Werner Herzog Box Set 1

A collection of six films produced by the notorious partnership of German New Wave filmmaker Werner Herzog and his favourite leading man, Klaus Kinski. 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' (1973) is a study of megalomania set in 16th Century Peru. In the year 1560, a Spanish expedition crosses the Peruvian Sierras in search of the legendary Inca city of El Dorado. A power struggle within the group leads to its deputy (Kinski) seizing control in bloody fashion, his desire to set up his own kingdom threatening to destroy them all. Cast and crew apparently endured hardships comparable to those suffered by the screen explorers. 'Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht' (1979) is Herzog's remake of the classic 1921 'Nosferatu' directed by FW Murnau. The ually repellent vampire Nosferatu (Kinski) must feed on the blood of humans, and can only come out at night as to him sunlight is fatal. However, he longs for acceptance by the people he terrorizes. In 'Woyzeck' (1979), a poor army private (Kinski), haunted by nightmares of impending destruction, is forced to take part in a scientist's food deprivation experiments in order to support his wife (Eva Mattes) and child. However, he becomes convinced that she is having an affair with a drum major and stabs her to death. The film covers familiar Herzog territory, examining man's struggle with the world around him, as wed through the eyes of an outsider figure abused by society and persecuted by nature. In 'Fitzcarraldo' (1982), Kinski plays Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an opera-loving entrepreneur who dreams of building an opera house in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. To finance his project he attempts to persuade the rubber business to extend into the jungle, and concocts a plan which involves moving his steamship over a mountain to a parallel waterway. In making his film of the ionary's adventures, Herzog famously refused to use special effects and insisted instead on actually transporting a steamship over the mountains.