I Am My Films (1978) User Reviews

Fairly good summary of Herzog's personality and early works

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 8 August 2017]

"Was ich bin, sind meine Filme" or "I Am My Films - A Portrait of Werner Herzog" or "I Am My Films" or "I Am What My Films Are" is a West German German-language documentary movie from 1978, so this one will have its 40th anniversary next year. It was directed by Swiss filmmaker Erwin Keusch and Christian Weisenborn and while Keusch seems retired now, hasn't directed since 2010 (according to IMDb), Weisenborn is still active and prolific in the industry. In 2010, he made a sequel to this 1.5 hour film here meeting Herzog again and most recently he worked on a movie where he examines his father's life in Nazi Germany I believe. But back to this one here now. The duo of filmmakers meets their colleague Werner Herzog, one of Germany's most known filmmakers of all time. He tells some anecdotes in the interviews and we see also a bit of footage from when he shot a film with Bruno S. nearby. I would have liked more of that for sure, but the longer the film goes, the more it focuses on interviews and also scenes from Herzo's early works. I personally would say that I am not a great fan of his very early works, but from the 1970s he has some stuff I like a lot really. And the character Werner Herzog is as always one I could listen to for hours. So while I would not say that it was a great watch or that I learned something new here really about his approach to life and work, it was still an interesting and entertaining watch. And you need to say in the filmmakers' favor that other stuff that taught me something before this one here also could have been from later on, from after this documentary and I just watched it earlier than this one here, in not chronological fashion. As a whole, I think this was nicely done. Werner is great fun to watch and listen to and I recommend checking it out. It is certainly an underseen work we have here and it is not too easy to find it really, which isn't helping either, maybe also because Herzog is the subject here and not the director. So another reason I give it a thumbs-up that it gets (more) known. Go check it out.

The source of my love for the films of Werner Herzog

[dbborroughs · 10/10 · 10 May 2008]

Want to know why I love the films of Werner Herzog (he's possibly my favorite director)? This is the reason. In my film class in high school we were shown this film and several of his films.The result was a life long passion for the man and his movies. The film is an interview done at the time of Stroszek, it has Herzog talking about each film, talking about their creation and what he hoped to achieve. Its the director explaining his films in a way that enlightens on more than just a cinematic level. Herzog not only talks about his films but also his larger ideas about what film is, both fiction and documentary. One of the reasons this film is so powerful is that we get some of the more hypnotic scenes from his films, the decent in Aguirre, The procession from Even Dwarfs Started Small, the volcano that wouldn't blow up, and on and on, all explained by the man himself, all hung out so that their beauty might tempt us to dive deeper into his back catalog. The result is that we get a greater appreciation for what we are seeing in the films he talks about and cinema itself. Its magic. Its the best sort of documentary, the subject in his own words. Its one of the best (filmmaker) portraits I've seen and an interesting companion piece to Herzog's My Best Friend, where Herzog once again talks about his films, though with a bend toward his Klaus Kinski films. This film will help you understand what he is doing better than any other film, article or book. If you love films you need to see this, more so if you love the films of Werner Herzog. Just see this film.