Review of Even Dwarfs Started Small (1971) by Anthony A — 20 Oct 2007

Even Dwarves Started Small is Werner Herzog's second feature film. Often at points it is a difficult movie to watch. I have wanted to see this movie ever since I heard of it nearly 7 years ago. Its cast consist entirely of little people and is the second movie in cinematic history (the first being The Terror of Tiny Town- 1938) to cast little people as its central characters. Its filming was fraught with danger. One of the actors was run over by a car and caught fire (two separate accidents). Herzog vowed that if they made it through the remainder of the movie accident free he would throw himself into a cactus patch. True to his word at the end of filming he did just that, and still has the spines in his knees to prove it.

Troubles did not end after shooting though. The movie was not met with critical acclaim. In fact it was in effect banned upon release. Herzog had to hire out private cinemas just to have it shown. It was criticized for mocking attempts at revolution and for its nihilism. Due to the political unrest and student revolutions in Europe at the time, Herzog was the target of regular death threats after the release of this film. Furthermore, animal rights activists criticized the depictions of animal cruelty (hen pecking, dead pigs, crucified monkeys and chickens being tossed about with no regard for the damage caused to them) I personally felt that this was the most unpalatable part of the movie and the treatment of the animals much like in Cannibal Holocaust was at once total unnecessary, yet an effect device to convey a feeling of discomfort with human nature and cruelty.

The film consists of one depraved and maniacal act after another. The inmates have literally taken over the asylum and we watch as helplessly as the asylum's director as the institution is vandalized, farm animals are killed and a monkey is crucified. In a scene that will later be repeated in the end of Stroszek a car is set to run in circles for a vast majority of the movie. Herzog clearly has an affinity for filming chickens and this movie is no exception- we constantly return to a legless chicken slowly being pecked to death while another lies dead in the yard. The scene speaks volumes for the rest of the movie, where the weaker, in this case two blind men are forever being tormented by the other inmates and the inmates themselves have been "pecked" to the point of madness and revolt by those running the institution. However rather than making something constructive of their own liberation they spiral hopelessly into chaos (like the car spinning in circles until finally shoved into an enormous pit).

In the end we are left with the image of the asylum director, who has gone mad and is yelling at a tree to put its arm down while Hombre laughs maniacally for five minutes at a kneeling camel. This is a disorienting and exhausting film. It is as Herzog describes it, "a nightmare" communicating "something desperateâ?¦we cannot brush it aside.".