What's in a Title? The Films of Werner Herzog Quiz

Answer: Even Dwarfs Started Small

"Even Dwarfs Started Small" is Herzog's grotesque vision of a world where everything is out of proportion for its inhabitants (who are all dwarfs), making even the simplest of household objects, or routine actions, become dreadfully gruelling.

"Even Dwarfs Started Small" was Herzog's second feature film to be released and was filmed just after "Fata Morgana", a quasi-documentary feature shot in the Sahara. When talking about the two films Herzog admits a great deal of overlap and overspill. Herzog has said that there isn't a crystal clear line between his documentary films and his fictional feature films, and the viewer does get the impression that on "Even Dwarfs Started Small" Herzog's direction is very much about setting up scenarios and then filming what happens.

The film was shot on the volcanic island of Lanzarote and Herzog includes footage taken ad hoc of a group of cannibalistic chickens, something not in the screenplay, but which fits his ethos that "there is something ultimately wrong in creation itself...not a very optimistic view of mother nature." A whole host of animals feature in the film, sometimes involved in scenes that got the goat of animal rights activists who condemned the film. Actually, Herzog was almost unilaterally blasted for the film, managing to outrage everybody from extreme leftists to white supremacists via religious moralist lobbyists.

"Even Dwarfs Started Small" is gloomy, pessimistic, apocalyptic and terrifying, but the human warmth generated by the dwarfs ecstatic pleasure in wreaking havoc and the continuous laughter make it hysterically funny.

About the red herrings (all 1970): "Rabbit, Run" is a film based on the novel by John Updike; "And God Said to Cain" is a spaghetti western starring Herzog's future collaborator Klaus Kinski, and "Beneath Planet of the Apes" is the sequel to "Planet of the Apes".

Answer: Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Right at the end of the film, Aguirre delivers a speech that might us give a clue regarding the film's title: "I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her I will found the purest dynasty the Earth has ever seen. Together we shall rule this entire continent. We will endure, I am the Wrath of God. Who else is with me?" Nobody answers Aguirre's question, probably because his audience is made up of monkeys.

Although the film follows the real-life Lope de Aguirre's 1561 search for El Dorado, there's so little historic evidence about him and the expedition that Herzog made up most of the plot. Aguirre was played by Klaus Kinski, who went on to a lengthy yet volatile working relationship with Herzog. Lope de Aguirre was known as "el loco" and Kinski's portrayal accentuates his folly, and also a freakishness that even Lawrence Olivier would have been proud of. Herzog has claimed that it was his direction that led to Kinski's hunchbacked, crab-like walk, but in his biography Kinski claims he insisted to Herzog that "Aguirre has to be crippled because his power must not be contingent on his appearance. I'll have a hump. My right arm will be longer than my left, as long as an ape's. My left leg will be longer than my right, so that I have to drag it along. I'll advance sideways, like a crab." It's not the only thing about which the two have offered incongruent recollections.

About the red herrings (all 1972): Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" won three Oscars and is often high on lists of greatest films ever made; "The Rage" starred George C. Scott and Martin Sheen, and "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" is just one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1972 films.

Answer: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

"The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" is based on the real-life story of Kaspar Hauser, about whom many books have been written, many of which focus on trying to work out the enigma, i.e. who the heck was Kaspar? Was he Napoleon's illegitimate son? Was he a prince? However, Herzog's film doesn't really bother with such intrigues but just looks at how this somewhat feral outsider deals with being civilized.

Kaspar was played by previously unknown, untrained actor Bruno S. who Herzog had seen in a documentary and tracked down. Despite the lack of enthusiasm from many investors, Herzog cast him in the lead role, and it proved to be a stroke of genius, as Bruno brilliantly captured the otherworldliness of somebody who is thrust into 19th century German respectable society.

About the red herrings (all 1974):"Caged Heat" is an exploitation film about a women's prison; "Lenny" is a biographical film about comedian Lenny Bruce, and "Successive Slidings of Pleasure" was directed by French intellectual Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Answer: Heart of Glass

The master craftsman is a glassblower and the secret is how to make fabulous ruby red glass.

Herzog has said that the entire cast of "Heart of Glass" performed while under hypnosis, which I find a rather far-fetched claim. Notwithstanding Herzog's further claim that he never dreams while asleep, in this film he managed to create a dreamlike quality which is at times fascinating, at others frustrating. Personally I don't think the film quite comes off but, as with everything Herzog has done, it's enthralling.

Music plays a very important part in Herzog's films. Never one to shy away from self-flattery, Herzog once claimed he'd "never made a mistake in the choice of music", and he might be right, mostly thanks to his astute choice of getting Popol Vuh to do a whole string of soundtracks for him. Although the legendary krautrock band provided the soundtrack for "Heart of Glass", not much of it was used in the final release. The mastermind behind the band, Florian Fricke, was a close friend of Herzog's and had a couple of cameos in his flicks.

About the red herrings (all 1976): "The Marquise of O" is a film by Éric Rohmer based on the German novel by Heinrich von Kleist; "Family Plot" was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and "Rocky" won three Oscars.

Answer: Stroszek

Herzog practically wrote this film for Bruno S., who played the lead role. It was Bruno's second, and last, film for Herzog. Herzog has said that the film's character's background of someone who had spent much of their life in and out of correctional institutions was very much based on Bruno S.'s real life. However, the plot is fictional.

It's very much Bruno's film, and although his performance is heart-wrenching, Herzog's real genius as a director is avoiding sentimentality, and his recognition of human dignity in the face of the degradation that life can inflict. The film also has some dark comedy typical of Herzog, in particular in the latter part of the film filmed in America.

Bruno S. was a self-taught musician and painter. He features in the film playing the accordion in courtyards around Berlin, something he really did in his free time. He later released some of his music and exhibited his paintings but generally eschewed the limelight. He died in 2010 aged 78.

About the red herrings (all 1977): "A Bridge Too Far" is Richard Attenborough's epic World War II classic; "Eraserhead" is David Lynch's debut feature film, and "An American Friend" was directed by Herzog's fellow countryman Wim Wenders.

Answer: Nosferatu the Vampyre

Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre" is a kind of remake of/homage to F. W. Murnau's 1922 classic "Nosferatu", which was in itself a brilliant Germanic twist on Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula". Herzog has stated that he considers Murnau's film to be amongst, if not the, greatest German film of all time. He has also spoken about how German film directors (and not only them) of his generation, growing up in post World War II Germany, had to look to their grandfathers' generation for a tradition of story telling since their immediate forefathers had led the nation astray with their acceptance and celebration of a fake Germany through Nazism.

The film is absolutely wonderful, and not just for fans of surreal, creepy horror. Kinski had already proved himself as a master of outlandish screen performances, but in "Nosferatu the Vampyre" I think he gives the most sympathetic portrayal of the tortured vampire ever put on celluloid. Amazingly, Herzog and Kinski managed to render the Count as nothing more or less than another outsider struggling to deal with the hostile society surrounding him, much like a host of similar Herzog characters.

About the red herrings (all 1979): "Dracula" starred Frank Langella as Count Dracula; "Beyond the Darkness" is an Italian horror film directed by Joe D'Amato, and "The Amityville Horror" is another horror film, this time based on a novel by Jay Anson.

Answer: Woyzeck

"Woyzeck" is an adaptation of German playwright Georg Büchner's posthumously printed play of the same name. Herzog has said he believes it is one of Germany's greatest contributions to literature. Oddly, nobody really knows in what order the scenes should take place, and even more oddly for such a maverick as Herzog, the film follows the generally accepted running order in his screenplay.

Herzog had originally planned on having Bruno S. play the lead part, but it was so blatantly meant for Kinski he had to write a whole new screenplay for our Bruno rather than disappoint him, which resulted in a film released even before "Woyzeck" (see question 5). For cineasts, it was a stroke of luck since Kinski provides his greatest ever performance in "Woyzeck".

It's not exactly beer-and-monkey-nuts-Saturday-night entertainment, but there is something of the bleaker end of Herzog's cosmic truth in it, and the long shots create such a dramatic tension one can hardly stand to watch. The release and realisation of some sort of truth at the end is, personally speaking, cathartic.

About the red herrings (all 1979): "The Tin Drum" is based on the novel by Günter Grass; "Kramer vs. Kramer" won five Academy Awards, and "Being There", which starred Peter Sellers, is based on a novel by Jerzy Kosinski.

Answer: Fitzcarraldo

In order to get to the area where the rubber trees grow, Fitzcarraldo has to get his huge steamer over a hill that separates two rivers. Most of his crew have abandoned him, but local tribesmen decide to get involved and they actually manage the daunting task. Herzog didn't use any trickery in these scenes and they did actually drag the ship over.

The lead role was played by Klaus Kinski once again, and tensions between him and Herzog got so frayed that (Herzog alleges) the chief tribesman, who was working on the film, offered to kill Kinski. Some of the rows that exploded during filming were captured on film and make up part of Herzog's documentary film about Kinski, "My Best Fiend".

About the red herrings (all 1982):"Q", aka "The Winged Serpent", is a horror film directed by Larry Cohen; "Gandhi" was directed by Richard Attenborough, and "Hammett" is a fictionalised biography about great detective story writer Dashiell Hammett, directed by Wim Wenders.

Answer: Cobra Verde

"Cobra Verde" was Herzog's last collaboration with Klaus Kinski, who played the lead role (Francisco Manoel da Silva aka Cobra Verde), and also the last to feature the music of Popul Vuh.

The first part of the film was filmed in Columbia after the main part of the film, which had been shot in Africa. Herzog has said that Kinski was really "bonkers" by the time they got to South America after a very demanding shoot in Africa, and due to this the scenes are very stylized and somewhat reminiscent of the spaghetti westerns Kinski had done.

The film is based on a novel by Bruce Chatwin called "The Viceroy of Ouidah", although Herzog added a number of significant scenes. Herzog became a close friend of the English author's after having found they had an affinity and shared many interests and values. Chatwin was present for some of the shooting in Africa despite being terminally ill. He did see the film before passing away in 1989 and, according to Herzog, he "liked it very much."

About the red herrings (all 1987): "The Last Emperor" is Bernardo Bertolucci's biopic about the last Emperor of China; "Angel Heart" was directed by Alan Parker and starred both Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro, and "The Cry of the Owl" is a thriller directed by Claude Chabrol adapted from a novel by Patricia Highsmith.

Answer: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

Like many Herzog aficionados, I'm keenest on his films from the 1970s and 1980s, an attitude which understandably annoys the hardworking director. However, I reckon the much-maligned "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" is an overlooked gem.

The essential element is the dark, yet rather silly at times, humour which this film is rife with. From the heavily-accented thespian Lee Meyers (played brilliantly by the wonderful German actor Udo Kier), to the realization of who the hostages actually are, via Herzog's inimitable mockery of New Age philosophical drivel, and the mollycoddled son committing matricide, it's a laugh a minute.

"My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" can boast (and Herzog has done) something of a fascinating twist on the police drama, which is that we know within the first few minutes who has been killed and by whom. In Hitchcockian howdunnit fashion, Herzog's film is not so much a whodunnit as a whydunnit. What we are watching is the unraveling of quite why it has happened, which, of course, is never fully-clear. As ever, Herzog shows, builds metaphors, and tells stories, but steers clear of preaching.

"The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is Herzog's 2009 remake of Abel Ferrara's far superior 1992 "Bad Lieutenant", "Brüno" is a mockumentary comedy film starring Sacha Baron Cohen, and "Looking for Eric" was directed by Ken Loach and is kind of about French football legend Eric Cantona.