Werner Herzog is considered one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema creating various significant achievements such as Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1975), Heart of Glass (1976), Stroszek (1977), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Fitzcarraldo (1982). All his stories present complex heroes with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature and man. Herzog was born Werner Herzog Stipetic in Munich and when he was 2 weeks old his mother took refuge to the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang after the house next to theirs was destroyed during a World War II bombing raid. In Sachrang, Herzog grew up without running water, electricity or a telephone. He never saw films, and didn’t even know of the existence of cinema until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang. After his father abandoned the family early in his youth Werner later adopted his father’s surname Herzog; which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker. Around this time, he knew he would be a filmmaker, and even stole a 35 mm camera from the Munich Film School. Besides using professional actors—German, American and otherwise—especially in his documentaries, Herzog is known for using locals to benefit what he calls “ecstatic truth.” Herzog and the volatile leading actor Klaus Kinski are two of the most unusual and brilliant actor-director teams in cinematic history, committing a total of five collaborations together. Kinski was known to be a major source of tension on several film sets, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the cast and crew. Throughout the years Herzog’s films have received considerable critical acclaim and achieved popularity on the art house circuit. They have also been the subject of controversy in regard to their themes and messages, especially the circumstances surrounding their creation. A notable example is the courageous filmmaking in both Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, in which the obsessiveness of the central characters were greatly reflected by the real life emotional pressure by the filmmaker. Burden of Dreams (1982), a documentary filmed during the making of Fitzcarraldo explored Herzog’s strenuous efforts to finish the film in harsh and dangerous conditions, and it is quite clear that everyone who was associated with the making of that film became scarred by its experience. Bold and epic projects like this could never be made today, because the film-making process that Herzog and his cast and crew endured were grueling, risky and at times even life threatening. Filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog “the most important film director alive,” while critic Roger Ebert said Herzog “has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular.”