Every Night the Trees Disappear. Werner Herzog and the Making of Heart of Glass

Alan Greenberg was, according to the director, the first “outsider" to seek him out and recognize his greatness. At the end of their first evening together Herzog urged Greenberg to work with him on his new film—and everything thereafter. In this film, Heart of Glass, Herzog exercised control over his actors by hypnotizing them before shooting their scenes. The result was one of the most haunting movies ever made. Not since Lillian Ross’s classic 1950 book Picture has an American writer given such a close, first-hand, book-length account of how a director makes a movie.

But this is not a conventional, journalistic account. Instead it presents a unique vision with the feel of a novel intimate, penetrating, and filled with mystery. Alan Greenberg is a writer, film director, film producer, and photographer. He is also the author of Love in Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson. Werner Herzog is considered one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. His books include Conquest of the Useless and Of Walking in Ice.