The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)

best movie i've ever seen.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

In this 45 minute documentary, Werner Herzog takes a seemingly ordinary subject matter (ski jumping) and turns it into something profound: a meditation on life and death and man's desire to be the best, no matter the consequences. It follows the career of champion ski jumper Walter Steiner, who's determined to win big at a contest in the former Yugoslavia.Despite the scant running time this is a moving and reflective viewing experience that seeks to give an insight into a man living on the edge. It does so ably, and in addition Herzog includes a number of beautiful images of this chap jumping through the air in extreme slow motion, with the viewer waiting to see whether he makes or breaks it. It's a wonderful visual experience, and another example of Herzog's skill as a documentary film-maker.

Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, The (1974) *** (out of 4) Another interesting documentary from the German director. The film takes a look at Walter Steiner, a Swedish ski jumper who was considered the greatest in history. At least he was considered the greatest when this film was made and since I'm not too familiar with the sport I can't say if he has been pasted or not. The film, like most of Herzog's documentaries, takes a look at something that a lot of people might not find interesting yet Herzog does his magic and in the end the film works quite well. It seems that Herzog is interested in the sport as well as the man himself so a lot of attention goes into both as we get to learn the rules behind the sport and we see what sets Steiner off. Steiner is constantly upset with judges for making the judges do things he thinks are dangerous and this attitude has gotten him in trouble at times. We get to see Steiner go through various ups and downs and his attitude really isn't any different no matter how he does. The film runs 45-minutes and remains entertaining throughout even if you aren't too interested in the material being talked about.

This starts out looking like a more or less standard TV documentary about a ski-jumper. Over time, however, it somehow gets stranger and stranger, until the ending, that somehow, incomprehensibly, left me totally out of breath.The film works on so many levels: It's a fascinating portrayal of the celebrated ski-jumper Steiner, but it's also an amazing look at the plain aesthetics of ski-jumping, with extreme slow-motion pictures showing the jumpers' fears and ecstasy at a very profound level. In addition, there is also something in this film that's simply very hard or impossible to define, something about man itself, something about longing and - perhaps the most advanced of human emotions - pity.How much of this portrayal that actually reflects Steiner's personality, and how much of it that reflects Herzog's, is hard to tell. But that's the only catch. Those looking for Herzog classics should not think that this movie can be missed because it's a 45-minute TV documentary. Apart from pictures of some nasty ski-jumping falls, it's not really disturbing to the extent that put me slightly off when watching for example Aguirre and Even Dwarfs Started Small - so it could from my point of view overall be the best of the many Herzog movies I've seen so far.

After seeing this documentary "the great ecstasy of the sculptor Steiner" by Werner Herzog in 1974, I think this is a good story, but a little tricky "documentary". This 45 minutes long documentary basically recorded champion ski-jumper in a competition. I think the story basically is like other sports-related feature movies, no matter the commercial movies or not, and it gives confidence to audiences and encourages people to try their best and not to lose their hopes. Like most commercial Hollywood movies, like boxing, baseball, basketball and so on, this movie did make audiences moving. The happy ending - the protagonist broke the world record - made the movie more positive. However, I wonder if the whole story had been scripted in advanced? Firstly, it did not record other competition when the protagonist failed and the whole documentary only recorded this competition - the summit of his career. Second, the happy ending dramatized a little much for this film. The extremely slow motion with the background music portrayed the brave of the main character. Then when the reporter was worried about the main character and did not know what had happened to him, this documentary became too dramatic. After he finally got the championship, the story became too coincident. All these elements made this documentary a touching story but also a feature-like "documentary". By and large, the director dramatized the whole story to make this short film like a feature film (fiction film), and people may deeply get moved. Interestingly, the director used "documentary" this form to make the story more realistic and believable.