Since he rose to critical prominence in the 1970s with fellow New German Cinema stalwarts Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, director Werner Herzog has frequently discussed his efforts to reveal “ecstatic truths” while making his films. These deeper, poetic truths, writes Herzog, are “mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

While he’s always alternated between “fiction” and “documentary” films, Herzog refuses to see much distinction between the two from a filmmaker’s perspective. His methods for making so-called non-fiction movies fly in the face of the rules of cinéma vérité and often employ narrative techniques, such as providing scripts based on previous discussions for talking-head interview subjects.

This series will offer several of the prolific Herzog’s recently completed works, most making their first local theatrical appearances: The White Diamond (screening September 4); the much-acclaimed Grizzly Man (September 5); Wheel of Time (September 19); The Wild Blue Yonder (October 3); and Lessons of Darkness (October 17, screening with Burden of Dreams, Les Blank’s account of the making of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo).

Additionally, you’ll have a chance to see brand-new 35mm prints of Herzog’s most famous features, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (September 12); Aguirre, The Wrath of God (September 26); Fitzcarraldo (October 14); Cobra Verde (October 24); and a special Halloween screening of Nosferatu the Vampyre on October 31.

The abounding stories and rumors about Herzog have deservedly earned him the adjective legendary, but many of these myths are untrue. Like the man himself, these films deserve a closer, thoughtful inspection to uncover the “ecstatic truths” that lie within them.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department