Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski: A Film Legacy [UK Release] [6 Full DVDs] [2004]

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, The Wrath of God)

Based on the journals of Brother Gaspar de Carvajal, AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is director Werner Herzog's hallucinatory tale of Spanish colonialists searching for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, in 16th-century Peru. When the travellers reach an impasse, a scouting party is assembled to search for any traces of the mythical empire. As they attempt to forge their way through the dense jungle, more and more of the party falls ill while their ruthless leader, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), grows increasingly insane. Widely considered to be Herzog's finest film, AGUIRRE, which shares much in common with Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, highlights the director's visionary approach to filmmaking. Like Coppola's film, accounts of AGUIRRE's shooting are laced with legendary incidents, such as the time Herzog reportedly held a gun to Kinski's head to get him to finish a scene. Whatever transpired between Herzog and Kinski, it made for astonishing cinema, as evidenced by the actor's haunting performance and the entire film's powerfully hypnotic mood.


MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: West Germany
YEAR: 1972

Cast
Klaus Kinski … Don Lope de Aguirre
Helena Rojo … Inez
Del Negro … Brother Gaspar de Carvajal
Ruy Guerra … Don Pedro de Ursua
Peter Berling … Don Fernando de Guzman
Cecilia Rivera … Flores
Daniel Ades … Perucho (as Dan Ades)
Edward Roland … Okello

Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Music: Popol Vuh
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Sound: Herbert Prasch


DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.33:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German Dolby Digital 5.1/2.0, English Mono
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 93 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Single-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 4.3 GB

Disc Features

* Full Frame Presentation
* Audio Commentary with Director Werner Herzog
* Theatrical Trailer
* Talent Bios

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu: The Vampyre)

Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's original vampire classic is at once a generous tribute to the great German director and a distinctly unique vision by one of cinema's most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Though Murnau's Nosferatu was actually an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herzog based his film largely on Murnau's conceptions–at times directly quoting Murnau's images–but manages to slip in a few references to Tod Browning's famous version (at one point the vampire comments on the howling wolves: "Listen, the children of the night make their music."). Longtime Herzog star Klaus Kinski is both hideous and melancholy as Nosferatu (renamed Count Dracula in the English language version). As in Murnau's film, he's a veritable gargoyle with his bald pate and sunken eyes, and his talon-like fingernails and two snaggly fangs give him a distinctly feral quality. But Kinski's haunting eyes also communicate a gloomy loneliness–the curse of his undead immortality–and his yearning for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) becomes a melancholy desire for love. Bruno Ganz's sincere but foolish Jonathan is doomed to the vampire's will and his wife, Lucy, a holy innocent whose deathly pallor and nocturnal visions link her with the ghoulish Nosferatu, becomes the only hope against the monster's plague-like curse. Herzog's dreamy, delicate images and languid pacing create a stunningly beautiful film of otherworldly mood, a faithful reinterpretation that by the conclusion has been shaped into a quintessentially Herzog vision. –Sean Axmaker


MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: West Germany/France
YEAR: 1979

Cast
Klaus Kinski … Count Dracula
Isabelle Adjani … Lucy Harker
Bruno Ganz … Jonathan Harker
Roland Topor … Renfield
Walter Ladengast … Dr. Van Helsing
Dan van Husen … Warden
Jan Groth … Harbormaster
Carsten Bodinus … Schrader
Martje Grohmann … Mina

Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
Music: Popol Vuh
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Sound: Harald Maury


DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.85:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German Dolby Digital 5.1/2.0
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 107 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Dual-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 6.5 GB

Disc Features

* Featurette (13 mins.)
* Audio Commentary with Director Werner Herzog
* Theatrical Trailer
* Talent Bios

Woyzeck

In WOYZECK, Werner Herzog crafts yet another highly stylized and dispassionate tale of madness and obsession and for the first time in his oeuvre injects a love story (tortured though it is) into the equation. Based on Georg Büchner's unfinished play, the film is a dark study of a lowly German flunky (Klaus Kinski) who toils as an orderly in the army. Cowering pathetically in front of his superiors, who constantly push him around, he struggles and rushes through his daily duties. In order to earn much-needed extra money, Woyzeck volunteers for a local doctor's strange experiments, which require Woyzeck to stay on a strict diet of peas and push him to murderous insanity. In addition, Woyzeck has a son with a lusty young prostitute, Marie (Eva Mattes), who is easily seduced by a stout drum major. Publicly humiliated by the officer, Woyzeck is propelled into a rage. Herzog pushes his use of static cinematography and extremely stylized acting almost to the point of abstraction as he evokes Woyzeck's struggles with social and sexual oppression that lead to his eventual journey into humiliation and madness.


MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: West Germany
YEAR: 1979

Cast
Klaus Kinski … Friedrich Johann Franz Woyzeck
Eva Mattes … Marie
Wolfgang Reichmann … Captain
Willy Semmelrogge … Doctor
Josef Bierbichler … Drum Major
Paul Burian … Andres
Volker Prechtel … Handwerksbursche (as Volker Prechtl)
Dieter Augustin … Marktschreier
Irm Hermann … Margret
Wolfgang Bächler … Jew
Herbert Fux … Unteroffizier


Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog, Georg Büchner (play)
Cinematography: Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Sound: Harald Maury


DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.85:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German Dolby Digital Mono
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 82 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Single-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 4 GB

Disc Features

* Theatrical Trailer
* Talent Bios
* Photo Gallery
* Film Notes

Fitzcarraldo

Director Werner Herzog returns to the exotic locales and obsessive themes of previous works in his Amazon masterpiece, FITZCARRALDO. Klaus Kinski gives a terrifying and determined portrayal of mad genius Fitzcarraldo, whose twin goals of making a fortune off the Amazon rubber trade and bringing an opera house to the jungle give the film its crushing centerpiece–the maniacal leader's Sisyphean efforts at hauling a gigantic steamship over a mountain bank. The single-minded and wickedly energetic Fitzcarraldo moves mountains (and a boat) with his will and along the way acts out a stunning and emotional battle between man and nature, as in the similarly themed Herzog/Kinski collaboration AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD. Herzog's razor-sharp attention to the minutiae of both Fitzcarraldo's madness and the jungle's corresponding apathy and enormity makes the film a breathtaking metaphor for civilization's impact on the natural world. The documentary style of the film (the cast and crew actually hauled the boat over the mountain) gives the tale an urgency and suspense that, combined with Kinski's bravado performance and Herzog's striking sense of landscape, make FITZCARRALDO an unforgettable experience.


MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: Perú/West Germany
YEAR: 1982

Cast
Klaus Kinski … Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo'
Claudia Cardinale … Molly
José Lewgoy … Don Aquilino
Miguel Ángel Fuentes … Cholo
Paul Hittscher … Captain (Orinoco Paul)
Huerequeque Enrique Bohorquez … Huerequeque (The Cook) (as Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez)
Grande Otelo … Station master (as Grande Othelo)
Peter Berling … Opera Manager
David Pérez Espinosa … Chief of Campa Indians
Milton Nascimento … Blackman At Opera House
Ruy Polanah … Rubber Baron

Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Music: Popol Vuh
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Sound: Zezé d'Alice, Juarez Dagoberto Costa


DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.85:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German/English Dolby Digital 5.1/2.0
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 158 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Dual-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 6.5 GB

Disc Features

* Photo Gallery
* Audio Commentary with Director Werner Herzog
* Theatrical Trailer
* Talent Bios
* Film Notes

Cobra Verde

Filmed in Ghana, Brazil, and Colombia, COBRA VERDE is a visually astonishing 19th-century true-life tale about a Brazilian bandit known as Cobra Verde (played by the ever-intense Klaus Kinski) who is exiled to West Africa to rejuvenate the slave trade. Once he's in Africa, his sanity is put to the ultimate test, as he is an unwanted outsider in a foreign, uncultivated world. Holed up in a deserted slave fortress on the coast, Cobra Verde, like many Herzog/Kinski creations before him, goes about constructing an elaborate and unlikely scheme–in this case to build up a vast slave trade ruled under his iron fist. His plans fall apart, however, when the civil wars waged by the insane Leopard King come crashing down on Cobra Verde and his plans. When the bandit is rescued by the king's equally crazy brother, Cobra Verde gathers a vast army of Amazon women warriors and plans to regain his dominance. The exquisitely photographed dusty and alien landscape of the African coast is juxtaposed evocatively with the ridiculous behavior of the slave traders as represented by Cobra Verde. Herzog crafts a deft and powerful vision of human folly and the eventual tragedy that follows, chronicling Cobra Verde's descent into total madness and self-destruction.


MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: West Germany/Ghana
YEAR: 1987

Cast
Klaus Kinski … Francisco Manoel da Silva / Cobra Verde
King Ampaw … Taparica
José Lewgoy … Don Octavio Coutinho
Salvatore Basile … Captain Fraternidade
Peter Berling … Bernabé
Guillermo Coronel … Euclides
Nana Agyefi Kwame II … Bossa Ahadee (as His Royal Highness Nana Agyefi Kwame II of Nsein)
Nana Fedu Abodo … Yovogan
Kofi Yerenkyi … Bakoko
Kwesi Fase … Kankpe
Benito Stefanelli … Pedro Vicente

Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog, Bruce Chatwin (novel)
Cinematography: Viktor Ruzicka
Music: Popol Vuh
Editing: Maximiliane Mainka



DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.78:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German Dolby Digital 5.1/2.0, English Dolby Digital 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 111 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Dual-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 6.57 GB

Disc Features

* Audio Commentary with Director Werner Herzog
* Theatrical Trailer
* Talent Bios

Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski (My Best Fiend)


Werner Herzog directed this documentary about the puzzling relationship between himself and actor Klaus Kinski. Beginning with their apocalyptic first meeting at age 13 and continuing through AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and their subsequent films together, MY BEST FIEND reveals the deep trust involved in maintaining such a powerful love-hate relationship as the glue that keeps them from following up on their plans to murder each other. Candid and intimate interviews with Kinski's costars are interspersed with rare and compelling behind-the-scenes and behind-the-camera footage from such classic Kinski/Herzog collaborations as AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and FITZCARRALDO. Herzog himself dryly narrates as the magnetic and destructive energy that resulted when Herzog and Kinski clashed is contrasted with footage depicting their, at times, gentle and brotherly love, in this portrait of two artistic visionaries feeding off each other. From his early days as an aspiring and intense young actor to stints as a ranting and raving performance artist taunting audiences with claims that he was Jesus, Kinski's extraordinary and extravagant persona comes across strongly in Herzog's double-edged love letter of a film.

MOVIE:
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
COUNTRY: UK/Germany/Finland/USA
YEAR: 1999

Cast
Werner Herzog … Himself - Narrator / Interviewer (also archive footage)
Isabelle Adjani … Lucy Harker (archive footage)
Claudia Cardinale … Herself (also archive footage)
Justo González … Himself (also archive footage)
Mick Jagger … Himself - Wilbur (archive footage)
Klaus Kinski … Himself (archive footage)
Eva Mattes … Herself (also archive footage)
Thomas Mauch … Himself
Benino Moreno Placido … Himself (also archive footage)
Beat Presser … Himself (archive footage)
Guillermo Ríos … Himself (archive footage)
Jason Robards … Fitzcarraldo (archive footage)
Walter Saxer … Himself (archive footage)
Maximilian Schell … Himself - Deserteur (archive footage)
Andrés Vicente … Himself (archive footage)

Credits
Director: Werner Herzog
Writer: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Peter Zeitlinger
Music: Popol Vuh
Editing: Joe Bini



DVD:
DVD RELEASE: Mar 1st 2004
STUDIO: Anchor Bay Home Entertainment
SYSTEM: PAL
SCREEN: 1.78:1
COLOR
AUDIO: German/English Dolby Digital 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
RUNTIME (MOVIE): 95 minutes

EXTRACTION:
ENGINE: DVD Fab
DVD: Full Dual-Layer DVD
FILE EXTENSION: .ISO Image
FILE SIZE: 4.3 GB

Disc Features

* Theatrical Trailer