubber business and build an…
Read moreSaturday, December 02, 2006
2:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Little Dieter Needs to Fly
By Werner Herzog, 1997, 80 min. -
The subject of this documentary is Dieter Dengler, a German American pilot for the U.S. Navy and Bay Area resident who dramatically escaped from imprisonment during the Vietnam…
Read moreThursday, January 18, 2007
5:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Grizzly Man
By Werner Herzog, 2005, 100 min. -
Herzog's much-discussed recent feature tells the strange and disturbing story of Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist who spent several summers in Alaska's Katmai National Park…
Read moreSaturday, January 20, 2007
2:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Nosferatu Double Feature
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Nosferatu, Werner Herzog, 1978, 103 min.
6:30 p.m.
Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau, 1922, 94 min.
With live music by Tarentel
9:00 p.m.This event is SOLD OUT. Limited rush seating will be…
Read moreThursday, January 25, 2007
5:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
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Werner Herzog Retrospective
Three Documentaries by Werner Herzog
The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner, 1974, 45 min.
Lessons of Darkness, 1992, 55 min.
Bells from the Deep, 1993, 60 min. -
These three films expand our ideas of what a documentary can be. The first is a profound and achingly beautiful account of world champion ski-jumper Walter Steiner's almost…
Read moreSaturday, January 27, 2007
1:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
