A Bit About Aguirre, Wrath of God
Sep 6th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Classic Cinema, Reviews
Does anybody film raw nature with more fluidity and grace than Werner Herzog? I don’t think so . . . in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, his first collaboration with Klaus Kinski, the river becomes a character, a nemesis, a foe. If it looks real, it’s probably because it is: filmed on location in the Amazon basin, it was shot in sequence as the cast and crew floated down-river. There were no stuntmen, no special effects, just cast and crew and river.
Opening shot — can you spot the actors?
The film opens as Spanish explorer Gonzalo Pizarro leads his men on the trail of El Dorado, the mythical city of Gold. The opening shot is breathtaking: the conquistadors and their native slaves wind their way into a river valley down a sheer rock wall. Floating over it is the haunting music of the German band Popul Vuh, which establishes a dreamlike, hallucinatory tone that pervades the rest of the film. When they reach the bottom, Pizarro sends a contingent of forty downstream on rafts, appointing Don Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) as leader and Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) as second in command. The latter appointment is a huge mistake — de Aguirre is barking mad.
Kinski (left) and Herzog
Kinski and Herzog were famously antagonistic toward one another; their crazed relationship is detailed in Herzog’s documentary My Best Fiend. On Aguirre, they differed profoundly over how the title character should be played: Kinski wanted to play him as a raving lunatic, whereas Herzog wanted a more restrained, interior performance. Herzog was right: Kinski’s performance is all the more terrifying for its (relative) moderation.
Today, Aguirre, the Wrath of God is as well-known for the battles between Kinski and Herzog as anything else. Kinski’s rages terrified the cast and crew, including the locals hired to assist the production. To get the performance he wanted from his star, Herzog would antagonize him, provoke a crazed outburst, then roll camera after the actor had exhausted himself. At one point, as Kinski prepared to walk off the set, the director threatened to shoot him and turn the gun on himself. It worked, and the actor finished the film.
Fortunately for us — Aguirre stands as a masterpiece of obsessive, verité filmmaking, equalled only by Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Herzog’s own Fizcarraldo a decade after Aguirre.
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You were serious about revisiting Aguirre…
My favorite moment is the Kinski Pivot, where he stands right next to the camera and sticks his foot out, twisted, in front of it. Then he pivots his body in front of the camera, but because of how his foot was angled, he enters the frame at a really odd angle. Makes him look even crazier.
I actually don’t think I really appreciated this film until I watched it with Herzog’s commentary track on. Dude does the best commentary tracks.
I’ve never seen it on DVD, I’ll have to get a copy and listen to the commentary.
My favorite scene is the monkey scene, and it astonishes me every time I see it. What an imagination, monkey’s flowing over the doomed raft. I love that still up at the top, with Kinski staring at the monkey as if he has no idea what he’s holding and the monkey screaming back.
Here’s an example of how our knowing the “back-story” of the film really enhances our enjoyment.
And it doesn’t hurt that Herzog is almost as crazy as his star.
Great write-up Rick.
I would go even further and say Aguirre is better than Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo. And this is coming from someone that thinks Fitzcarraldo is freakin’ great.
Aguirre, to me, is such a scary depiction of madness and claustrophobia (even when their in open space on the river). Herzog really does get eerily close to total insanity on this film… and that kinda scares the living crap out of me.
A masterpiece indeed.
I adore this motion picture. Seeing it for the first time was revelatory, as was seeing it a few times after that. It almost feels as though the celluloid is riddled with raging, irrepressible madness.
I too am a huge fan. Having seen it multiple times all the way through I now find myself just watching scenes over and over. Last week I didn’t have the DVD handy so I pulled it up on Netflix (it’s one of the “watch it now” titles) and scrolled to the end to watch the monkey scene. I watched the scene about four times before calling it quits.
Fox, I think I agree about “Aguirre” vis a vis “Fitzcarraldo” and “Apocalypse Now”, although I like the latter better than most.
The claustrophobia is caused by their helpless dependence on the raft: they can’t get off it, and they are sitting ducks for the spears and arrows, which seem to come at random and out of nowhere. Extraordinary!
Alexander — I think that describes it to a “T”: Aguirre/Kinski is a force of nature. Early in the film, he is a presence, glaring amongst the other soldiers, even before he foments the revolt. He looms over the film, present even when he isn’t on camera. You always know he’s there.
Jonathan, I love Netflix … that’s where I watched the whole thing the other day, on “watch it now.”
I think “Aguirre” may be a “perfect storm” film: the perfect coming-together of obsessive filmmaker and actor and “script” and locale and … perfect storm films happen, but not all that often.
Rick said, “Opening shot — can you spot the actors?”
The Dame, response:…”No Way!” and don’t think for 1 minute Rick, that I haven’t been searching “high” and “low” for the “actors!”
Btw, I have never watched the film “Aquirre, Wrath of God” before, I guess this is another film that I have to add to my “must” watch list since I just discovered this “game” called eBlogging!….I think when all is “said” and “done”…my list of to watch film(s) is going to “span” from coast-to-coast!
Thanks, Rick
darkcitydame4e:
The actors are center bottom in that shot … click on it to get a bigger version. They look like a diagonal, whitish line of dots.
If you have Netflix, you can see it on “watch it now”
Getting caught up on movies is impossible. I veer from one period to the next, one director to the next; these days, I’m watching a lot of noirs. I think I’m going to catch up on some Herzog next … you just see what you can see, given the time you have.
One thing for certain, with Netflix and IFC and TCM, there’s no way you have to watch bad movies anymore, no matter where you live.
I haven’t seen this film in so long, and I consider myself a huge Herzog fan. This was the first Herzog film I saw, and I have to say that I didn’t much care for it in college (apart from the monkey scene, which I’ve always thought was brilliant). My appreciation for Herzog came from dutifully plowing through almost all of his work, despite the fact that I didn’t know what I was looking at half the time. Slowly but surely, it all started to click with me, probably around the time I saw his Nosferatu remake, an The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser.
Anyway, I still haven’t seen Aguirre since then. But as it happens, for me recent wedding anniversary, my wife got me that great Herzog/Kinski box set from Anchor Bay, so I’ll probably be checking it out this weekend.
Yeah, an appreciation for Herzog is an acquired taste sometimes … it was that way for me, too. Only in my case, the first theatrical film of his I saw was Fitzcarraldo.
They look deceptively simple, I think, and it takes some time to figure out what genius is at work behind them. Nosferatu looks like a horror film; Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, adventure films. They’re all about one thing, though, and that’s obsession . . . his documentaries are as well.
Beautiful piece, I also passionately adore this one.
Thanks, Sam. This film evokes passion in everyone who sees it.
I haven’t seen this one since college and I don’t think I properly appreciated its grandness at the time. The list of movies I need to revisit just keeps adding up…
Ain’t it the truth … mine’s as long as my proverbial arm.
I’ve only seen the film once (so far) but that openning shot is indeed breathtaking - so much so that I went back and watched it a couple more times after finishing the movie.
Part of what drew me to seeing the movie was reading about some of the behind the scenes stuff - I can’t imagine willfully provoking someone like Kinski who, even when the rest of him appears calm, always looks a bit crazy in the eyes. It’s kind of amazing that cast and crew made it out alive and I’m absolutely in awe of what they accomplished.
Ain’t it the truth. Kinski seems dangerous to me as well, even in repose, and apparently he was. In a famous incident on the Aguirre shoot, he got mad at the noise coming from a hut and fired three rounds into it, blowing off the knuckle of a crew member.