Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)

Director:

Werner Herzog

Writer:

Werner Herzog (writer)

Release Date:

2 October 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Drama | War

Plot:

In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Vietcong | Torture | Pilot | Prisoner Of War

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy. Another 5 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Dieter Dengler	...	Himself
Werner Herzog	...	Himself / Narrator (voice)
Eugene Deatrick	...	Himself

Directed by
Werner Herzog

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Werner Herzog		writer

Produced by
Andre Singer	....	executive producer
Lucki Stipetic	....	producer

Cinematography by
Peter Zeitlinger

Film Editing by
Joe Bini
Glen Scantlebury
Rainer Standke

Production Management
Herbert Golder	....	post-production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Herbert Golder	....	assistant director

Art Department
Juan Santiago	....	illustrator

Sound Department
Ekkehart Baumung	....	sound
Dave Nelson	....	sound re-recording mixer (as David Nelson)
Josh Rosen	....	sound editor

Camera and Electrical Department
Les Blank	....	additional photographer
Helen Kim	....	still photographer
Erik Söllner	....	assistant camera

Other crew
Wolfgang Ebert	....	network executive
Herbert Golder	....	archival researcher
Rudolph Herzog	....	production assistant
Anja Schmidt-Zäringer	....	continuity
Anja Schmidt-Zäringer	....	script girl

Production Companies

• Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
• Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)
• ZDF Enterprises
• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
• Arte
• Media Ventures

Distributors

• Anchor Bay Entertainment (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Anchor Bay Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Flucht aus Laos (Germany)

Runtime:

USA:80 min

Country:

France | UK | Germany

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Werner Herzog Filmproduktion

Quotes:

Narrator: But from the air, Vietnam didn't seem real at all. For Dengler it was like a grid on a map. He had suddenly found himself not only a pilot, but a soldier caught up in a real war. But even though it was all very real, everything down there seemed to be so alien and so abstract. It all looked strange, like a distant barbaric dream.

Movie Connections:

Version of "Höllenfahrten: Flucht aus Laos" (1998)

a surreal documentary about a German American who needs food and flight

Werner Herzog again explores the psyche of a man. In "Little Dieter...", we meet an effervescent, brilliant man who survived the war in Bavaria seeing starvation and strange sights, moved to the U.S. and fulfilled his dream of being a flier. War, food, death, survival, hoarding, planes, heads coming off... how one American is born. Herzog again sees madness as plane of existence and the surreal blends with the poignant as Herzog himself narratives this psychic travelogue of a German becoming an American who flies prop planes in a late 20th century war where the culmination of technology, pilgrimage and eating out of garbage cans with spoons is melded with constant optimism into a man redefined into American. As always with Herzog we are faced with florid madness, brilliance and what is man in the face of his own excesses, societal and personal. We laugh and cringe and are amazed at this man. Where else for this man but America?