Even Dwarfs Started Small
- 15 May 1970 (1970-05-15) (Cannes)
- 2 February 1971 (1971-02-02) (West Germany)
- 15 December 1971 (1971-12-15) (US)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (German: Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen) is a 1970 West German absurdist comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog.
Plot
Dwarfs confined in an institution on a remote island rebel against the guards and director, also dwarfs, in a display of mayhem. They gleefully break windows and dishes, cackle maniacally, abandon a running truck to drive itself in circles, engineer food fights and cock fights, look at pin-up magazines, set fire to pots of flowers, kill a large pig, torment some blind dwarfs, and perform a mock crucifixion of a monkey.
Cast
- Helmut Döring as Hombré
- Paul Glauer as Erzieher
- Gisela Hertwig as Pobrecita
- Hertel Minkner as Chicklets
- Gertrud Piccini as Piccini
- Marianne Saar as Theresa
- Brigitte Saar as Cochina
- Gerd Gickel as Pepe
- Erna Gschwendtner as Azucar
Production
The film was shot on the Canary Islands, at Lanzarote. It was produced during the same time period as Herzog's Fata Morgana and The Flying Doctors of East Africa, and there are visual and thematic connections between the three works. Notably, the goggles worn by the blind dwarfs are the same style as the goggles which several people wear in Fata Morgana.[1]
During the filming, Herzog gave some surprising stage directions to elicit particular performances from the actors. In directing one dwarf who continually struggled not to laugh, Herzog repeatedly told the actor that he must not laugh, but then made funny faces at him as soon as he started filming.[1]
While filming the scene where a van drives in circles with no one at the wheel, one of the actors was run over, but immediately stood up uninjured. During the flower burning scene, the same actor caught fire and Werner Herzog raced over and beat the fire out. The actor only had minor injuries from the fire. After these two accidents, Herzog promised the actors that if they made it through the rest of filming without any more injuries he would jump into a cactus patch and allow the actors to film him doing so. The film was finished without any further injuries and the director made good his promise and dived into the cacti. Herzog has said, "Getting out was a lot more difficult than jumping in."[2] The vehicle-in-circles scene was inspired by an incident that occurred when Herzog worked as a steward at the Munich Oktoberfest as a young man. Part of his duty was ensuring that drunk patrons did not attempt to drive their cars home, so when a drunk man insisted that he was capable of driving, Herzog got into his car with him, placed the steering wheel on full lock, then got out of his car. The man passed out and the car continued to drive in a circle until it ran out of petrol. This situation was repeated at the end Herzog's 1977 film Stroszek.
Reception
Even Dwarfs Started Small has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[3]
References
External links
- Even Dwarfs Started Small at IMDb
- Even Dwarfs Started Small at Rotten Tomatoes
- v
- t
- e
- Signs of Life (1968)
- Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
- Fata Morgana (1971)
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
- The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
- Heart of Glass (1976)
- Stroszek (1977)
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
- Woyzeck (1979)
- Fitzcarraldo (1982)
- Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)
- Cobra Verde (1987)
- Scream of Stone (1991)
- Lessons of Darkness (1992)
- Invincible (2001)
- The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
- Rescue Dawn (2006)
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
- My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
- Queen of the Desert (2015)
- Salt and Fire (2016)
- Family Romance, LLC (2019)
- The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969)
- Handicapped Future (1971)
- Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
- The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
- How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
- La Soufrière (1977)
- Huie's Sermon (1981)
- God's Angry Man (1981)
- Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
- The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
- Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
- Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
- Jag Mandir (1991)
- Bells from the Deep (1993)
- The Transformation of the World into Music (1994)
- Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
- Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
- My Best Fiend (1999)
- Wings of Hope (2000)
- Pilgrimage (2001)
- Ten Thousand Years Older (2002)
- Wheel of Time (2003)
- The White Diamond (2004)
- Grizzly Man (2005)
- Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
- Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010)
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
- Into the Abyss (2011)
- On Death Row (2012)
- Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
- Into the Inferno (2016)
- Meeting Gorbachev (2018)
- Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019)
- Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020)
- The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)
- Herakles (1962)
- Game in the Sand (1964)
- The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967)
- Last Words (1968)
- Precautions Against Fanatics (1969)
- No One Will Play with Me (1976)
- Portrait Werner Herzog (1986)
- Les Gaulois (1988)
- La bohème (2009)
- Incident at Loch Ness (2004)
- Of Walking in Ice (1978)
- The Twilight World (2021)
- Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir (2022)
- Lena Herzog (wife)
- Lucki Stipetić (brother)
- Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)
- Burden of Dreams (1982)
- Location Africa (1987)
- Plastic Bag (2009)