Note: The BFI has released Aguirre, The Wrath of God separately on Blu-ray and UHD. Our aim was always to cover them both in the same review, but while we do have the Blu-ray review disc, the UHD has yet to arrive and is expected early next week. Gary Couzens has thus reviewed the Blu-ray release, and the UHD details will be added by Slarek when that disc arrives.
1560. After the conquest of the Inca Empire, a group of Spanish conquistadors and their native slaves venture into the Amazon rainforest in search of the fabled golden city of El Dorado. Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) leads an expedition by raft, with Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) his second in command, Ursúa’s wife Inez de Atienza (Helena Rojo) and Aguirre’s teenage daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera). As the expedition continues, conflict erupts and Aguirre leads a mutiny...
Werner Herzog’s breakthrough feature film, his fourth, opens with an astonishing image. In long shot, a line of Peruvian Indian natives descends a very steep mountainside, so steep that you’d imagine one slip might result in a mass falling down like so many dominoes. Then, suddenly, the line crests a slope much nearer us. Yes, some four hundred people are coming down that mountain. Real people, a real landscape – and a frisson due to that evident reality. You wouldn’t have that with CGI, which no doubt a filmmaker nowadays would no doubt use and producers would likely insist upon.
For the whole of his career, which now spans more than sixty years, Werner Herzog has responded to the hidden parts of the world with imaginative avarice, and he has also been fascinated by extreme, ecstatic states of mind. These both combine in Aguirre, The Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes), which made Herzog’s reputation when it played at Cannes in 1973. While he has always made documentaries as well as fiction films, Herzog often combines the two modes, indicating that there’s not as much a gap between them as some might think. In a way, his films are documentaries of their own making. The most famous example of this is Herzog’s pulling a steamship over a hill in the Amazon, so emulating his protagonist in Fitzcarraldo (1982). But it’s there too in Aguirre, and not just in that opening shot. It’s there in Thomas Mauch’s cinematography, seemingly shot in natural light or what looks very much like it, despite the historical costumes verité enough to include water splashes on the lens, and in one shot Herzog’s hand righting Inez’s sedan chair lest it tip over. The film was shot in five weeks with a crew of eight, with very few retakes and just the one camera, which Herzog had, let’s say, appropriated from the Munich Film School. On a small budget ($370,000, the equivalent of $2.78 million today), a third of which went to Kinski. the film was made in the Peruvian rainforest, near Macchu Picchu and shot in sequence.
While the film is a drama, it is based, loosely, on fact. Don Lope de Aguirre was a real person, but little about him is known. Herzog wrote his screenplay in two and a half days, much of it during a 200-mile bus trip. As was his practice, the screenplay at the start of production was basically scene description, with the dialogue written by Herzog during filming. As many native languages were represented during the shoot, most of the dialogue was spoken in English, though there are some exchanges in local languages Quechua and Yagua. (In one scene, two men are conversing, one in each of those languages, which wouldn’t in real life be mutually comprehensible.) The film is more familiar in its German-language version, which was post-synched later. However, this oes not feature Klaus Kinski’s voice, apparently due to his asking for too much money for the recording session. On this disc, the credits and the opening caption are in German or English depending on which version you select.
Kinski by this point was in his mid-forties, and his first screen role had begun in 1948. This was the first time he and Herzog worked together, but they had met when the actor had lodged with Herzog’s family. His behaviour during that time terrified Herzog, who was sixteen years younger, and left a lasting impression. Kinski was Herzog’s only choice to play Aguirre, which became one of his signature roles. He and Herzog would work together four more times, and in 1999, after Kinski’s death, Herzog would document his often fraught relationship with the actor in My Best Fiend. Kinski has played much “louder” in films before and since, and his intensity is tamped down here, but he’s a devil dancing to his own unknown tune, and his and the rest of the cast’s descent into madness is palpable. The final shot, captured by Herzog and Mauch in a speedboat circling the raft containing Aguirre and some four hundred tiny monkeys, is as indelible as the first, in a film full of memorable sequences. You sense that there’s a streak of obsession, possibly madness, in Herzog to go to the lengths he does to make his films, but in his best work that intensity is marked on the film’s celluloid.
Among the rest of the cast is Ruy Guerra who, as well as being an actor, was a film director, part of the Brazilian Cinema Novo movement along with directors such as Glauber Rocha. The music score is provided by Popul Vuh, a German prog-rock band founded and led by Florian Fricke, featuring a Moog synthesiser and choral vocals provided by a “choir-organ”, akin to a Mellotron. Herzog and Popul Vuh would work together many times more.
Aguirre, The Wrath of God is released by the BFI in UHD and Blu-ray, the latter disc encoded for Region B only. The film was previously released in 2014 as part of the eight-disc, eighteen-film Werner Herzog Collection box set, which is still available in its Blu-ray and DVD iterations, and most of the extras on this new release are carried forward from that disc. Aguirre had an A certificate on its original release and is now a PG, as are the other films on the disc, although Last Words is missing from the British Board of Film Classification’s website as I write this.
Although widescreen had arrived in Western Europe in the early 1950s, early on Herzog favoured the old Academy Ratio (1.37:1) for his films. In the new (West) German cinema of the 1970s he wasn’t alone in this: many of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films are also in Academy, possibly due to television funding. Herzog’s first four features are all in this ratio, and that includes Aguirre. It also includes Fata Morgana and the three shorts on this disc. Over to Slarek for more on the video and audio on this release.
This 4K transfer of Aguirre, the Wrath of God was scanned from the original 35mm negative and remastered in high dynamic range with Dolby Vision by Alpha-Omega Digital GmbH in Germany. I was always under the impression that the film was shot – or at least screened – in the Academy ratio of 1.37:1, but the accompanying booklet assures us that 1.33:1 was the original ratio, and that is how it is presented here. It was shot on Eastmancolor stock on a small 35mm camera that Herzog apparently stole from the Munich Film School, a move he later justified on artistic grounds in the enthralling book Herzog on Herzog.* Much if not all of it was shot by natural light, sometimes in less than ideal weather conditions and includes plenty of sequences that were shot handheld under the cover of forest trees or on a rapidly moving raft. As a result, there is some inconsistency in the contrast levels, colour balance and sharpness of the original footage, with some shots having an almost 16mm reportage quality, where the focus is just off for a couple of seconds and water occasionally splashes the lens. That said, the best looking material – and there is much of it – is little short of stunning. The detail here is often razor sharp, while Dolby Vision HDR delivers a beautifully balanced contrast range and, where appropriate, a vibrant rendition of the bright colours of costumes. Indeed, there are occasional static shots of the more aristocratic individuals where the detail is so sharp, the film grain so fine, and the skin of the person in question so smooth that were this not a BFI disc I might suspect a small degree of digital enhancement had taken place, but I know from personal experience that this is something those responsible for BFI disc releases avoid. You only have to look at the close-ups of Klaus Kinski’s weather-beaten face or the textures of materials and costumes to confirm that we’re looking at the image as it was filmed and originally processed. As expected, dust spots have been eliminated and the image sits solidly in frame, and fine though it is, the film grain is there. A truly remarkable job and a serious upgrade over previous disc versions.
With a cast and crew hailing from a grand total of sixteen countries, the decision was made to have the actors deliver their dialogue in English, the only language that was common to them all (Herzog also hoped this would help film gain a wider international release). Unfortunately, the on-location sound proved not of the required quality, so the film was post-dubbed in German, with Kinski re-voiced after he demanded too much money to carry out the task himself (apparently, his fee had already swallowed up a third of the film’s $370,000 budget). An English language dub was also produced for the film’s international release.
The BFI’s UHD disc has three soundtrack options – German Linear PCM 1.0 mono, English Linear PCM 1.0 mono, and German DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround. Perhaps inevitably, the mono tracks are not exactly expansive, but the control allowed by post-dubbing the soundtrack ensures that the dialogue, effects and music score are always clear and well mixed, and there are no traces of damage or wear. Surprisingly, the 5.1 track is substantially different from the mono ones, being very front weighted and with little in the way of directional effects, though the volume level is slightly higher and dialogue does have a slightly clearer and fuller feel. Which one you go with will be down to personal choice. As most of the dialogue was delivered in English, the English dub is logically the most authentic, as the mouths of the actors are in sync with the words being spoken. That said, the German dub has been carefully implemented, to the point that for much of the time it really does feel as if the actors were speaking German all along. I was initially torn between them, as the English is technically a better match, but in the end I preferred the German narration, the voices assigned to specific characters, and their performances. If you select the English dub, the opening text crawl is also in English, but the closing credits remain in German.
Optional English subtitles are provided for the German language versions of both Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fata Morgana (see below).
A Raft of Troubles: Herzog, Kinski and the Art of Darkness – UHD only
Written, edited and narrated by Film historian Nic Wassell, this enthralling new video essay examines the tempestuous working relationship that existed between Werner Herzog and his five-times leading man, Klaus Kinski, including the famed stories about the multiple threats made by various individuals and groups to kill the actor. He looks at Herzog’s early life in post-WWII Germany, how the actions of the country’s former Nazi rulers are reflected in the characters and story of Aguirre, and makes some fascinating observations about the film and the spirit of adventure that led it to be made. At one point he states sincerely, “And what a film Aguirre is…”, a proclamation that you’ll hear again almost word-for word in the special feature that follows.
Introduction by Mark Kermode – UHD only
A brief, straight to camera piece by critic Mark Kermode, who picks this as his BFI Player choice during an unspecified week in week in 2024, around the time of the release of the documentary, Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer. He reveals a couple of interesting facts about the writing of the screenplay, recalls what Herzog told him about the claim that he threatened to shoot Kinski if he walked off the film, and pre-dates Nick Wassell’s words when he says, “And what a film this is…” He concludes nicely with the advice to “watch, and tremble in wonder.”
Commentary by Werner Herzog and Norman Hill
Not indicated on the menu, but Norman Hill is the moderator on this commentary track. It was recorded for a previous DVD release around the turn of the Millennium, as Herzog’s documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend, is described as recent and that came out in 1999. This is more of a conversation than the other commentary on this disc, though ultimately Hill tends to act as feed to Herzog. With no disrespect to Hill, Herzog could have carried this on his own. While the commentary does tend to the scene-specific, there are some stories you won’t find elsewhere on this release, such as the fact that Herzog would have been on a 1971 flight which crashed in the Peruvian jungle, killing all but one on board. (Herzog made a documentary about the one survivor, Juliane Koepcke: Wings of Hope (1998).) In another story, a genuine mummy we see in one shot was too fragile to be transported as luggage so Herzog’s brother had to sit next to it in a plane seat. There is a lot about the very hard production of Aguirre. The nearby hotel had just eight rooms and most of the cast and crew slept in tents and on hammocks. There was just one camera and for a while the shot negative was mislaid, later found baking in Lima Airport. He wrote the dialogue while on location and doesn’t storyboard – he thinks that habit is a disease of Hollywood and unless you have particularly complex special effects to deal with it destroys any spontaneity. He ends by saying that he thanks God on his knees for the end result.
Theatrical trailer (3:19)
A lengthy German-language trailer which makes sure to include several of the film’s money shots. You have to wonder how much of a hard sell the film was.
Stills gallery (2:08)
In colour and black and white, a self-navigating gallery.
The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (15:30)
The first of three early shorts by Herzog on this disc, The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreutz) was Herzog’s third short film, made in 1967, a year before his first feature, Signs of Life (Leibenszeichen). As well as writing and directing the film, Herzog also edited it. It was shot in 16mm black and white and has no dialogue, only voiceovers. Four men break into a castle and, finding old uniforms and weapons, prepare themselves to defend the cast against attack...if one ever comes. Herzog’s earliest films tend towards the hermetic, and this is no exception, but you can see early signs of his eye and his favoured themes at work.
Last Words (13:15)
Last Words (Leszte Worte) was made in 1968, shot in two days in Crete and Spinalonga, during the production of Signs of Life. It shares with that film the services of two Herzog regulars, cinematographer Thomas Mauch and editor Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, though the latter loses the second barrel of her name in the credits. Again shot in black and white (35mm this time), Last Words is an odd tale of the last man to leave the leper colony of Spinalonga, refusing to depart so forcibly removed. Now in Crete, he refuses to speak. It’s shot in lengthy takes with characters speaking in a stylised manner, often repeating their words, and the person who says the most is the one who is the elective mute.
Precautions Against Fanatics (11:05)
Herzog’s first film in colour (35mm) was Precautions Against Fanatics (Maßnahmen gegen Fanatiker), made in 1969. Instead of the far-flung locales of his other films, this was shot close to home, at a race track in Munich. It looks like a documentary, with horse trainers talking about their work to camera, but that’s surely deceptive. The fanatics of the title are over-enthusiastic racing fans, but the trainers seem equally obsessive, one given to walking a horse around a tree for a day and a half, and another with the job of doping horses with garlic before races. Herzog himself describes the film as an elaborate practical joke, but your mileage and sense of humour may vary.
Fata Morgana (76:18)
Herzog has made documentaries as well as fictional films throughout his career. Herzog’s first two features, Signs of Life and Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen, 1970), were both shot on islands (Lanzarote in the latter case) in black and white, and both are strange and hermetic (to use that word again) parables. Fata Morgana, Herzog’s first feature in colour, is something else again, not really a documentary but with no plot, characters or dialogue in the conventional sense. It is divided into three sections: Creation, Paradise and The Golden Age. Beginning with repeated shots of planes landing, we move to a Sahara Desert devoid of people, while a narration relates a version of Popul Vuh, the creation myth of the Mayan peoples (and the origin of the name of Herzog’s future regular musical collaborators). The narration in the German version is spoken by the critic Lotte Eisner, an early supporter and friend of Herzog. (In the English version, Eisner’s narration starts and then fades out behind a male voice, presumably simply because the English text is more concise than the German.) In the sand are animal carcasses, dried out and partially eaten, and the detritus of a civilisation which may be no more. It takes some twenty-five minutes before we see any living thing, as a child and a dog cross the screen in long shot. As the film progresses, we see more people, often observed from a distance but some talking to camera: a man talking about the monitor lizard which is squirming in his grip and which has bitten him on a finger, another in a rubber suit holding up a turtle. Other than narration, on the soundtrack is an eclectic selection of music, from Mozart’s Coronation Mass number 15 in C Major to Blind Faith, The Third Ear Band and no fewer than three Leonard Cohen songs.
The film was shot piecemeal, some scenes on Lanzarote during the production of Even Dwarfs Started Small. Herzog had no initial plans for the footage, just shooting what he says “fascinated him”. The intense heat of the desert, plus sandstorms and floods added to the arduous production. The original idea was for this to be a science fiction film, with aliens from another galaxy visiting a dying planet, but this was eventually abandoned, though something of this was captured in Herzog’s later documentary Lessons of Darkness (1992), which shots of burning oil wells prefigure.
Fata Morgana was released in the UK non-theatrically in 16mm in 1974, no doubt on the back of Aguirre’s success. It’s one of the more difficult of Herzog’s films, and what it all adds up is left to your own interpretation, but its place as an hour and a quarter of striking and precisely composed images, shot by Herzog’s other regular DP of the time, Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein, is not in doubt.
The film is presented in a ratio of 1.37:1 with mono sound, in a choice of German or English narration. There are two sets of subtitles: one translating the German narration and the limited dialogue, the other only translating the occasional addresses to camera which are in German. The man speaking an unspecified African language near the start of Part Two is untranslated in any version and Herzog says he has to this day no idea what he was saying.
Commentary on Fata Morgana by Werner Herzog, Crispin Glover and Norman Hill
As with the Aguirre commentary above, this is moderated by Norman Hill. However, a third person joins in: actor and director Crispin Glover, who is described as having made a film influenced by Herzog. (That was presumably What is It?, made as a short in 1996 and expanded into a feature two years later, presumably a little before this track was recorded. Glover’s film was finally released after extensive post-production delays in 2005.) However, he and Hill tend to act as feed for Herzog, who dominates this track. Fortunately the stories he tells are good ones. Regarding Lotte Eisner, he says that she was one of the last film critics to have met the major names of cinema and knew them all, beginning with the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès and going from there. When hearing she was dying Herzog decided to visit her one last time, but not fly or take a train to Paris as you would suspect, but walk – and he did, over four weeks, somehow knowing that she would still be alive when he arrived. And she was. (She died in 1983 at the age of eighty-seven.) Another story is somewhat alarming. The man and woman playing music at the start of Part Three, she on piano, he sat at a drumkit but playing a stringed instrument, were filmed in a brothel where she was the madam and he was a pimp, and not a nice man by all accounts. Again, this could have been a solo commentary, but Herzog tells some fascinating stories.
Booklet
This typically well produced booklet begins with an essay by freelance critic, lecturer and programmer Geoff Andrew, who offers a compelling examination of the film, its characters, its underlying themes, its sense of historical realism, and much more. Every bit as impressive is the essay that follows by author and associate professor of German at the University of Illinois, Laurie Johnson, who discusses Herzog’s early shorts and the earlier Fata Morgana. Pleasingly, her analysis of the film differs enough from Andrew’s to feel every bit as fresh, even if the two are read in quick succession. Don’t skip over the extensive footnotes either, as they are also worth a read.
The third essay, by Kim Heaney, a documentary filmmaker with a particular fascination for sound and music, is focussed on the hypnotic score and its composers, Popol Vuh, the musical collective founded by Herzog’s friend, Florian Fricke. As someone who knows precious little about the group beyond my admiration for its scores for Herzog’s films, I found this hugely educational, and Heaney’s comments on the score for Aguirre have a genuinely poetic quality. The fourth piece dates back to 1975 and is an article written by critic Richard Combs for Monthly Film Bulletin about the film, which he compares to Herzog’s earlier feature Signs of Life [Lebenszeichen] (1968) before exploring the satiric elements of Aguirre.
All of the above detailed essays contain spoilers, so are best read after watching the film, but should be considered essential reading even for those familiar with Aguirre (and that includes me). Pleasingly, there is a spoiler warning on the first page of the booklet.
Credits are supplied for Aguirre and all of the special features, which also have brief summaries, and there is a page providing details of the transfers for Aguirre, The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz, Last Words, Precautions Against Fanatics and Fata Morgana.
Fifty-three years and many films later, Aguirre, The Wrath of God remains a key title in Herzog’s and Kinski’s filmographies, and remains one of their best films. It has been available on Blu-ray and DVD for some time, but now has an upgrade to UHD, with the presence of three earlier short films and one earlier feature a bonus.
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