| | | An incredible tale of courage and survival against incredible odds.
Features: DVD
As a young boy, Dieter Dengler watched as Allied planes destroyed his village. From that instant, he knew that he wanted to fly. So at 18, he moved to America, enlisted in the Navy, and was promptly shipped to Vietnam. During one of his first missions, however, Dengler was shot down over Laos and taken prisoner. Despite torture and starvation--at one point he weighed 85 pounds--he escaped, and after a harrowing journey through the jungle on foot, returned home. Today, even comfort and success cannot dispel the demons of his past. In this remarkable, award-winning documentary, director Werner Herzog returns to the jungle with Dengler, to tell an incredible tale of courage and survival against impossible odds.
"Extraordinary." San Francisco Examiner
"Unforgettable...astonishing." Roger Ebert
Editor's Note
An extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary man, Werner Herzog's LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY details the life of Dieter Dengler, a survivor of both WWII and Vietnam. Dengler grew up in Germany, and, dreaming of one day flying a plane, left for the US when he was 18, unable to speak English. Soon, he was in the Navy, flying bombing missions over Laos and Vietnam, where his plane was shot down and he was taken prisoner. He and six others escaped the prison, but only he was known to have survived. Herzog turns Dieter's story into something much different than one might expect by putting Dieter back into scenes from his past and recording his amazingly understated reactions. For instance, in Laos, where he was taken prisoner, Herzog binds Dengler's hands and feet as they were in 1966 and uses Vietnamese actors, complete with rifles, to play Viet Cong. It's a startling technique, one that lends this film an intensity and sense of danger that Dengler consistently plays down.
| Features | Widescreen Version, Enhanced For 16X9 TVs | | Production Notes | | Werner Herzog Bio |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Anchor Bay |
| Release Date: 3/7/2006 |
| Original Release Date: 1997 | | Catalog ID: 11541 | | UPC: 00013131154191 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: German | | Available Audio Tracks: English, German | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Werner Herzog - Director | | Peter Zeitlinger - Director of Photography | | Werner Herzog - Featuring | | Dieter Dengler - Featuring | | Lucki Stipetic - Producer | | Andre Singer - Producer | | Werner Herzog - Writer |
| Awards |
Emmy (1999) | | | Werner Herzog, et al., Nominee, Outstanding Non-Fiction Special |
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| | Professional Reviews | Sight and Sound
"[Dengler] is the quintessential Herzogian man -- obsessive, visionary, stubborn, and with an extraordinary will to survive....[A] superb documentary..." 01/01/2008 p.94Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "One of Herzog's signature studies of life lived at the extremes." 02/01/2008 p.112 Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Herzog starts with a balding middle-aged man driving down a country lane in a convertible, and listens, questions and shapes, until the life experience of Dieter Dengler becomes unforgettable... It takes art to transform someone else's experience into our own. - Roger Ebert
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