Echoes from a Sombre Empire
- 1990 (1990)
France
German
English
Echoes From a Sombre Empire (German: Echos aus einem düsteren Reich) is a documentary film by Werner Herzog about Jean-Bédel Bokassa.
Content
Unlike most of Herzog's documentaries, the main body of the film does not provide any narration or commentary by Herzog himself. Instead, the film follows journalist Michael Goldsmith as he revisits the Central African Republic, where he was imprisoned and tortured by Bokassa's regime.[1] Goldsmith interviews two of Bokassa's wives, several of Bokassa's children (including the "true" daughter Martine), two of Bokassa's lawyers, and Central African Republic President David Dacko. Bokassa himself appears only in stock footage.
Goldsmith was working as a French journalist when he was imprisoned after reporting on Bokassa's elaborate coronation. In the film, he says that he had written his report and used a telex machine to send it to his employer. There was a power failure during the transmission, causing the text to become jumbled. The message was intercepted by the government of the CAE, who decided that it was a coded message, and that Goldsmith was a South African spy. Goldsmith was taken to a prison, where he says that he was beaten personally by Bokassa, almost to death.
Production
Herzog wished to interview Bokassa himself, who was in prison during the making of the film. The film crew obtained official permission from then-president André Kolingba, and Bokassa was reportedly willing to give the interview. Just before going to the prison, however, Herzog and the film crew were arrested and expelled from the country by the Minister of the Interior.[2]
The film begins with Herzog reading a statement from Goldsmith, who had disappeared in Liberia during its first civil war between the film's shooting and its completion. The statement describes a dream that Goldsmith has, accompanied by images of the migration of the Christmas Island red crab. Herzog again used imagery from the crab migration in his later film Invincible.
References
- ^ "Echos d'un sombre empire de Werner Herzog (1990) - Analyse et critique du film - DVDClassik". www.dvdclassik.com. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
- ^ Herzog, Werner (2001). Herzog on Herzog. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-20708-1.
External links
- Echoes From a Sombre Empire at IMDb
- Obituary of Michael Goldsmith in New York Times, 25 October 1990
- 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)
This article about a biographical documentary film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e