Werner Herzog is a German-born film maker, part of the New German Cinema, known for telling epic stories of man against the elements, natural or artificial, and pushing himself and his crew to unprecedented extremes in service to his vision.http://movies.nytimes.com/person/94214/Werner-Herzog/biography In addition to his directorial work, Herzog produces, writes, and acts in film. He has published more than a dozen books and has directed more than a dozen operas.http://www.wernerherzog.com/biography.html

Herzog remains very active in cinema, currently releasing an average of one new film each year. He continues working in narrative, documentary, and experimental genres, and has the distinct honor of being the only feature filmmaker to have made a film on every continent in the world http://www.filminfocus.com/article/the_ecstatic_truth_of_werner_herzog.

Werner H. Stipetic (real name) grew up near Munich, in a Bavarian mountain village, and as a child never had the opportunity to see a film. It wasn't until the age of 17 that he made his first phone call. At 19 he made his first short film, Herakles, with money saved from a night job as welder in a steel factory.http://www.wernerherzog.com/short-bio.html

He enrolled in Munich University in 1962 at the age of 20, studying history and literature. He continued to make films, disregarding any idea of attending film school, teaching himself the skills through experience.http://movies.nytimes.com/person/94214/Werner-Herzog/biography "Film is not the art of scholars," he declared, "but of illiterates."http://whttp://www.1worldfilms.com/werner_herzog.htm

In 1966 he attended the University of Pittsburgh for a short time on scholarship.http://web.uvic.ca/geru/439/herzog.htmlhttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/bio He dropped out quickly, and is reported to have supported himself by shooting films for NASA and smuggling televisions to Mexico.http://movies.nytimes.com/person/94214/Werner-Herzog/biography

He returned to Germany in 1967 to begin his film making career in earnest. At the Oberhausen Film Festival he won the top prize for his short film Last Words (Letzte Worte). Shortly thereafter, he moved to Greece to shoot his first feature, Signs of Life.http://movies.nytimes.com/person/94214/Werner-Herzog/biography

When Herzog was 13, his family moved into a Munich apartment shared with several others; among them was future collaborator Klaus Kinski.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/bio During their years together making movies, the two men fought each regularly. Despite this tension, or perhaps because of it, Herzog returned to Kinski again and again to bring an energy to his films few actors could.

It was on location for their first film together, Aguirre the Wrath of God, in the heart of the Peruvian jungles, that Kinski threatened to quit the movie and leave. Herzog responded by promising to kill him and then turn the gun on himself. Kinski later claimed Herzog brandished a pistol during this exchange, though Herzog denies.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068182/trivia

Despite their battles and arguments, the two men went on to make four more films together: Nosferatu (1979), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Cobre Verde (1987). After Kinski died in 1991, Herzog made a documentary of their tumultuous collaborations, My Best Fiend (1999). In German the film is called Mein liebster Feind, or My Dearest Enemy.http://www.wernerherzog.com/films.html

Werner Herzog's films are characterized by obsessive men and quasi-mystical landscapes.http://www.1worldfilms.com/werner_herzog.htm Often nature marginalizes his protagonists, and Herzog's choice of exotic locales, lend to the base human truths revealed in his "visionary" work.http://web.uvic.ca/geru/439/herzog.html

Roger Ebert, in a letter to Herzog, describes him as "a man whose life and career have embodied a vision of the cinema that challenges moviegoers to ask themselves questions not only about films but about lives. About their lives, and the lives of the people in your films, and your own life."http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/PEOPLE/71117002

Herzog's continuing filmography expands each year with documentaries such as Grizzly Man and White Diamond, and with narrative films such as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. "His documentaries contain fiction, his fiction films contain fact." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/PEOPLE/71117002 When asked about his conscious toying with what is real and was isn't in his work, Herzog says he searches for the "ecstatic truth" of human emotions.http://www.filminfocus.com/article/the_ecstatic_truth_of_werner_herzog

BBC film critique Mark Kermode was curious as to the truth of the tales told about Herzog, the man who dragged a boat over a mountain in Fitzcarraldo. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/PEOPLE/71117002 When he interviewed Herzog in 2006, a sniper shot at them with an air rifle. Herzog was struck in the abdomen but insisted on continuing the interview stating, "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid." http://www.hollywood.com/news/Herzog_Shot_During_Interview_/3478770