By Roger Ebert / July 7, 2002
Who else but Werner
Herzog would make a film about a retarded ex-prisoner, a
little old man and a prostitute, who leave Germany to begin a
new life in a house trailer in Wisconsin? Who else would shoot
the film in the hometown of Ed Gein, the murderer who inspired "Psycho?" Who
else would cast all the local roles with locals? Who else would
end the movie with a policeman radioing, "We've got a truck
on fire, can't find the switch to turn the ski lift off, and
can't stop the dancing chicken. Send an electrician.”
"Stroszek" (1977) is one of the
oddest films ever made. It is impossible for the audience to
anticipate a single shot or development. We watch with a kind
of fascination, because Herzog cuts loose from narrative and
follows his characters through the relentless logic of their
adventure. Then there is the haunting impact of the performance
by Bruno S., who is at every moment playing himself.
The personal history of Bruno S. forms the psychic background
for the film. Bruno was the son of a prostitute, beaten so badly
he was deaf for a time. He was in a mental institution from the
ages of 3 to 26--and yet was not, in Herzog's opinion, mentally
ill; it was more that the blows and indifference of life had shaped
him into a man of intense concentration, tunnel vision, and narrow
social skills. He looks as if he has long been expecting the worst
to happen.
Herzog, who with Wim
Wenders and Rainer
Werner Fassbinder brought forth the New German Cinema in
the late 1960s and 1970s, saw Bruno in a documentary about street
musicians. He cast him in the extraordinary film "Every
Man for Himself and God Against All" (1974), also known
as "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser." It told the story
of an 18th century man locked in a cellar until he was an adult,
and then set loose on the streets to make what sense he could
of the world. Bruno was uncannily right for the role, and right,
too, for "Stroszek," which Herzog wrote in four days.
Ah, but there is a reason why the screenplay came quickly. Herzog
had the location already in mind. He and the American documentarian Errol
Morris had become fascinated by the story of Ed Gein, who dug
up all of the corpses in a circle around his mother's grave. Did
he also dig up his mother? They decided they had to open the grave
to see for themselves. In Q&As we had during tributes at Facets
in Chicago and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Herzog told
me the story: Morris did not turn up as scheduled in Plainfield,
Wis., the grave was never opened, but Herzog's car broke down there
and he met the mechanic whose shop provides a key location and
character for the film.
With the destination in mind, Herzog found the story writing itself.
The film opens with Bruno (Bruno S.) being released from prison,
walking into a bar, and meeting Eva (Eva
Mattes), a prostitute whose pimp mistreats her. He offers her
refuge in his apartment, which has been looked after by the elderly,
tiny Mr. Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz). Mr. Scheitz announces that
his nephew in Railroad Flats, Wis., has invited him to move there.
It is time, Bruno announces, for them all to begin their new lives.
Eva raises money through prostitution (her clients are Turkish
workers at a construction site), and the three find themselves
in Wisconsin and in possession of a magnificent new 40-foot 1973
Fleetwood mobile home.
But this plot summary sounds mundane, and
the tone of the movie is so strange. "Stroszek" is
not a comedy, but I don't know how to describe it. Perhaps as
a peculiarity. We get the sense that Herzog is adding detail
on the spot: as Railroad Flats happens to the characters, it
happens to the film. Mr. Scheitz's nephew is played by Clayton
Szalpinski, the very mechanic who repaired Herzog's car, and
he regales the newcomers with local color. A farmer and his enormous
tractor have gone missing, and Clayton believes they are to be
found at the bottom of one of the many local lakes. He has a
metal detector, and on days when the ice is thick enough, he
searches.
Bruno is sure the idyll cannot last. He
is positive that the papers they signed at the bank will sooner
or later require them to make payments, and he is right. Scott
McKain plays a painfully polite bank employee who tries to explain
that the TV set "might/would" have
to be repossessed (he often uses two words to take the edge off
of both; McKain perfectly captures the tone of a man embarrassed
to be bringing up money). Eventually there is the unforgettable
sight of the Fleetwood being towed off the land, leaving Bruno
to stare at the forbidding winter Wisconsin landscape. He knew
something like this would happen.
The thing about most American movies is that the actors in them
look like the kinds of people who might be hired for a movie. They
don't have to be handsome, but they have to be presentable--to
fall within a certain range. If they are too strange, how can they
find steady work? Herzog often frees himself of this restraint
by using non-actors. Clayton Szalpinski, for example, has an overbite
and backwoods speech patterns, but he is right for his role, and
no professional actor could play a small-town garage mechanic any
better. And Bruno S. is a phenomenon. Herzog says that sometimes,
to get in the mood for a scene, Bruno would scream for an hour
or two. In his acting he always seems to be totally present: There
is nothing held back, no part of his mind elsewhere. He projects
a kind of sincerity that is almost disturbing, and you realize
that there is no corner anywhere within Bruno for a lie to take
hold.
Many movies end with hopeless characters
turning to crime. No movie ends like "Stroszek." Bruno
and Mr. Scheitz take a rifle and go to rob the bank, which is
closed, so they rob the barber shop next door of $32 and, leaving
their car running, walk directly across the street to a supermarket,
where Bruno has time to pick up a frozen turkey before the cops
arrest Mr. Scheitz. Bruno then drives to a nearby amusement arcade,
where he feeds in quarters to make chickens dance and play the
piano. Then he boards a ski lift to go around and around and
around.
This last sequence is just about the best
he has ever filmed, Herzog says on the commentary track of the
DVD. His crew members hated the dancing chicken so much they
refused to participate, and he shot the footage himself. The
chicken is a "great metaphor," he
says--for what, he's not sure. My theory: A force we cannot comprehend
puts some money in the slot, and we dance until the money runs
out.
"Stroszek" has been reviewed as an attack on American
society, but actually German society comes out looking worse, and
all of the Americans seem naive, simple and nice, even the bank
official. The film's tragedy unfolds because these three people
have nothing in common and no reason to think they can live together
in Wisconsin or anywhere else. For a time Eva sleeps with Bruno,
but then she closes her door to him, and in a remarkable scene
he shows her a twisted sculpture and says, using the third person, "this
is a schematic model of how it looks inside Bruno. They're closing
all the doors on him.”
Earlier in the film, in Berlin, after he loses his job and his
girl, Bruno goes to a doctor for help. This man (Vaclav Vojta)
listens carefully, is sympathetic, has no answers, and takes Bruno
into a ward where premature babies are being tended. Look, he says,
how tenacious the grip reflex is, even in this little infant. A
child clings to the doctor's big fingers. Bruno looks. We can never
tell from his face what he is thinking. The baby cries, and the
doctor tenderly cradles it, kissing its ear, and it goes to sleep.
That is, perhaps, what Bruno needs.
Directed by
Werner Herzog
Writing credits
Werner Herzog
Running time: 115 minutes
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