One of the most influential filmmakers alive did not know cinema existed until he was a teenager. This episode explores the life and mind of Werner Herzog, born in Munich in 1942 and raised in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang without running water, toilets, telephones, or toys, in a place he described as pure anarchy. We follow his fascination with cave paintings at 12, the school standoff at 13 that led him to boycott music for years, the 35mm camera he stole from the Munich Film School, and the night shifts as a steel welder that paid for his film stock.

We trace his chaotic early years, including a deadly illness in Sudan, fleeing a violated visa into Mexico to work as a rodeo rider and television smuggler, and the LANSA Flight 508 disaster he narrowly missed in 1971. From there we unpack the Minnesota Declaration and his concept  ...