BLOCKBUSTER: Werner Herzog - I am my films - Part 2 / 30 years later June 22, 2011

Dir. Christian Weisenborn, Germany 2010, 98 min, German w/English subtitles
30 years after Christian Weisenborn’s first portrait of the German director extraordinaire, he visits him in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, where Herzog has become a cult figure.
Weisenborn and Herzog have worked together, so it is a conversation between old friends, intercut with numerous clips from Herzog’s vast body of work.
“There is no mercy when the camera's running,” Herzog explains – he is well aware that his protagonists, whether in his feature films or documentaries, are letting themselves in for an adventure and are at the mercy of the director.
But he also willing to script and think up scenes for the characters even in his documentaries, for the sake of capturing what Herzog recognizes as the truth behind the facts.
“This is how we should make films,” as “storytellers”, and these stories need to be “designed”. This is the opposite of the genre that Herzog has wanted to “bury” for decades.

Christian Weisenborn was born 1947 in Berlin. He started working in theaters in Flensburg and Nuremberg and began studying at the University of Television and Film in Munich in 1970.
He finished his studies in 1974. The same year he founded the film production company Nanuk. Filmproduktion. From 1978-1983 he was a university lecturer at the University of Television and Film in Munich and has taught many film related workshops around the world.
His films include I am my films- A portrait of Werner Herzog (Was ich bin sind meine Filme, 1978), and the TV documentary series Legenden (2000-2009), where he portrayed Niki Lauda, Pelé, and Muhammad Ali, among others.