The Legendary Werner Herzog on Craft, Opening two Films Today & More

"Have you ever experienced the desert?"

Nicole Kidman, playing real-life early-20th-century British adventurer Gertrude Bell in Queen of the Desert, directs that question to the desk-bound bureaucrats who try to stop her from exploring the Arabian peninsula. But the question could be posed just as naturally by the man who wrote that line, Werner Herzog.

The German-bred, L.A.-based writer-director is known for movies that brave deserts,