ALL-TIME 100 Movies: Now Disc: "Aguirre: the Wrath of God"

I've been looking over this list a lot lately and it is just fascinating. So many exemptions of classics, and a lot of underrated movies. I decided to do a movie-by-movie discussion, going in alphabetical order. You can find the list on the TIME magazine website. I suggest reading the "Behind the Scenes" section by Richard Corliss. It discusses how Corliss and Richard Schickel compiled this list. So, lets begin.

1. Aguirre: the Wrath of God


Directed by the infamous Werner Herzog, this is a critic's favorite, but it can appeal to all audiences. Starring Klaus Kinski, it follows the story of Spanish conquistadors in the 1500's, who journey to Peru to search for the mythical city of El Dorado. Kinski plays Aguiree, a Spanish soldier who is going mad and leading his men to death at the hands of hostile natives, disease, and starvation.

I love this film. Herzog is a visionary, makes you see things you don't see a lot of in film. The story behind this movie is almost as good as the movie itself. Kinski and Herzog had a tumultous relationship. Kinski swears that when he threatened to back out of Aguirre, Herzog put a gun to his head and said he would kill Kinski then himself if he tried.


This is an essential and belongs here, I think.

 

It's a great movie with a great subject.

From Wiki:

"Herzog and Kinski

Herzog's first choice for the role of Aguirre was actor Klaus Kinski. The two had met many years before when the then-struggling young actor rented a room in Herzog?s family apartment, and the boarder?s often terrifying and deranged antics during the three months he lived there left a lasting impression on the director. Years later, Herzog remembered the volatile actor and knew that he was the only possible man who could play the mad Aguirre, and he sent Kinski a copy of the screenplay. "Between three and four in the morning, the phone rang," Herzog recalled. "It took me at least a couple of minutes before I realized that it was Kinski who was the source of this inarticulate screaming. And after an hour of this, it dawned on me that he found it the most fascinating screenplay and wanted to be Aguirre."[6]

From the beginning of the production, Herzog and Kinski argued about the proper manner to portray Aguirre. Kinski wanted to play a "wild, ranting madman", but Herzog wanted something "quieter, more menacing". In order to get the performance he desired, before each shot Herzog would deliberately infuriate Kinski. After waiting for the hot-tempered actor's inevitable tantrum to "burn itself out", Herzog would then roll the camera.[7]

On one occasion, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, the explosive Kinski fired three gunshots at it, blowing the top joint off one extra's finger.[3] Subsequently, Kinski started leaving the jungle location (over Herzog's refusal to fire a sound assistant), only changing his mind after Herzog threatened to shoot first Kinski and then himself. The latter incident has given rise to the legend that Herzog made Kinski act for him at gunpoint. However, Herzog has repeatedly debunked the claim during interviews, explaining he only verbally threatened Kinski in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving the set.[8] The famous incident is parodied in Incident at Loch Ness, which Herzog co-wrote.[9]

Filming

The film was made for US$370,000, with one-third of the budget paying for Kinski's salary.[10] It was filmed on location in the Peruvian rainforest on the Amazon River tributaries of the Ucayali region. Aguirre was shot in five weeks, following nine months' worth of pre-production planning.[3] The film was shot in chronological order, as Herzog believed the film crew's progress on the river directly mirrored that of the explorers' journey in the story. The director and his cast and crew floated in rafts down the Huallaga and Nanay rivers through the Urubamba Valley in Peru.[10]

All of the actors spoke their dialogue in English. The members of the cast and crew came from sixteen different countries, and English was the only common language among them. In addition, Herzog felt that shooting Aguirre in English would improve the film's chances for international distribution. However, the small amount of money that had been set aside for post-synchronization "left Peru with the man in charge of the process; both absconded en route." The English-language track was ultimately replaced by a higher-quality German language version, which was post-synched after production was completed.[1] Herzog claims that Kinski requested too much money for the dubbing session, and so his lines were performed by another actor.[11]

The low budget precluded the use of stunt men or elaborate special effects. The cast and crew climbed up mountains, hacked through thick jungle, and rode ferocious Amazonian river rapids on rafts built by natives. At one point, a storm caused a river to flood, burying the film sets underneath several feet of water and destroying all the rafts built for the film. This flooding was immediately incorporated into the story, as a sequence including a flood and subsequent rebuilding of rafts was shot.[3]

The camera used to shoot the film was stolen by Herzog from the Munich Film School.[12] Years later, Herzog recalled:

"It was a very simple 35mm came