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Coeur de verre

Original title: Herz aus Glas
  • 1976
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
6.9K
YOUR RATING
Coeur de verre (1976)
Drama

The foreman of a small village glassworks dies without revealing the secret to the famous "Ruby Glass".The foreman of a small village glassworks dies without revealing the secret to the famous "Ruby Glass".The foreman of a small village glassworks dies without revealing the secret to the famous "Ruby Glass".

  • Director
    • Werner Herzog
  • Writers
    • Herbert Achternbusch
    • Werner Herzog
  • Stars
    • Josef Bierbichler
    • Stefan Güttler
    • Clemens Scheitz
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.8/10
    6.9K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Werner Herzog
    • Writers
      • Herbert Achternbusch
      • Werner Herzog
    • Stars
      • Josef Bierbichler
      • Stefan Güttler
      • Clemens Scheitz
    • 55User reviews
    • 32Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 1 nomination total

    Photos99

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    Top cast37

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    Josef Bierbichler
    Josef Bierbichler
    • Hias
    Stefan Güttler
    Stefan Güttler
    • Huttenbesitzer
    Clemens Scheitz
    Clemens Scheitz
    • Adalbert
    Volker Prechtel
    Volker Prechtel
    • Wudy
    Sonja Skiba
    Sonja Skiba
    • Ludmilla
    Brunhilde Klöckner
    • Paulin
    Wolf Albrecht
    Thomas Binkley
    Janos Fischer
    Wilhelm Friedrich
    • Father of Glass Factory Owner
    Edith Gratz
    Alois Hruschka
    Egmont Hugel
    Sterling Jones
    Karl Kaufmann
    Helmut Kossick
    Helmut Krüger
    Wolfram Kunkel
    • Director
      • Werner Herzog
    • Writers
      • Herbert Achternbusch
      • Werner Herzog
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews55

    6.86.9K
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    Featured reviews

    6ma-cortes

    Strange and cryptic Werner Herzog film, with picturesque cinematography

    This is an offbeat and provoking film regarding the notorious craftsman of a small village carrying out glassworks and dying suddenly without revealing the secret to the known "Ruby Glass". This small village is renowned for its "Ruby Glass" glass blowing works but things go wrong when the main foreman dies without transmit his craft wisdom . The little town slides into a deep crisis , and the owner of the glassworks becomes obsessed with the lost secret asking for help a wise man . At the village a mysterious young (Josef Bierbichler) appears telling weird prophecies about a sad future of the people .

    Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of the creators of a brilliant crystal , it stars a rare prophet , a very strange and fantastic character well played by Josef Bierbichler . Concerning the deep distresses happen when the foreman of glassworks dies suddenly without revealing the secret of the Ruby Glass creating a real depression and sadness at the village , then showing up a bizarre chracter named "Hias" -legendary Nostradamus lookalike- who is actually based on a Bavarian prophet called Mühlhias. A movie that shares with ¨Aguirre Wrath of God¨ and ¨Kaspar Hauser¨ a fascination with rare and outlandish roles . Not the same dizzy folly as Aguirre , but Herzog´s similarly long perspective conjures as a brooding and thought-provoking film of man's aimless tracks throughout a society in crisis . Josef Bierbichler provides a decent as well as agreeable acting as the mysterious young with unknown past . Accompanied by ordinary actors from Herzog factory as Clemens Scheitz and Volker Prechtel. However , most actors were really hypnotized by Werner Herzog himself and play under hypnosis on big screen.

    It contains hypnotic , colorful and luxurious cinematography by Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein , Herzog's regular , being shot on various location in Monument Valley, Utah, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Niagara Falls, New York, Alaska, USA , Skellig Michael, County Kerry, Skellig Rocks, County Kerry, Ireland , Frauenaus bei Zwiesel, Bavarian Forest, Bavaria, Germany , Pischelsdorf bei Arnstorf, Bavaria,Walchsing Castle, Bavaria, and Switzerland . Accompanying a fascinating and riveting musical score by Popol Vuh . The motion picture was competently directed by Werner Herzog . Including some landmarks , as containing long, extended landscape shots . This great German director Herzog has made thoughtful and interesting films , such as : "Fata Morgana" , "Aguirre Wrath of God" , "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser", "Heart of Glass" , "Stroszek", "Woyzeck" , "Nosferatu the Vampire", "Where the Green Ants Dream" , "Cobra Verde" ,"Lessons in Darkness", "My Dearest Enemy", "Invincible" , "The White Diamond", "Grizzly Man", "Rescue Dawn" , among others . Rating : 6.5/10 , acceptable and passable but extremely slow-moving and a little bit boring . The flick will appeal to Werner Herzog followers.
    7zetes

    Terribly beautiful - terribly pretentious

    It's impossible to love this film, and it is as impossible to hate it. The plot is slight and silly, and the dialogue and acting are unintentionally hilarious. Heart of Glass could stand as the archetype of the so-called "pretentious European cinema," you know, the kind you would have seen Mike Meyers make fun of in his "Sprockets" sketches on SNL. In fact, I don't know of anything that comes even close to Heart of Glass in its pretentions. The film is as shallow as could be. Perhaps those with overactive imaginations could "figure it out," but I don't want to waste that time.

    However, Herzog is an amazingly skilled director. The script may suck, but the visuals, the cinematography and the mise-en-scene, represent some of the greatest moments in all cinema. It's not a non-stop beauty festival, but there are many individual scenes of outrageous splendor. If only Herzog had planned the script as intricately as he searched out locations for the shoot. What this film really reminds me of an Andrei Tarkovsky or Michelangelo Antonioni film with no substance whatsoever. I can't give Heart of Glass more than a 7/10, but, in many ways, it's a must see. If you've never seen a Herzog film before, though, avoid this one. Start with Aguirre the Wrath of God or, my favorite so far, Fitzcarraldo.
    7Morten_5

    Poetic reflection on existence

    Filmed on beautiful locations in Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the USA, "Heart of Glass" (1976) is a poetic reflection on existence.

    Containing a little less absurdity than, for example, "Stroszek" (1977) and "Even Dwarfs Started Small" (1970), this work by German auteur Werner Herzog is rather a dramatic and thoughtful consideration of the importance of knowledge.
    10tho-3

    No accounting for taste... power begets strong reaction

    Unlike Herzog's other movies, with their super-realistic substrate on which he paints our miserable human condition, Heart of Glass is an allegory, a fable told to peasants as a cautionary tale: the human heart is precious... and the peasants are us, and we violate that warning everyday, in a thousand little ways, with our stupidity and our pettiness...

    Is the movie slow? perhaps... Do I still remember scenes vividly from the movie as if I saw it yesterday, though it's been more than 20 years? oh yes... this movie haunts me, unlike any other movie I've ever seen
    MacAindrais

    Tell me the Secret of the Ruby Red Glass!

    Heart of Glass (1976)

    Werner Herzog may well be one of my most cherished humans on the planet. If he were giving a lecture on the idiosyncrasies of his films, I would like to be there. If he was sitting on a sidewalk eating chips, I too would like to be there. He is without a doubt one of the cinema's most fascinating minds ever. He is, in my opinion, the King of the New German Wave of the 70s. And he still makes great and exciting movies! One of his most enchanting moments in his long and ambitious career (really, was there any man more ambitious in films than he?), is Heart of Glass, a totally bizarre portrait of a town gone mad. Although the picture for all intensive purposes defies the boundaries of any genre, it has been described as an absurdest drama-dy. That's a pretty suiting classification. If Heart of Glass can be described in one word, it would have to be absurd.

    The film's protagonist Hias, a prophet of sorts. He can see the future, and seems usually to be depressed with the burden. His village has just lost the proprietor of its livelihood. The foreman of their red Ruby Glass factory, the only man who knew the secret of how to make it, died without ever getting the chance to pass it on. The town now searches in vain for the secret. Without it they grow depressed and begin losing their sanity, particularly the man who owns the glass works factory in his bid to discover the secrets.

    That's really all that I can disclose about the film. Herzog's film is one based on style and atmosphere, getting at something underneath its story. He famously hypnotized the entire cast for each scene, save for the actor playing Hias and the professional glassblowers. Much of the dialogue was then improvised in a hypnotic state by the actors. Herzog described how an uneducated man in the cast was hypnotized, and then told to read a poem on the wall. The man replied he couldn't' see it without its glasses. Herzog told him to just move forward and he would see it. He then reportedly read off a stunning poem - a work of his own mind, since no poem ever existed on that wall. The hypnosis not only gives the actor's improvisations an peculiarity, but also their manner of delivery. It's bizarre, but totally encompassing.

    It's moments of comedy are bizarre but joyful. Two men argue about who will die first, then the townspeople find them and argue which one is still alive. Later, the live man takes the dead man to the pub for a dance as a hurdy gurdy man plays.

    The film starts with a long shot of Hias sitting in the mountain field watching cows in the fog. Herzog then employs footage he shot of clouds in the mountains, taken over the course of days. One shot in particular appears as though a wave of clouds is invading the hills. It's an absolutely breathtaking shot, and one that I've never forgotten, and likely never will.

    Herzog once famously suggested that he directs landscapes more so than actors. In Heart of Glass he gives ample evidence to his claim. He takes joy in cutting away to seemingly completely unrelated events: a mountain waterfall, close up, as Hias narrates (it is claimed that this shot will have a hypnotic effect, especially if you speak German and do not have to read the subtitles); smoking springs and ancient trees at Yosemite; and a finale that involves a 500 year old monastery on a steep rocky Island off Ireland (Skellig Islands, fascinating place). The imagery and moody accomplishments of Heart of Glass are difficult to describe in words. It's one of the most visually arresting movie's I've ever seen. Herzog shot the film just a few miles from where he was raised in Bavaria. To list all the stunning shots in the film would be a tedious task. Virtually ever outdoors shot triumphs. It's visual poetry is profound.

    Heart of Glass is one of Herzog's most unabashedly poetic and abstract films. Who else but Herzog would hypnotize his entire cast for artistic ambitions? It's a glorious film that thrives on its own integrity, and the mad visions of its ingenious helmer.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The majority of the actors (with the exception of Hias and the glass blowers) were actually hypnotized by Werner Herzog and perform under hypnosis on screen.
    • Quotes

      [first lines]

      Hias: I look into the distance to the end of the world. Before the day is over, the end will come. First, time will tumble, and then the earth. The clouds will begin to race... the earth boils over; this is the sign. This is the beginning of the end. The world's edge begins to crumble... everything starts to collapse... tumbles, fall, crumbles and collapses. I look into the cataract. I feel an undertow, it draws me, it sucks me down. I began to fal, a vertigo seizes upon me.

    • Connections
      Featured in The South Bank Show: Werner Herzog (1982)
    • Soundtracks
      Zäuerli mit Talerschwingen
      (uncredited)

      [Played during the first scene whilst Hias is watching the herd.]

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    FAQ17

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 9, 1977 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • West Germany
    • Language
      • German
    • Also known as
      • Heart of Glass
    • Filming locations
      • Via Mala, Kanton Graubünden, Switzerland
    • Production companies
      • Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
      • Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $3,451
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 34 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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