'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vol.2

[Cinephrenic]

I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but I find the man even more fascinating then I find his films (I found Burden of Dreams much more compelling than Fitzcarraldo). His DVD commentaries are wonderful.

I think Burden of Dreams is much more epic than Fitzcarraldo. Herzog's passion for creating a piece of cinema in the jungles of South American has definitely made him a man who is mad in my opinion, even more than Kinski.

[sir karl]

He is a dilettante, a bohemian. Cinema is inessential to his life. He is always the outsider, but not in a good way – he doesn’t get his hands dirty. [He is] a facile exploiter of others’ authenticity… appropriating all the usual bourgeois tropes of authenticity [such as the] indian in ‘Dead Man’, or african-american culture in ’Ghost Dog. Not only is he shallow, but he presents shallowness as a virtue. Like all bohemians, he is an ironist. This is cowardice, not cinema.

Just for the record: Werner Herzog never said anything like that.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

He is a dilettante, a bohemian. Cinema is inessential to his life. He is always the outsider, but not in a good way – he doesn’t get his hands dirty. [He is] a facile exploiter of others’ authenticity… appropriating all the usual bourgeois tropes of authenticity [such as the] indian in ‘Dead Man’, or african-american culture in ’Ghost Dog. Not only is he shallow, but he presents shallowness as a virtue. Like all bohemians, he is an ironist. This is cowardice, not cinema.

Just for the record: Werner Herzog never said anything like that.

He comes close here..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIYkW8VuxOo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[solaris72]

Just for the record: Werner Herzog never said anything like that.

Seems you're right, the site I found it on claims it was from Cronin's Herzog on Herzog but that book is in Google Books and a search inside its pages came up with nothing, and the index doesn't mention Jarmusch.
Mea culpa.

[Murdoch]

He is a dilettante, a bohemian. Cinema is inessential to his life. He is always the outsider, but not in a good way – he doesn’t get his hands dirty. [He is] a facile exploiter of others’ authenticity… appropriating all the usual bourgeois tropes of authenticity [such as the] indian in ‘Dead Man’, or african-american culture in ’Ghost Dog. Not only is he shallow, but he presents shallowness as a virtue. Like all bohemians, he is an ironist. This is cowardice, not cinema.

Just for the record: Werner Herzog never said anything like that.

Then I would like to meet the real author of that quote and shake his hand.

[Mr Sausage]

I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but I find the man even more fascinating then I find his films (I found Burden of Dreams much more compelling than Fitzcarraldo). His DVD commentaries are wonderful.

Read Conquest of the Useless yet?

Yep..I have read it practically twice; which is exactly why I find BoD much more fascinating. Herzog is much more compelling than the character Fitzcarraldo.

I don't know how much difference there is between Fitzcarraldo and Herzog, but anyway, I read Conquest of the Useless before I saw Burden of Dreams, so the latter had much less of an impact one me than it seems to have had on everyone else. It became a visual recapitulation of everything I already knew, and knew in greater detail. It would have been more fascinating if I'd gone in only having seen Fitzcarraldo.

[domino harvey]

Google turns up a post on the Auteurs (SHOCKER) alleging the quote came from Herzog on Herzog. Amazon lets you search the entire book. Zero hits for "Jarmusch" and one for "cowardice," neither applicable to the quote. Google only directs to those quoting the initial post on the Auteurs. Shake some internet con artist's hand

[kaujot]

Well, he or she was pretty good at mimicking Herzog's tone and diction. It sounded like an authentic quote to me.

[zedz]

Well, he or she was pretty good at mimicking Herzog's tone and diction. It sounded like an authentic quote to me.

Though to be fair, when it comes to "ease of mimicking tone and diction" Herzog is number two behind Daffy Duck.

[Perkins Cobb]

Clearly "Herzog" was just mad because Jim Jarmusch fucked his undergrad girlfriend.

[lachrymologist]

Alex Cox came through town (Eugene, Oregon) to play his Searchers 2.0, which is pretty good. He was very nice and personable, and didn't feel bad that probably a dozen people were all that showed up. At $5 a head, the door made no more than $60. For a filmmaker to spend several hours and do an introduction and Q&A for that shows a lot of heart to me. He was off to some other town the next day he said.

Herzog instantly gains the dunce cap with Lessons in Darkness, which is set out from the beginning to be this epic anti-war film and becomes a masturbatory symbol of civilization's sickening fixation on oil. His films range from the bizarre to the brilliant, though, and I find him more consistent (if that word can even be applied to Herzog's oeuvre) than Wenders. I also agree that Burden of Dreams was better than Fitzcarraldo. The genius of Herzog lies in his extremely important position in the fabric of modern film, including his dare to Errol Morris about eating his shoe if Morris could make a documentary about a pet cemetary. Blank has become a very important documentarian although he pails in comparison to Morris, whose The Thin Blue Line basically single-handedly freed someone from death row. So all the schmaltz and schtick aside, Herzog remains vital, despite his proclivity for marginalizing himself by just being campy and goofy.

As for Jarmusch, I'd just like to make a quick comment about Ghost Dog. Is it really cool for an Italian mobster to quote Public Enemy? Yes. Is the movie great? No. I won't defend picks like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but please no Ghost Dog.

[stereo]

Burden of Dreams is great as is Les Blank --a master documentarian of regional American culture, esp. food and blues --and I would never knock him, but for my money, Fitzcarraldo is always somewhere drifting in my my top 10 films ever made --my island film. I own every Herzog available and he is certainly one of my favorite directors, but within Herzog's oeuvre, Fitz is my favorite; the very essence of cinema. Push a boat over a mountain --make a movie: its more mimesis than metaphor. As Herzog would say, ecstatic truth. His only other films that come close in my own estimate are Aguirre and esp. Stroszeck.

[ptatler]

Is there any hope for Barcelona on Criterion?

There’s a lot of hope. The more noise we can make the better. They’re negotiating with Warners. It’d be great because then we could have the boxed set.

Here.

[Harmonov]

Is there any hope for Barcelona on Criterion?

There’s a lot of hope. The more noise we can make the better. They’re negotiating with Warners. It’d be great because then we could have the boxed set.

Here.

If this were to happen, I would be pleased as punch.

[Napier]

Even if it pushes Rivette back another year?

[Antoine Doinel]

The French Lieutenant's Woman confirmed in my chat with Mulvaney here.

[Gregory]

Lord, a 25-film Kurosawa set? I'm always bemused by huge sets like this of mostly/all previously available content. Are there really a lot of people who have a burning desire to buy heaps of Kurosawa DVDs who haven't already done so during the past ten years?

[swo17]

Well done Antoine! How much Spanish fly did you have to slip the man to get him to be so, erm, forthcoming? Although I don't know if I buy it all. Isn't Mulvaney supposed to be kind of like the Tooth Fairy?

Also, I totally called that the Kurosawa set would be both grandiose and useless.

[domino harvey]

The French Lieutenant's Woman confirmed in my chat with Mulvaney here.

It's been a few years since I saw it, but this is a pretty middling film adaptation if I remember correctly. However, I'm sure, just by virtue of the "fix" for how they replicated the authorial intrusions of the novel for the film, the film will win some new fans from the meta-crowd.

[aox]

I guess this is no hope that it will be a 25 film Blu set...

Has CC even released 25 Kurosawa films? Does that include Eclipse films?

[ptatler]

Lord, a 25-film Kurosawa set? I'm always bemused by huge sets like this of mostly/all previously available content. Are there really a lot of people who have a burning desire to buy heaps of Kurosawa DVDs who haven't already done so during the past ten years?

Only if it all comes crammed in a plastic clamshell package shaped like Toshiru Mifune's head (a la this).

Actually, since I only own the CC of IKIRU, I might spring for the rest in some sort of quantity discount-based set.

[Michael Kerpan]

I guess this is no hope that it will be a 25 film Blu set...

Has CC even released 25 Kurosawa films? Does that include Eclipse films?

I count 22 .. so far.

[ianungstad]

It could be like the Janus box and have a few "exclusives" that will eventually trickle out to the main line.

Nice to see that you got confirmation on Stagecoach and the Chaplins.

[swo17]

I only count 21. Everything listed here + Ran. Of course, what mostly redundant boxset would be complete without a few exclusive titles to dangle in front of the completists?

[Murdoch]

Well, at least we have more von Sternberg to look forward to.