Werner Herzog

Birthday: September 5th, 1942 Place of Birth: Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Werner Herzog (German: [ˈvɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk]; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, writer, actor, and opera director. Herzog is considered a figure of the New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature.

Herzog started work on his first film 'Herakles' in 1961, when he was nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature films and documentaries, such as 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' (1972), 'Heart of Glass' (1976), 'Nosferatu the Vampyre' (1979), 'Fitzcarraldo' (1982), 'Cobra Verde' (1987), 'Lessons of Darkness' (1992), 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly' (1997), 'My Best Fiend' (1999), 'Invincible' (2000), 'Grizzly Man' (2005), 'Encounters at the End of the World' (2007), 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' (2009), and 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' (2010). He has published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas.

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 world's 100 most influential people by 'Time' magazine in 2009.

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