Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Werner Herzog is the greatest director to move between feature films and documentaries of all-time. Yes, Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee have made great documentaries, but Herzog’s greatness in going between the two storytelling forms comes from the authenticity he brings to his narrative work, and the unbelievable as he tells stories of real-life accomplishment. I think he’s probably just a bit better as a documentary filmmaker as he is a narrative director, but that he can go between the two so effortlessly is what makes him great.
One of the first experiences I had with Herzog’s work in theatres was his 2007 war drama, “Rescue Dawn,” which told the story of Dieter Denglar, a German-American pilot who crashed, and was captured, during the Vietnam war, and his attempts to escape from the POW camp he was being held at. Herzog had previously told Denglar’s story, however, in his 1997 documentary, “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” and it’s taken me too long to finally watch Herzog’s film for myself. Both narrative film and documentary serve as companions to one another rather than just Herzog retreading a previous story. To get a full look at the individual, and life, of Denglar, you need to watch both, and it’s easy to recommend the double bill.
The film is broken up into four segments, but while Herzog does his trademark narration at times, “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” finds Denglar telling his story for himself. He talks about how his town in Germany was bombed by Allied Forces during WWII, and how that inspired him to want to fly as a young boy while his parents had to scrounge for food and protein however they could, including the glue off of the wallpaper from bombed-out buildings. He makes his way to America, and eventually finds himself in fighter during the Vietnam war, which provides an unreal experience of war for him that will become more real when he is shot down and captured, finding himself in an isolated POW hut that makes escape a dangerous trek through the jungle.
“Rescue Dawn” is focused more on his capture and escape attempts, and is an entertaining wartime drama from Herzog, but to really get to the heart of Denglar, you need to watch “Little Dieter Needs to Fly.” Herzog takes Dieter away from his San Francisco home atop a hill, which has several paintings of open doors and a wide-open feel to it as a counterpoint to the closed-off isolation he felt in Vietnam, and takes him back to his German town, where he gives us a tour of the place he grew up; to Vietnam, where he describes the conditions he lived in after being captured, and how he tried to escape several times before; and even to one of the air craft carriers to allow Denglar a chance to open up about his eventual return to the air, and to his fellow pilots. Many of Herzog’s documentaries often focus on man vs. nature, whether it’s “Grizzly Man” or “Encounters at the End of the World” or “Land of Darkness,” but he spends a lot of time dealing with the cruelty of humanity, as well. Those two ideas collide in “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” and it’s easy to see why he revisited the story in a narrative film a decade later- not only is it an important study in man’s harming man, but it also shows a triumphant spirit that can take flight, and survive, even when times are at their toughest. He has made better films in his career, with more ambitious ideas or eccentric subjects, but I think in Dieter Denglar, Herzog may well have found the individual, and story, that most reflects his own on a spiritual level.
