The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

Poster with English translation of the original German title

Producer/director/Writer: Werner Herzog

Player's: Bruno S. (Kaspar Hauser), Walter Ladengast (Professor Daumer), Brigitte Mira (Kathe), Willy Semmelrogge (Circus Director), Helmut Doring (Little King), Michael Kroecher (lord Stanhope), Hans Musaus (Unknown Man)

Music: Florian Ficke Cinematography: Jorg Schmidt - Reitwein

110 minutes - Germany - Historical Bi0 Drama - 1974 

This is the first film made by German filmmaker Werner Herzog I have seen. All I really knew of him was he remade the horror classic Nosferatu in the late 70s and so having seen the original I never had the urge to watch it. After viewing Kaspar Hauser I may have to check out a few more of his movies! I give the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser a definite two thumbs up.

"It seems to me that my coming into this world was a very hard fall"  - Kaspar Hauser

The film follows the legend of Kasper Hauser, a teenage boy who in 1828 one day was seen wondering around Nuremberg with a letter in his hand addressed to Captain von Wessenig. The letters author was anonymous but it basically said that the author had been "taking care" of Kaspar and throughout his life Kaspar had not stood a foot outside his home and asked for the captain to take care of him or hang him. Kaspar Hauser who could barely speak or walk sparked up much attention in Nuremberg and various people took him under their wing's to teach him subjects like religion, music and drawing. He seemed to be flourishing that is until his murder in 1833. He is often categorized as a "wolf (feral) child" and when Hauser first arrived in Nuremberg it was assumed that he had been raised in the wild. But because of what he missed out on as a child he was emotionally stunted and he never got beyond having a child's perspective. Kaspar always claimed that for the first 17 years of his life he was chained up sitting in a darkened cell playing with his toy horsey. Some suspected he was a descendent of the royal family, but to this day no one really knows for sure what his real story was. It has been rumored that he may have been the Prince of Baden who was thought to have died shortly after his birth. The prince ( the assumed Kaspar) may have been switched with a dying baby. And Bruno's murder in 1833 lead people to believe it happened because he was a prince. But who knows, there has been recent DNA tests, but nothing conclusive enough to rule anything out, so the mystery lives on, righteous.

This is the breeziest most light hearted historic drama I have ever seen. The film begins with images of waving wheat fields, a woman's face and a river bank, foliage, peaceful things unrelated to the plot but makes the scene where we meet Kaspar and he's all chained up more sad as he has never stepped a foot outside his dingy cell to see the wonders outside.

From the cell a man in a black cloak sets Kaspar free into the world like a baby. He is unable to much physically or mentally, not capable like a person of Kaspar's age should be. In Nuremberg he stands like a statue holding his letter immediately people are peaking out of their windows wondering who the this man is, until he is taken to the authorities. While the authorities speculate they keep him in another cell. Kaspar then shows his unawareness and innocents when an officer brings a flamed candle beside him and Kaspar touches it, which brings him to tears. 

The turning points in the plot arrive with such ease and I can't imagine this story told any other way. Sometimes this is even a bit funny, not hilarious but some moments made me smile. Herzog seemed to have made Kaspar into a profound oracle of a man, like everything that happened to him was set in stone. Werner Herzog's based his screenplay on Kaspar's own diary. He used some dialogue straight from it,  for example this sentence which the film begins with might have been Kaspar's words but unsure:

"Don't you hear all that horrible screaming around you that people usually call silence".

The film shows us a clear focus on how society then treated an innocent like Kaspar someone different, many embraced him, some ridiculed him, at one point he is sent to join the circus for the towns folk to gawk at him, and one man even murdered him, perhaps the same mysterious man who set him free into the world from the cell.

Bruno S. "the unknown solider of cinema" plays Kaspar. Herzog decided to cast Bruno (aka Bruno S) Schleinstein when he saw him in a documentary on German street music. Bruno had spent 23  years in mental institutions, his mother was a prostitute and bet him up often. Despite all the depressing details of his childhood he was a self taught musician and painter. His deprived rough history makes it easy to see why Herzog hired him to play Kaspar. Rather than hiring some experienced actor in his 20s to play the part, Herzog chose someone that in real life represented the same qualities as Kaspar. Bruno must of been around 40 at the time yet he doesn't at all seem like a 40 year old, his behavior is like a child's. His performance is like watching a helpless alien who has been dropped down to earth and just expected to live a way so beyond him. Often he just looks as if he's shell shocked giving hard stares, trying to figure things out. Professor Daumer who taught him from 1828 - 1831 tries to engage Kaspar in religion but that doesn't work out. Kaspar becomes distressed by church, he instead naturally takes to music. 

Professor Daumer: "You've been such a short time in the world, Kaspar..." 

Kaspar: "Why is everything so hard for me? Why can't I play the piano like I can breathe?"

When Bruno died last year in August Herzog said “in all my films, and with all the great actors with whom I have worked, he was the best. There is no one who comes close to him. I mean in his humanity, and the depth of his performance, there is no one like him.” After Kaspar Hauser, Werner Herzog in four days wrote a movie script especially for Bruno called Stroszek (1977). And now being a self professed Bruno S and Herzog fan I will certainly have to check this film out next!