Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle

Plot synopsis:
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, wearing a black overcoat and top hat, who feeds him.
One day, in 1828, the same man takes Hauser out of his cell, teaches him a few phrases, and how to walk, before leaving him in the town of Nuremberg. Hauser becomes the subject of much curiosity, and is exhibited in a circus before being rescued by Professor Georg Friedrich Daumer, who patiently attempts to transform him.
Hauser soon learns to read and write, and develops unorthodox approaches to logic and religion; but music is what pleases him most. He attracts the attention of academics, clergy and nobility. He is then physically attacked by the same unknown man who brought him to Nuremberg. The attack leaves him unconscious with a bleeding head. He recovers, but is again mysteriously attacked; this time, stabbed in the chest.
Hauser rests in bed describing visions he has had of nomadic Berbers in the Sahara Desert, and then dies. An autopsy reveals an enlarged liver and cerebellum.

Tags: mystery, atmospheric

Review:
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL (Werner Herzog - West Germany 1974).Lacking a traditional narrative or dramatic structure and full of obscure images, this film feels more like a hypnotic dreamlike experience.
It also features one the more enduring trends in Herzog's work: the featuring of individuals with exceptional physical or psychological conditions.The film is based on the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appears on the market square in the German town of Nuremberg in 1828.
After living in a cellar for years with only a pet rocking horse, he is abandoned by his protector and provider, the mysterious "Man in Black." Having been isolated from all humans except his mysterious protector, Kaspar is suddenly thrust into civilization, and is expected to adapt himself to 19th-century society.
When Hauser comes under the tutelage of a sympathetic professor (Walter Ladengast), he gradually acquires an impressive degree of socialization and learns to express himself with a reasonable degree of clarity, but most of society's conventions, manners and thoughts is more the young man is able to adjust to.Herzog adopted a technique of incorporating film material shot by others filmmakers into the film.
Not only is THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER Werner Herzog's best film but I also believe it to be the greatest film ever made along with Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
KASPAR HAUSER has some of the most incredible and powerful images ever filmed.The opening shot is that of a rye field blowing in the wind; we hear Pachelbel's 'Cannon' and the following words appear on the screen; "Don't you hear that horrible screaming all around you?
Herzog's characters tend to have an uneasy relation to language, whether they are Kaspar, who lives years in his life without language at all,Bruno(Stroszek,1976)who, rather than explaining his emotions,builds a "schematic model" of his feelings, or Fini Straubinger(Land of Silence and Darkness 1970),who cannot explain in words how it feels to be blind and deaf.Indeed, virtually all of Herzog's films are populated by marginal beings who resist language or who affirm its insufficiency to produce "true" meaning.For Herzog, their resistance to language is clearly a sign of their purity.More importantly, this resistance has the effect of rendering such figures opaque and image-like.An image that is visually striking but not wholly susceptible to verbal explanation.Their opacity gives them the quality of an unformulated image, an image that to some extent retards or actually interrupts the narrative flow with its non narrative effect.Kaspar is "outside of language and outside of difference," and later resists the patriarchal narrative with which he is equipped.Despite the pronounced literary subtext in these films, the dismissal of writing as a secondary mediation in contrast with the immediacy of the image occurs persistently in Herzog.The words of Kaspar's name spring up as the watercress he has planted, becoming living things in a triumphant romantic gesture that recalls Holderlin's longing, in BREAD AND WINE, for "words which spring up like flowers."By gestures such as these, Herzog has, in his view, redeemed language by transforming it first into a thing and then into an image.The lack of erotic impulse in Herzog's narratives is pronounced: the sexualized body is not of interest to Herzog and in his characters libidinal impulses tend to be sublimated into an all-consuming vision or to disappear into introit by some other means.Kaspar's enthusiasm for knitting that so shocks Lord Stanhope and in his general refusal to distinguish between male and female tasks.The black caped man who initiates Kaspar's entry into narrative, a symbolic father whose identity nevertheless remains enshrouded in mystery, resembles on one so much as Dr. Caligari in his black cape.As in some measure the "founding text" of German cinema and as an allegory per SE, THE CABINET OF DR.
CALIGARI would naturally speak to a filmmaker anxious to create a bridge between German films of the Weimar period and those of his own time.So the black caped father functions here as the symbolic father of German cinema as well.Within the overall narrative of the film, it is the Caligari figure who intervenes with violence at various junctures in order,it would appear, to be able to direct its course.This violence, in turn, generates in the imagination of Kaspar a succession of visionary images that, like Herzog's films, begin with landscapes.When, in one dream sequence, Kaspar creates a mythical landscape of the Caucasus, a landscape with golden temples for which there has been no equivalent in his experience, Kaspar is creating with natural signs, like Herzog in hoping to bring "the real" into his film-making..
Werner Herzog's film deals with the true story of Kasper Hauser (Bruno S.), a young man who appears, supposedly out of nowhere in a small German town of Nuremberg in 1828.
Kasper Hauser is a beautiful, if at times painfully slow film, that gives us yet another interpretation of the outsider in society, definitely worth the watch..
Kasper Hauser is one of the great masterpieces of the New German Cinema and stands as one Werner Herzog greatest achievements.
A  truely visionary work!!I have always been fascinated with the story that this film tells.Herzog seems to be an expert at showing the way that an outsider relates to the world.Bruno S.
Werner Herzog's strange and enticing film divulges only what is known of the account of Kaspar Hauser, played by Bruno S., who dwelled for the first 17 years of his life shackled in a small basement room with nothing more than a toy horse to occupy him, without all contact with humans or other living things save for a stranger who gives food to him.
The people surrounding Kaspar in Herzog's film are perfectly subjugated, as in the scene where a little girl tries to teach Kaspar a nursery rhyme, and while it's clear that he doesn't know the meaning at all of the rhyme like she does and that he hasn't even developed as far as a small child, it's also clear that the small child has not developed far enough to know how to educate someone with less common knowledge than her.Herzog chronicles the real-life mystery of Kaspar Hauser not so much as a creepy mystery but as a character study that demonstrates that society's traditional manner of perceiving the world may not essentially be the most well-founded or defensible, hence the film's brilliant original title, Every Man For Himself and God Against All, as all but laid bare when Kaspar's assertion that apples are tired is apparently substantiated by the incapability of his aristocratic savior to show support of the argument that they are lifeless objects subject to human control.Bruno S.
This film blends somewhat disjointed artistic imagery with the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a man apart from society who has been kept in a cellar all of his life, and is suddenly expelled into the light in Nuremburg.
One of the most evocative and quietly moving films ever produced on the subjects of cultural displacement, exploitation and personal despair, with director Werner Herzog producing a pure work of cinema as sensitive as the character that he depicts.
Like many of Herzog's films from this era, such as Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) and Stroszek (1977) in particular, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1975) is essentially about looking at the world from the outside in; with all of the separate elements distorted in order to convey the world-view of this perennial outsider seeing himself for the very first time.
In a manner similar to that of David Lynch's subsequent film, The Elephant Man (1980), Herzog uses elements of the real-life story behind the character simply as an excuse to ruminate on the notions of alienation, the nature of conspiracy, personal exploitation and degradation, as well as the often underhanded mechanisms of a seemingly enlightened society, in a way that goes beyond the mere superficial levels of the narrative.The point of the film is expressed by the original German title, "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle", or "every man for himself and God against all".
However - again looking back to the subject matter of Even Dwarfs Started Small - Herzog instead gives us a representation of the sane man in the insane world; showing us how the corruption and inherent evil of self-preservation can take a gentle and contemplative spirit and crush it completely; a notion that is beautifully illustrated in a cinematic sense by the scene in which Kaspar sows his name with seeds into the flower bed, only to return one day from an outing to find that it has been trampled by an intruder.Moments like these are characteristic of Herzog's continually fascinating style of direction from this particular period, as he approached cinema from a perspective similar to that of filmmakers like Peter Watkins, Ken Russell or Pier Paolo Pasolini by investigating the workings of a period setting from a more contemporary perspective.
As a result of this, there is a heightened quality to the portrayal of Kaspar, as well as a genuine sense of dependence on the two characters that come to care for him, as the more experienced cast members take Bruno under their wing and coach him along in a manner reminiscent of the actual characters themselves.The juxtaposition between the two styles of documentary realism and purposeful cinematic expression can be seen in the visualisation of the film; from the naturalistic cinematography of Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein - with its emphasis on light and shadow and expressive use of landscapes - to the use of classical music (which here gives the film a yearning, almost romantic sense of melodrama to contrast against the more downbeat elements of the film).
In Herzog's film, it is the world that is wrong and confused, with Kaspar becoming a sort of representation for the very greatest qualities of humanity in the face of this vile corruption.
Dealing with material that inevitably draws the viewer into central questions about culture, identity, and the place and importance of the individual, Herzog excels, and the final result in this case is a quite splendid film, which gives pause for thought while providing engaging entertainment.By way of warning however, I should say that the notable downside of the video version that I saw was that the English subtitles were horrendously done  on a number of occasions simply unreadable.
Beautifully scripted and shot, with a superb first performance by Bruno S., "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" is not only one of Herzog's best films, it is one of the best films of the 70s.
"Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Shakespeare vividly helps in making sense, at times, of life, but it certainly does not apply to "Kaspar Hauser." Predating Hollywood's recent love affair with the mentally retarded ("Forrest Gump" and "I Am Sam" come to mind), the main character here is handicapped cognitively before they became fashionable.
It's beautiful and has something great to show us: the deepest secrets of human being.Kasper Hauser (Bruno S.) is a man who was found living away from other people.
Who else other than Werner Herzog should make the film about the incredible story of Kaspar Hauser?
Bruno S., also having rather a special background and a somewhat odd appearance, works perfectly in the role, and director Herzog delivers an interesting, and strange, film..
Of course, Herzog has always been a relentless film-maker, whether exploring the mind of Kaspar Hauser or having Fitzcarraldo drag a ship over a hill.
'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser' is a critically acclaimed film directed by Werner Herzog.
One fine day in the city of Nuremberg in 1828, a random, strange looking individual(he was 16 years old in the true story, but the film depicts him as a man in his late twenties) appeared standing in the city square motionless holding a prayer book and a letter in his hands.
The character is peculiar and absurd, but Bruno manages to maintain a sense of realism in spite of the absurdities to make the character fully realised on screen and believable.In 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser', Werner Herzog through the use of an outsider, makes a subtle commentary about 'civilised' society.
It's based on the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a real-life enigma of the 19th century.
It is based on the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appears after spending almost two decades of his life in captivity without any human contact.
Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser (Bruno S.), a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note; he later explained that he had been held captive in a dungeon of some sort for his entire life that he could remember, and only recently was he released, for reasons unknown.Plenty of oddness and humor here, especially when it comes to the segment with the miniature king.
Much like that film, Kaspar Hauser has a certain quality that is mysterious, yet beautiful.
This is perfectly suitable in this case, because the main character, Kaspar Hauser, really is seeing the world for the first time.The opening of the film sets the mood perfectly, showing foggy shots of 19th century landscapes and people that seem almost like a symbol of Kaspar's own hazy mind.
did a fantastic job as the lead character, and it is moving to watch as Kaspar puts so much effort into attempting to comply with the society he suddenly seems to be a part of.Herzog's use of music in his films has always been profound, and Kaspar Hauser is no exception.
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is another of Werner Herzog's explorations of human extremity.
The film embraces the myth of Kaspar Hauser and ignores findings suggesting that much of his story was impossible, or that he was regarded as a pathological liar and that several of the people who cared for him came to detest him, later testifying that they thought he was a con-man.
Unlike many films dealing with such enigmatic mysteries, it does not even attempt to explain the central mystery, but rather to see the world through the point of view of its protagonist and we come to know what a cruel but beautiful world it is.Its revealing thing to know that the actor playing Kaspar Hauser, by almost a non professional actor named as Bruno S.
What I mean by that first statement may not completely apply, due to Werner Herzog's standards for his character in his film Every Man For Himself and God Against All (a much stronger and telling title than the regular Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), but I thought of Kaspar Hauser a few times in relation to movie characters like Forrest Gump, Rain Man, the Elephant Man among others.
This goes for dreams, and apples, too.Questions like these, as well as what it means to be always an outcast even when given the opportunity to 'join' society, are at the heart of Every Man For Himself, a film that ranks with the better Herzog films (if not the best), and provides the great non-actor Bruno S.
What would end up having me recommend the film the most to fans of Herzog not yet acquainted with it, or even people just not familiar with Herzog at all yet love foreign films and experimental takes on human nature, I'd say it has two major things going for it: the depths of the soul a mind and what makes up the essentials in society are put on display in ways almost all filmmakers wouldn't even consider much less film as a docu-drama; and the cinematography and visual strengths, where aside from the exceptions (I didn't care for the 8mm shots of the village, and the Sahara bits are only slightly better), are absolutely top-notch.I'll definitely want to visit the world of Kaspar Hauser again sometime, as it's a character given a 'study' of the purest kind (and a simple-yet-complex performance), where one sees what an outsider really is, and more than anything an outsider from everything the civilized world has to offer.
The film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno Schleinstein), 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.This film may have actually been decent if the pace was brought up a little.
In casting the role of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog made the inspired choice of the man known only as Bruno S., who had in real life been savagely mistreated when young and who shared certain characteristics with the character in the film.
Herzog clearly isn't interested in solving the riddle of the historic Kaspar Hauser; the film takes Kaspar's unlikely story at face value and uses it as a showcase for the amazing if limited talents of his main man, Bruno S., a schizophrenic street performer who'd spent most of his life in institutions.
There is a definite feel about The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, a strange and hypnotic feel as we witness the later-on-in-years life of a strange individual thrust in amongst people and a society, after previously having had barely any contact at all with someone from the human race.
The film is about a man named Kaspar Hauser who was kept locked up in a cellar for many years and was finally released upon society.
I thought Bruno S did a very good job at playing Kaspar Hauser who we the audience eventually learn to like, feel and care for.
In this film, Herzog made an awesome discovery of a real life outsider named Bruno S., and in here he played Kaspar Hauser.