Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner

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.

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner is a very strange sports documentary. Perhaps this comes as no surprise when you consider its director is Werner Herzog, a man who tends to focus on unpredictable aspects in his films. It's about the champion Swiss ski-jumper Walter Steiner, specifically his appearance at a competition in Yugoslavia in 1974, where he easily breaks the world record. The approach that Herzog takes differs from most sports biographies in that it doesn't really profile Steiner in a traditional sense. Other than the fact that he is a woodcarver by trade, we don't learn anything about his personal life or his ascent in his chosen sport. Instead the film uses him to explore a more abstract set of ideas, specifically the idea that ski jumpers experience an almost bliss-like state as they fly through the air. The very obvious danger the sport presents the athletes every time they descend down the slope makes the competitors unusual in that they effectively confront the possibility of death each time they compete. Anyone who doubts this only has to watch the incredible and disturbing shots of skiers crash landing in a most brutal manner. And it struck me towards the end that these guys are not even wearing helmets! Many times we see heads battering off the slope and it really makes you shudder to think how many must've died as a direct consequence of having no protective headgear; this shows the advances in safety measures over the subsequent years.

The film is probably best remembered for the incredible slow motion footage of the jumpers captured on special high-speed cameras. Herzog quite successfully captures the otherworldly aspect of this activity by this ultra-slowed down imagery accompanied by the extremely evocative music by Popul Vuh; these moments transcend typical sports documentary footage and do tap into something more mysterious. On a more basic level, there are several times when Steiner openly talks about his fears. Specifically the way the organisers callously encourage extremely dangerous acts by raising the ramp to increasingly high levels. This naturally brings large crowds and media attention – both of whom will no doubt have elements of whom will secretly crave seeing terrible accidents. It really looks into the darker side of why people turn up to watch certain dangerous sporting events. Steiner is so much better than the competition that he genuinely fears the possibility of jumping too far and killing himself on the flat at the bottom. He ends up voluntarily starting further down the ramp to shorten his overall distance. Towards the end of the film he tells a story about his childhood when his only friend was a raven he had nursed back to health. They formed an almost embarrassed friendship culminating with him having to kill the bird in order to save it from repeat savage attacks from its fellow ravens which had that turned against it. It's a story that mirrors Steiner the flier's experience and how alone he must have felt as he travelled at speed towards the bloodthirsty crowd of his own kind for the umpteenth time.

Ecstasy is an interesting short documentary about champion ski jumper Walter Steiner made by Werner Herzog. In 45 minutes Herzog manages to reveal more about the feelings of the competitor and a sport than most documentaries twice its length do. Herzog's cameras capture both the grace and gruesomeness of the jump as Steiner meets with failure and success. Steiner is quite candid in assessing himself, revealing insecurities and doubts.

Herzog's cameras much of the time seem to be in the right place at the right time without being intrusive. He does however belabor the point with repetitive slow mo wrecks of the earth bound skiers.

Decades later this compact and uniquely informative sports documentary can hold its own with any made since then.

The best of Herzog's shorts, this film documents the mysterious soaring Walter Steiner as he destroys the world ski-flying record in 1974 Yugoslavia.

To be fair, this is not really a documentary about Steiner, the Swiss woodcarver and ski-flyer, nor the sport in general, nor the competition and breaking off the world record, but something more intense and esoteric -- a poem of obsession, ecstasy and escape.

This mesmerizing piece (set to an airy Popol Vuh soundtrack) is marred only by repetitive shots of ski-jump accidents, Herzog's inserting himself into several shots and his unnecessary and clumsy closing line.

Werner Herzog's The Great Ecstacy of Woodcarver Steiner is a glimpse of a man who is quite amazing at his gift of ski-jumping- he's the world record holder at the time of filming (and a record he actually tops over himself more than once)- and how he's all the more impressive because of his humble attitude towards the activity. He's a woodcarver as his other profession, but has it as his primary obsession to fly, to get whisked away someplace that is of his design but not entirely of his control. And he's affected by the pressure of his own skills, skills he acknowledges but doesn't flaunt; like some comic-book hero, he has to deal with the responsibilities he has at his disposal, of not going down for his audience (who might want to see that happen), or for himself, and at the same time staying true to his gifts. He's often by his own, seen through Herzog's long lens contemplating or trying to stay on his own two feet well enough when not ski-jumping. But he knows that he can't be brought down, as his touching story about his pet raven as a kid, who got pecked away by other birds, and in order to stop it, as an act of compassion, he shot it down. At the end of the day, however, the thrill of flight is all that counts, high scores be damned.

Herzog takes this man's obsession, albeit with modest feelings about his own worth as a mega-star in Switzerland, and transforms it into a beautiful spectacle of simple facts- of the moment by moment updates of Steiner's conditions or what has to be done to the slope or what rules have to be changed to accommodate Steiner alongside the other contenders- with some of the most beautiful shots in any Herzog film. It's not anything alien to see someone in a typical sports documentary to see the athlete in slow-motion speed, but somehow Herzog transforms the familiar into something akin to the theme, of Steiner's own thrill and 'ecstacy' as what the audience feels as well. It's very interesting as well to see Steiner in slow-motion when he skids, when he or another ski-jumper gets injured (and almost everyone seen ski-jumping in the film, and there aren't many shown other than Steiner, get injured in tumbles in rough ways), as it's something one usually wouldn't see in the glorious montages of sports figures. I also really enjoyed seeing Herzog combine voice-over taken after the event, with Steiner slightly rambling on, over the footage of his jumps.

Just seeing a ski-jumper in and of itself is a fascinating sight, as one curls up and has to anticipate what's to come in mere mili-seconds. And Herzog adds his visual poetry of motion with some usual-yet-compelling behind the scenes footage to make it an exceptional work. Steiner isn't a simple hero, but one who's got complexities even Herzog can only see so much into, as he's an otherwise everyman who goes to fantastic lengths for greatness, yet is very aware of the fragility of such power in a sport so reliant on deadly competition and spectator unrest. Very well done.