400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

I suppose everyone's tired of hearing about the Oscars, and so am I, but in my heart of hearts, I'm secretly hoping for three particular wins. The first, Anne Hathaway for Best Actress for Rachel Getting Married (95 screens), will never happen. The second, Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress, may happen (she's currently leading in the IMDB Oscar poll). Cruz represents the one and only nomination for the year's best film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (15 screens). The third is Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World for Best Documentary, which probably won't happen, especially given the awards-friendly Trouble the Water (4 screens) and the hit Man on Wire. The reason I'm excited about this last one is that Herzog has been making films for a full 40 years, is generally regarded as one of the world's great living filmmakers, and has received one and only one Oscar nomination: this one.





I was talking with a friend about this, and she didn't know Werner Herzog, so here's a brief rundown. He was born in 1942 in Munich and splashed onto the movie scene in 1968 -- before anyone had ever heard of Fassbinder or a "German New Wave" -- with Signs of Life, an amazing film about German soldiers stationed in an old, sun-blasted bunker on a Greek island. Already he was exploring his favorite theme: man in relation to an awesome, indiscriminate Nature. Shortly thereafter, he made what many consider to be his masterpiece, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), starring his frequent and alluringly unstable leading man Klaus Kinski. In it, Aguirre (Kinski) is one of a crew traveling down the Amazon looking for the lost city of gold, El Dorado. He eventually ends up commanding a splinter faction, and leads the men to their eventual deaths, on a raft covered with monkeys. The very physical, palpable qualities of the land and water and sky seem closer here than in ordinary movies.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) told the story of a real-life mysterious 19th century figure who suddenly turns up in a town square unable to walk or speak and holding a prayer book. Herzog cast the real-life misfit Bruno S. in the lead role, bringing it a little closer to home. Kinski returned in Fitzcarraldo (1982), perhaps Herzog's most notorious movie, about a man who is determined to build an opera house in the jungle by hauling a giant ship over a slimy, muddy hill. The documentary filmmaker Les Blank captured this troubled, fascinating production in his film Burden of Dreams (1982). Kinski also played the lead vampire in Herzog's interesting remake of Nosferatu (1979).

After the death of Kinski in 1991, Herzog mostly concentrated on documentaries, including one about Kinski, aptly titled My Best Fiend (1999). One of his best, and least seen, is Lessons of Darkness (1992), which turns the aftermath of Kuwait into a piece of dark, astonishing poetry. Another documentary, filmed when Herzog was living in Northern California, was Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997), telling the harrowing story of an escaped prisoner of war in Vietnam. This story was later turned into the powerful feature film Rescue Dawn (2007), starring three more volatile actors, Christian Bale, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies. Though it was well received and placed on several top ten lists, tickets didn't exactly fly out the box office window.

The last few years have been something of a documentary renaissance for Herzog. He released three in 2005: the breathtaking masterpiece The White Diamond, about another fellow who needs to fly, and Wheel of Time, about a pilgrimage to a huge Buddhist festival, were both practically ignored. But thankfully, the third, Grizzly Man, improbably became the biggest financial hit of Herzog's career. Maybe you've seen it; it's about the obnoxious and/or heroic Timothy Treadwell, who thought he could commune with bears until he was mauled to death. Herzog took Treadwell's personal video footage, narrated it and edited it into something bigger and quite a bit more profound.

Though Grizzly Man won lots of awards for documentary filmmaking, it was disqualified for Oscar consideration because of some dumb Academy rule. But the good people at the Discovery Channel, who financed the film and got their money back, allowed Herzog to do something even more impressive with his newest, Encounters at the End of the World; it's an even more rambling, scary, and ultimately personal exploration of man's ever-tenuous relationship with nature. That's 40 years of filmmaking, working through several genres, attached to the weirdest of actors and the most dangerous of conditions, all without flinching or compromising. And that's worth more than an Oscar.

(Note: all of these titles, and others, are available on DVD. For more information about Herzog's latest crackpot endeavors, like his partnership with David Lynch and his Bad Lieutenant remake, check Cinematical's Herzog archive.)