Signs of Life

Signs of Life (1968)

Lebenszeichen

During World War II, three German soldiers are withdrawn from combat when one of them, Stroszek, is wounded. They are assigned to a small coastal community on the Greek island of Kos while Stroszek recuperates. The men become increasingly stir crazy in their uneventful new assignment. Stroszek eventually goes mad.

Date of release
1968-07-05
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (53)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Drama, War
Director
Werner Herzog

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Madman of Fort Ratonneau
  • Awards: 2 · Nominations: 2. Including: Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize; German Film Award for Best Feature Film

Signs of Life is a 1968 feature film written, directed, and produced by Werner Herzog. It was his first feature film, and his first major commercial and critical success. The story is roughly based on the short story "Der Tolle Invalide auf dem Fort Ratonneau" by Achim von Arnim.

Production

The fortress which gives the film's main setting is a real 14th-century fortress built by the Knights Hospitaller. Herzog's grandfather, Rudolf Herzog, lived and worked for several years as an archaeologist at this site, and published translations of the ancient Greek engravings which appear in the film.

During several shots, Peter Brogle could only be filmed from the waist up after he had been injured in a tight-rope accident and spent several months in a walking cast. The man who appears as a pianist in one scene is keyboardist Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh, who composed and performed the music for many of Herzog's later films.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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