The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.
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Character
Prestige, grave, contemplative and bleak.
- unpretentiousprestige
- gravecomic
- contemplativerelentless
- warmbleak
- resolvedopen-ended
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“Is this Werner Herzog's best work?”
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“Is the ambiguity a cop-out?”
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“Is the slow pace a feature rather than a flaw?”
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- Wuchakon TMDB · Nov 20246/10
**_The real-life story of the mysterious Kaspar Hauser put to film by Werner Herzog_** A young man shows up in the square of a town in Bavaria in 1828 (Bruno S.), but he can only speak a few words and can hardly walk. The note in his hand was from someone who cared for him near the Bavarian border since he was an infant. It stated that he had never been let outside the house and wanted to be a cavalryman, like his father. The teenager finds himself becoming a ‘hit’ and stirs up much attention. “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” (1974) was Herzog’s follow-up to his acclaimed “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” from two years prior. While I think Herzog’s forthcoming “Fitzcarraldo” is great, I found this a little disappointing. For one thing, Bruno S was 42 years-old during shooting whereas the real-life Hauser was only 16 when he was found. I guess that’s why Herzog changed his birthdate from 1812 to 1810 for the movie. Since it was common in cinema at the time to cast way older actors as teenagers (which is still done occasionally today), I suppose this can be forgiven. Besides, Werner realized after writing the script that it would be challenging to find an actor to play such an extreme role c
Read the whole review on TMDB - CinemaSerfon TMDB · Jan 20247/10
Right - despite the fact that this is based on an actual man and actual events, it is pretty aptly titled. Werner Herzog takes a bit of a punt with his chronology of the life of Kaspar Hauser (a strong performance from Bruno S.) but there are very few definites here except for the fact that we know (or come to know) that he had spent most of his childhood chained to a bed in a cellar with his only human contact coming from a man clad in black who fed and watered him daily. Then he released him, barely mobile or able to speak, into 1820s Nuremberg armed only with the clothes he stood up in and a note for the local soldiers. The rest of the tale unravels via a mixture of a conversation from the man himself with housekeeper "Käthe" (Brigitte Mira) about his past whilst we also focus on how various elements of society try to ingratiate, capitalise upon and analyse the young man before his untimely death spawns an whole new slew of sometimes fantastic conspiracy theories. At times there's something akin to Dumas' "Man in the Iron Mask" to the thread - could he be the illegitimate son of a grandee, a rich and powerful person? Well there's the enigma - we didn't know then and maybe we nev
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Cast
- Bruno S.Kaspar Hauser
- Walter LadengastProfessor Daumer
- Brigitte MiraHaushälterin Käthe
- Willy SemmelroggeRingmaster
- Kidlat TahimikHombrecito, the Indian
- Hans MusäusUnknown Man
- Michael KroecherLord Stanhope
- Henry van LyckCalvary Captain
- Enno PatalasPastor Fuhrmann
- Volker Elis PilgrimPastor #2
Crew
- Werner HerzogDirector
- Werner HerzogScreenplay
- Jörg Schmidt-ReitweinDirector of Photography
- Popol VuhOriginal Music Composer
- Beate Mainka-JellinghausEditor
- Werner HerzogProducer
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Pairings
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Often watched with
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