Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Directed by: Werner Herzog - Starring Klause Kinski, Helena Rojo
Released I972

ope de Aguirre was a real Spanish Conquistador of the 16th century; a lieutenant to Pizzaro, the conquerer and looter of the Inca Empire in South America. In what must be one of the epic journeys in history, Aguirre found the headwaters of the Amazon River east of Peru and floated down the river thousands of miles to it's mouth at the Atlantic Ocean. Like all the "conquistadors" who left a socially immobile and stratified Europe, they went crazy with greed and power once away from authority. The native-americans were merely in the way, as the the Spanish zeroed in on what gold could to be looted or mined. The gold went to Europe, where wars were being fought for the control of a few square miles. Meanwhile, the conquistadors realized they could claim territories the size of all Europe merely by saying "it's all my mine".

Like the old west of the US, the law was far away and a man could do as he pleased. Aguirre was unique only in that he crossed a continent by water; there were scores of other Spanish and Portuguese captains doing similar things. And what the Spanish did for South and Central America, the Brits, French, and other Europeans did later to the rest of the world. The first and second world wars were really about Germany's empire envy of Britain and France.

The making of any Werner Herzog film is always a story in itself and the director may have seen more than a little of himself in the character. Herzog knew the volatile actor Klaus Kinski would be perfect as the mad Aguirre, but director and actor had differing views as to how the role should be played, and they clashed throughout the film's production. Kinski's legendary angry tantrums terrorized the crew and local natives who assisted the production, which was shot entirely on location, and was fraught with unusual difficulties. Like the real Aguirre before them, the cast and crew climbed mountains, cut through heavy vines to open routes to the various jungle locations, and rode the rivers on rafts built by natives.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God is suffused with the Germanic, from the actor and director to the Wagnerian theme. The story goes that Herzog forced Kinski to stay with the production by threatening to shoot him. Add to that the maddening complexities of shooting deep in the jungle in 1972. But that's Herzog's preference; he's definitely from the John Huston school of bush directing; and the more melodrama during the production the better. Another Herzog film, Fitzcarraldo, was the subject of a "making-of" documentary by Les Blank called Burden of Dreams, and many thought the documentary more interesting than the film.

Like many of Herzog's films, reading about the making of them is often more interesting than watching them; the film did set new standards for reality in that it was actually shot in the jungle, which Hollywood's products hadn't done before. The filmed scenes of the Spanish expedition trying to move through the rainforest are stunning as the closed-in claustrophobic environment starts working on the character's minds. As they progress down the river on a huge raft, arrows zip in from the forest, occasionally killing someone. But no one seems to care, for by this time, the expedition's turned into a grim struggle for survival. Only Aguirre seems to take no notice of things around him; he's busy dreaming of starting his own empire in the jungle.

That's the way the film goes - with scores of shots of Aguirre in his armor, grimacing ahead, plotting revenge on his enemies and floating down the river; obviously mad - but his own narcissism drives him on, as it did most of the "great conquerers" of history.


Notes:
(a) The story goes that director Werner Herzog stole his camera equipment for the film from his film school.
(b) The seeds of an idea for a film in the jungle on a river about the madness of man may have been David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
CLASSIC FILM-DVD "AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD": BY WERNER HERZOG, A REVIEW