Another short documentary by Werner Herzog with minimal directorial input. It's similar in scope to both GOD'S ANGRY MAN, another impassioned religious rant, and the one where Herzog filmed auctioneers at a sale. There's something hypnotic about watching Huie at work and this plays out as testament to his skills as orator, his sermon almost turning into song at one point. My main complaint is that the dialogue is quite difficult to understand even if you turn the volume up.
Plot summary
Reverend Huie Rogers is a preacher at the Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Brooklyn. He is the topic of this short film, during which launches into an epic call-and-response denunciation of human hubris, greed, corruption and failure. The use of lengthy shots present it less like a sermon and more a performance, and induce an almost trance-like state.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
April 08, 2020 at 02:42 AM
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An impassioned man
As good as it gets for a sermon
This is a 40-minute television documentary by German filmmaker Werner Herzog showing us a sermon by African American Huie L. Rogers. It's very loud, it's very emotional and Huie becomes pretty ecstatic giving us his speech. Lots of music involved too. But the titles says it all, it is just a sermon. It's probably much more effective to see live than on screen and if you do not have a real interest in religion, you will not be amazed at all I guess. I also believe this would not be half as known without the famous filmmaker behind it. Herzog was in his late 30s when this was made and 1981 was a bit of a religious year for him. In contrast to this one here,, he also gave us the White American take on the issue with a documentary on televangelist Dr. Gene Scott. I personally recommend to watch these two together as this is probably the most effective way to suck in the point Herzog's trying to make here. One difference is that Herzog narrates the one about Scott while he is completely quiet during the one on Huie. Still, without an interest on religion I believe the impact these two have on you won't be that big.
Lo-fi film about a highly charged event
Huie's Sermon is one of the films from Werner Herzog which is ostensibly a documentary but not in a traditional sense, like the earlier How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976) the idea of this film is simply to watch events with no editorial opinion offered. I guess the idea being that what is filmed speaks for itself. In this instance, the subject is the Reverend Huie L. Rogers, or more specifically one of his sermons. It begins quite unremarkably but slowly builds a momentum and rhythm that it becomes a performance piece. The presentation was so rhythmical and emotional that I soon was caught up so much in its sound and feel that I stopped paying any attention to its content. It incorporated music accompaniment and really had the feel of intense soul music quite often. It was quite a show but it was tiring to watch, never mind what it must have been to deliver. The film-making here is resolutely lo-fi with a single camera simply pointing at the reverend in an unbroken single shot for the most part. The main alternatives to this were some tracking shots of the run-down Brooklyn neighbourhood in which the church's congregation came from. These badly deprived streets were an interesting counterpoint to the wild passion of the church; it showed that it's often people with the least advantages who create the most joy. Overall, a fascinating, if limited film.