Bavaria

‘Full of strokes and blows/ broken, pitifully wounded’, the man, naked, or almost so, stands full frontal, legs and arms parted, one limb sometimes slightly bent to signal the beginning of a movement. His body is punctured by lesions and wounds, with small depictions of their material causes attached almost as adornment – knives or weapons aimed at cutting and bruising, but also accidental instruments of damage to the skin such as thorns or nails or even living agents – a rabid puppy with sharp teeth. Scratches, buboes and insect bites are also visible.

Many movie actors are famous for their unmistakable voices – people like Sean Connery, John Wayne and Peter Lorre, who all pub comedians mimic. But how many directors are like that? Only one: the German auteur Werner Herzog, hero of the New German Cinema, who at the age of 81 has published this headspinning, free-associating memoir. Its German title, Jeder Für Sich Und Gott Gegen Alle, was also the original, anarchic title of Herzog’s 1974 film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, based on the true story of a boy reportedly brought up in an isolated darkened cell.