On the Ecstasy of Ski-Flying: Werner Herzog in ...

On the Ecstasy of Ski-Flying features a public conversation with filmmaker Werner Herzog and Karen Beckman about aliens as a fixture of our imagination, the fundamental achievement of the human race, and the ecstasy of ski-flying. Includes a booklet with selected writings by Werner Herzog, and photographs from Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde by Beat Presser. During the 2007-2008 academic year, students in the RBSL Bergman Foundation Curatorial Seminar at the University of Pennsylvania collaboratively engaged in research spanning disciplines such as literature, visual culture, urbanism, geo-politics, and technology. One residue of these endeavors was this publication that attempts to construct an archive of the temporal—in particular, this site-specific conversation on October 25, 2007 at Slought Foundation in Philadelphia. Born in Munich, director, screenwriter, producer, and actor Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and never saw films, television, or telephones as a child. He started traveling on foot from the age of 14 and made his first phone call at the age of 17. During high school he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce films and made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has become one of the most influential filmmakers in the world producing, writing, and directing more than fifty films, publishing more than a dozen books of prose, and directing as many operas. Werner Herzog has created some of the most fantastic narratives in the history of cinema, pushing himself and his crew to unprecedented lengths to achieve the effects he demanded. His films include: Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Even Dwarfs Started Small, Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, and Encounters at the End of the World. Distributed by Tubemogul.