Just finished watching Herzog’s first feature, Lebenszeichen (Signs of Life), which is available on YouTube thankfully. I haven’t seen everything of his, but the range goes from good to great of what I have. The man has just never made a bad film. It’s fascinating (biographically) that his first film is about a man going mad because he’s made so many films about crazy people.
There’s always something more to Herzog’s insane characters, though. They are never just labeled insane and disregarded. On the contrary, Herzog relishes the opportunity to observe the conditions surrounding a character when they lose sight of reality and watches with odd delight as they impose their mad will on the world around them. In the case of this film’s main character, the lack of purpose and the stasis of the world around him drives him to action. He goes over the edge when he sights a valley filled with windmills while on patrol. It is a powerful, poetic moment: countless windmills spinning lazily in the countryside. The camera pans and pans and pans, and the windmills go on and on and on. A powerful metaphor for humanity’s complacency and capacity for wasting time.
Roger Ebert linked to this panel discussion with Errol Morris and Herzog from the 2010 Toronto Film Festival that has both men talking about each other’s work. Morris and Herzog discuss this moment in the third video at the 5:45 mark. It’s a great discussion, so go ahead and watch the whole thing if you’ve got time.
