Filmmaker. Dream-weaver. Footwear-epicure. Whatever your impression of Werner Herzog is, this affectionate docuprofile is unlikely to drastically alter it. And that’s no bad thing. Within the opening minutes of Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer, impassioned tributes from such luminaries as Patti Smith, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, Wim Wenders and, yes, Carl Weathers, paint a picture of an almost mythological figure – a rare and enigmatic creative spirit without parallel. This doesn’t necessarily tally with the image Herzog presents of himself, which lands somewhere between kindly uncle and glint-eyed loon. That, of course, is the paradox of Werner Herzog: somehow, all these things can be true at once.

Clips of his acting gigs in The Simpsons and The Mandalorian are introduced early on to show how far the cult of Werner has spread throughout contemporary pop culture. The film retraces Herzog’s humble upbringing in the Tyrolean Alps and surveys his arrival on the international film scene and subsequent relocation to America.

Along the way Herzog reflects on the making of some of his best-known works, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987), expounding on his fruitful yet fractious relationship with the actor Klaus Kinski. These stories are already the stuff of cinematic legend, but that doesn’t make their retelling any less compelling.

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