Wherefore HerzAugust?
This month's challenge: What is it? What does it want from us?
I've been an active Letterboxd user for the past decade, after spending the previous several years trying to keep track of my movie watches on IMDB with not altogether satisfying results.
Letterboxd's buttery-smooth web/app interface, coupled with integration with JustWatch's invaluable streaming movie-locator service, helped me turn all kinds of bucket-list films from ones I said I'd been "meaning to see" to ones that I had "watched just the other day."
At first, this was a simple personal book-keeping exercise, merely keeping a tally of watches along with an ever-growing watchlist of ones suggested by friends, family, or most often film blogs and podcasts, helping me take it from a small and easily-kept mental list to one that could indulge in the stranger, more unfamiliar corners of cinema.
After a few years of being on Letterboxd, my interest in catching up with the hundreds of movies that I had missed out on seeing over the years had turned into a somewhat more gameified pursuit. Though I've never quite been a completionist per se, there was a certain satisfaction to be had in finally tracking down and crossing off movies that I'd just never managed to sit down and watch even in the just-passed golden ages of VHS and DVD.
This tendency came to a head when I discovered that Letterboxd also contained challenges: Specially-devised film lists that were a cross between a programmed movie marathon and a scavenger hunt, asking other users to build their own lists around themes encompassing various directors, actors, genres, and more.
The first one of these I ever tackled was Hooptober, an annual horror challenge that runs during the six weeks leading up to Halloween, created by Cinemonster, an Austin, TX film programmer. Hooptober is so named in honor of the late horror/genre director Tobe Hooper, responsible for such classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist, and Salem's Lot. The categories and criteria for each year's Hooptober vary according to Cinemonster's whims, but are always chosen with an eye towards nudging his participants towards lower-traffic avenues of horror that they might not have found on their own.
After finishing my first Hooptober, I quickly discovered other annual, monthly and even weekly challenges, which I've pursued off and on over the years; Mostly "off" as of late, due to a crowded work/life schedule that will likely get more hectic over the next year.
With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to jump back on the challenge train with one of my own design, based around a filmmaker whose work I've always found fascinating but never had a chance to do the kind of deep-dive into that I would have liked.
With that in mind, I give you WERNER HERZAUGUST, an annual challenge taking place over the entire month of August, that celebrates the work of German filmmaker Werner Herzog, as well as the New German Cinema movement and the wide world of films and filmmakers he helped influence over the past 50+ years.
Click my challenge list below for the full details.
Good luck and Happy HerzAugusting!
