HERZOG: THE COLLECTION

 

THE PLOT THUS FAR

He has taken his camera to parts of the world no other director would dare go, and told stories in ways no one had ever considered. These sixteen masterpieces, which blur the line between fiction and documentary, illustrate why Werner Herzog is the most daring, visionary and dangerous filmmaker of our lifetime, the director that both Milos Forman and Francois Truffaut have called the greatest filmmaker alive today.

WHAT WE THOUGHT

Werner Herzog is one of the greatest international directors alive. For decades, he was the face of German Cinema. Did Tom Twyker replace him or did being a national cinematic hero just stop being important? Just look at what happened to Germany between the time Herzog started and when this set ends. He captured a moment in history known as West German cinema, but he didn’t let artificial boundaries stop him from becoming a cult legend. Presented below, you’ll get to watch a gathering of documentaries, horror films, intense character studies and period dramas. The range on display has only been shown by a handful of directors.

EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL

“Even Dwarfs Started Small” was a film that I got into during my weird cult movie phase. The film’s about a ton of asylum inhabitants who are mistreated by a world that views them as freaks. But, they are the only ones that understand what truly matters. That being said, the small folk watch porn and start fires. They even get to crucify a monkey just like the Nine Inch Nails. Many have noted that the dwarfs were harmed during the production, but Herzog jumped into a full cactus at the end of the shoot to make amends. Apparently, the master director still has Cactus spines embedded in his skin to this day.

The film comes with a commentary featuring Werner Herzog and Crispin Glover as the only special feature. Well, that’s the only special feature you need. It’s like Herzog threw down and said let’s make one of the weirdest commentaries of all time. Then, he replicated it for a third of this collection. The A/V Quality is pretty sharp for a Black & White film from 1970. The DTS-HD 2.0 master audio track makes the most out of what’s there. That being said, this is a presentation that Criterion would be lucky to throw together. I’m already one disc in and Shout Factory has floored me.