Heart of Glass
This event is in the past
Tuesday, August 9, 2022, 7:30 pm
The Beacon
Columbia City (Seattle)
This is an in-person event
$12.50
The following description comes from the event organizer.
Werner Herzog is a filmmaker legendary for daring to go to the extremes, and the ethereal HEART OF GLASS is a prime example: the director had his cast hypnotized every day in order to achieve a trance-like intensity. The film is set around 1800 in a Bavarian village renowned for the "ruby glass" produced by its glassworks. When the factory’s master glassblower dies before passing on the secret to making it, a mad, murderous effort ensues to recreate the lost formula. The film’s tone approaches the apocalyptic as events are observed, and the future augured, by a mystic named Hias (Josef Bierbichler, the one member of the cast not hypnotized). Herzog said his unusual working methods were designed to "convey an atmosphere of hallucination, of prophecy, of the visionary and of collective madness." The influence of Caspar David Friedrich, the 19th-century Romantic painter, is evident in the film’s beautiful compositions.