The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
Right, let me be straight with you: unless you've got a genuine passion for ski jumping or a soft spot for woodcraft, I'm not sure I can honestly point you towards this one. Werner Herzog turns his camera on Walter Steiner, a Swiss ski flyer and woodcarver of some renown, and the result is... fine. Interesting enough in places. But it's a narrow thing, and I think it knows it.
Herzog being Herzog, there's obviously something going on beneath the surface. He's drawn to Steiner the way he's drawn to all his obsessives, men who push themselves to the edge of what the human body and mind can take. Steiner isn't just jumping, he's flying further than the hills are designed for, overshooting the landing zones so badly that competitions have to be rigged against him for his own safety. That's a genuinely extraordinary detail, and when Herzog latches onto it you can feel the film come alive. There's something almost mythological about a man who is literally too good at something dangerous, a man the sport has to handicap before he kills himself winning.
And that's where it gets interesting for a stretch. The slow-motion footage of Steiner in the air is properly stunning. You see every tiny adjustment of his body, the way he holds himself against gravity like he's negotiating with it. Herzog clearly finds it beautiful, and so do I, for a while. It's the kind of imagery that makes you remember why documentary filmmaking can do things fiction simply can't.
The soundtrack helps carry it. Popol Vuh, if I remember right, and it wraps around the footage in that ethereal, slightly unsettling way they always managed with Herzog's work. It stops the film feeling like a straight sports documentary, gives it a dreamlike quality that suits the subject. I'd say the music does more heavy lifting here than it probably should have to, but I'm not complaining about the music itself.
The woodcarving side of things, Steiner the craftsman rather than Steiner the athlete, gets far less time than the title might lead you to expect. It's more of a character note than a theme, a way of saying this is a man who works with his hands, who shapes things carefully, and then goes and flings himself off enormous ramps for a living. The contrast is there if you want to read into it. I wanted to read into it more than the film seemed willing to let me.
It's short, which is the right call. Herzog doesn't outstay his welcome. But there's a slight feeling throughout that the most interesting version of this film exists just slightly off to one side of the one we actually get. Steiner himself seems like a fascinating, slightly melancholy figure, and I kept wanting the film to push harder into who he actually is. It grazes the surface of something profound and then pulls back.
I've seen Herzog go to much stranger, more rewarding places. Lessons of Darkness is a film where he finds the apocalyptic and the transcendent in the same image, and it stays with you long after it's finished. This one I'll likely remember mainly for those slow-motion jumps and the score.
If you're a ski jumping fan, absolutely seek it out. If you're a Herzog completist, same answer. Anyone else, I'd say it's a pleasant enough way to spend an hour, but don't reorganise your evening around it. Worth a watch if it crosses your path, not worth going out of your way for.
Rating: Not rated | Year: 1974 | Watched: 2026-03-07
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
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More from Werner Herzog: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Fitzcarraldo (1982)
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More from Germany: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Cemetery Man (1994) · The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) · Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More documentary: Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Style Wars (1983) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)
