Scream of Stone

Werner Herzog – 1991 – Germany

The misty mountains that haunt Herzog’s life and cinema, and indeed much of the German cinema that he grew up on, return in Scream of Stone.  It is a film that Herzog supposedly prefers not to count among his work due to the weakness of its script, but is nevertheless full of characteristic Herzogian details that make it worthwhile and highly recognizable as a Herzog film.  Fog-enshrouded mountainous ranges play integral parts in various Herzog films from the masterpiece Heart of Glass (1976) to the documentary precursor of this film, 1984’s The Dark Glow of the Mountains.  Climber Reinhold Messner, who was featured in that film, suggested the story of Scream of Stone to Herzog.  The plot is (for me, at least) refreshingly threadbare; a rivalry between a surly soul climber and a hotshot celebrity sportsman results in a challenge between them to scale the Cerro Torre in South America.  The performances by the leads are certainly amateurish but I don’t see this as a weakness any more than the outsider acting of Bruno S. in Herzog’s great films Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Stroszeck (1977).  Eccentric pros like Donald Sutherland and Brad Dourif walk through periodically to even out the acting credentials of the movie.  Dourif, of course, would go on to become one of Herzog’s favorites; appearing in, among other things, The Wild Blue Yonder (2005).  Scream of Stone came during a period of overall uncertainly for Herzog as he was transitioning away from the exceptional features that made him famous into a solid career as one of the finest documentarians in the world.  In other words, his narrative features following Fitzcarraldo (1982) tend to be on the weaker side, though there are exceptions.  But Scream of Stone successfully accentuates Herzog’s persistent themes of the indifference of nature as the bane of mankind, expressed here in a stunning climax – featuring remarkable live stunt work by the mountaineers – in which the petty ambitions of men are rendered insignificant in comparison with the punishing power of the elements.