Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog Stipetić (German: [ˈvɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk ˈstɪpɛtɪt͡ʃ]; born 5 September 1942), known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, author, actor and opera director.

Herzog is considered one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Schröter, and Wim Wenders. Herzog's films often feature heroes with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature. French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important film director alive." American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular." He was named one of the 100 most influential people on the planet by Time magazine in 2009.

Early life

Herzog was born Werner Stipetić in Munich, to Elizabeth Stipetić, an Austrian of Croatian descent, and Dietrich Herzog, who was German. When Werner was two weeks old, his mother took refuge in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang (in the Chiemgau Alps), after the house next to theirs was destroyed during a bombing raid at the close of World War II. In Sachrang, Herzog grew up without running water, a flush toilet, or a telephone. He never saw films, and did not even know of the existence of cinema until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang. When Herzog was 12, he and his family moved back to Munich. His father had abandoned the family early in his youth. Werner later adopted his father's surname Herzog (German for "duke"), which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker.