Online Discussion: Classic Herzog: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser + Fata Morgana

Join us as we continue our discussions of foreign, avant-garde, and experimental films online. The films chosen each month are freely available on one or more platforms such as YouTube, Open Culture, vimeo, and archive.org. In some cases, the films are also available on public library streaming databases such as kanopy or Hoopla. You will need to find and watch the films prior to our discussion.
On June 7 we discuss two classic films by German director Werner Herzog. Fata Morgana, "one of modern cinema's key films," is a phantasmagoric documentary shot in Cameroon with a narration that combines science fiction tropes with passages from the Mayan Popul Vuh. Herzog’s 1974 masterpiece The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is based on the true story of a boy found wandering the streets of 19th-century Nuremberg, who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell.
Fata Morgana (1971), Dir. Werner Herzog (77 minutes)
“Werner Herzog's third feature is a haunting, sardonic exploration of Africa as it was ‘in the beginning,’ and as it becomes glutted with the wastes of technological civilization. Amos Vogel writes of the film: ‘Marvellous, sensual, 360-degree travelling shots of animal cadavers, barbed wire, industrial wastes, decaying trucks, sudden oil wells, ominous surrealist tableaux - all embedded in tragically alienated landscapes of sand and disassociated natives - create an obsessional, hypnotic statement whose anti-technological, anti-totalitarian, cruelly anti-sentimental humanism is subtle, overpowering, and inexplicable to shallow Left and know-nothing Right.’” – Pacific Film Archive
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Dir. Werner Herzog (111 minutes)
“For many critics, this is still Herzog’s finest film. Bruno S., a nonactor, gives an amazing performance as Kaspar Hauser, who, in the 1820s, suddenly appeared in a small German town, full-grown but seemingly a new-born child, unable to speak and barely able to stand. It is a film that stares straight into the mystery of human existence.” – Pacific Film Archive
Note on searching YouTube: Try searching for the director’s last name plus the name of the film you are seeking, e.g. “Murnau Faust.” When searching for a foreign film, you may need to search for it by its original-language title, (e.g. “Bergman Jungfrukällan” instead of “Bergman Virgin Spring”). If you have trouble finding a version of your film with English subtitles, add “subtitles” to your search terms. Some foreign films offer computer generated subtitles if you click on the Settings icon at the bottom of the screen. If you do not find the film you are looking for on YouTube, try searching archive.org, Open Culture, and vimeo.