![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Herzog's Aguirre: Cinema Interruptus Night Two
It's snowing this morning: a light, spring, snow, like the petals falling off the the trees that have not yet bloomed.
I thought I would write a few more things about Werner Herzog while they are still on my mind and topical (rather than trivia). With regard to Aguirre specifically, this was a film conceived and written over two and a half days while drunk on a bus with his soccer team. He did not write traditional 'screenplays' in the formate that is used now; it was more of a short story. And as he got together everything he needed to make it (yes this was one of the films made on the 'expropriated' 35mm camera from film school) the story had to adapt to circumstances. Aguirre was shot on a budget of $360K, which is small even by the standards of the day. He used all sorts of shortcuts, including location, to achieve his ends. You also might be surprised to know that most the film was filmed in one-take and sequentially as: 1. he had only 40,000 feet of raw film stock, 2. the journey---first down a mountain, then a river---would be impossible to reverse. There were only three locations: the mountains outside Machu Picchu in the opening shots, then two different rivers (as it would have taken hundreds more miles to continue navigating the rapids on the first river, before getting to the low-lands.)
The movie opens with a shot of hundreds of people descending single-file down a steep mountain pass with mists on one sides, looking like an abyss. This is an image that will stay with you if you ever see the film and was done in one very long take. A crate drops off the side, then a canon---exploding as it hits the ground---to give a sense of danger. (Herzog says they blew up the canon so they would only have to take one on the raft. They are not cast-iron, but the wheels were heavy enough to make them nearly impossible to move through the jungle.) Herzog mentions it was raining and quite slippery. He had to line people up in reverse order of how he wanted it shot. Several people got vertigo and had to be tied to the brush on the sides of the path. "There are no cuts to show there are no cheats," he said. Herzog is insistent upon the 'realness' of his films... which isn't to say they aren't acts of the imagination, but that what you see is actually happening: it isn't an special effects. Someone raised the question of lighting and Herzog said in the jungle (and particularly upon a raft) there is no electricity. Everything is done with natural lighting with the assistance of a few reflectors. His non-acting crew consisted of 8 people.
The filming took place over a period of five weeks with just about everyone traveling and camping together: mostly in costume: to reduce the load they carried and to get the look of decay he was looking for. They definitely look worse for wear as the film proceeds and this is part of the 'realness' Herzog describes in filming in sequence. You are seeing the actual wear, tear, mold, and rust. However, you may note that the women stay pristine throughout. This was intentional on his part. He wanted to show the men descending into beasts, while the women remain almost untouchable. In one of the later scenes when one of the women walks into the jungle in a golden dress (her fiancee has died and she has no further protection on the raft) he said that he did not want questions about the literal aspects of getting a beautiful dress to stay pristine in the jungle, or the logic of the moment. "Everything is real, but it is also stylized," he said. (This is a repeated phrase, btw.) "She goes into the jungle a queen."
Herzog also spoke at length about Kinski's costume. They developed those leather bands around his arms to give a sense of a monster bound or contained within. The armor was deliberately deformed... just a little off... to give the impression of some physical deformity on the part of Aguirre. Kinski's physicality in the role, looking sometimes like a hunchback, sometimes 'like a crab' (Herzog's words) never definitely reveals a particular deformity, but is consistent with the idea that there is something not right with this person. They also tied his sword very high---closer to his armpit than his hip---to continue this sense of deformity and make it awkward to reach. Herzog noted particularly a dagger that Aguirre carried, saying this was a touch Kinski insisted upon. The dagger when unsheathed was about a foot-long and thin as a needle so if someone was stabbed by it they would "collapse without bleeding." Considering Kinski's reputation for violence, it's amazing they let him have any weaponry at all.
One of the interesting things about Cinema Interruptus is that people are always wondering about the filmmakers intent. They usually focus on the narrative symbolic, where the filmmakers usually focus on the technical feats. Here is an example of the difference between a filmmaker and a general audience member.
General Audience Member: It's interesting that you say the script originally began on a glacier because the people coming down the mountain look like water. Was that intentional? (Answer: No. Despite attention to certain details, like the costumes above, Herzog calls his style, "stand and deliver" making use of whatever opportunity presents itself and working around obstacles like flooding and rain.)
Filmmaker: This is a period-film with a hand-held camera using a wide-lens. This is something I don't think you can see in any other film. Could you talk a little about the lens you used? (In this particular shot had a 24 mm lens. Herzog very often stopped the film to praise the work of his cinematographer and describe the difficulty of the shots (as in one scene when they are filming through the wooden bars of a cage.) He does not use a viewfinder or a storyboard. "When you are filming in a place so filled with life, you always know where to put the camera," he said cryptically.
And finally after about a bazillion political questions about history and the inevitable agenda emanating from the People's Republic of Boulder he said, "I'm a storyteller, not an accountant of history." Aguirre was a real man from the period who did send a letter of secession to the Spanish king, but other than those details almost everything in this film is invented, down to the Jesuit's document that acts as the films framing device.
He also commented that a film like this would never get made now. Insurance, for one thing, is just too expensive. He claims that he was not then, nor is he now, an irresponsible filmmaker, but the climate has changed to one of, "institutional cowardice."
Here are some other things you might be interested in knowing about Aguirre:
* Kinski sounds as though he is just as deranged as usually described and refused to even see the film until it became popular in France.
* Herzog knew that his characters would get picked off one by one and usually picked the most annoying cast members to off. There was a port town down the river and every time someone 'died' they would be sent downriver on a raft. Negatives were also sent this way, though a corrupt shipping company accepted the negatives, filled out the paperwork, then chucked the negatives into a field where Herzog's brother found them. The second half of the film was shot without knowledge of where the negatives were, or after discovered, whether or not they could be developed.
* German film critics hated the film. At this time each film made in Germany had to pass a board where it was given a rating on a system of five-stars to demonstrate its cultural appropriateness. Cinemas were then given tax breaks when showing films with a higher amount of stars. The board hated Aguirre and it, along with a hardcore porno film, were the two films that year to receive no stars. The film was picked up by two theaters in Paris where it gathered a following eventually leading to a year of sold-out shows. It was only then that it gained attention in the rest of the world: both here in the states, and back in Germany. This process took several years during which time Herzog didn't know if it would recoup anything from the experience. Hilariously, once he came out with Fitzcarraldo---also featuring Kinski and the Amazonian river system---the French were over it and totally uninterested in the film. (Herzog said: "You cannot trust the French, particularly in matters of taste.") For people who have never seen Herzog, I think that Fitzcarraldo is a much more accessible film.
* there was some discussion of timing: one of the things that very often makes Herzog's films uncomfortable is not only his evocative use of music (he is passionate about music and often commissions new works for his films), but the way he messes with timing, stretching out shots or focusing on unusual elements for longer periods of time than is typically comfortable for an audience.
* I mentioned in my first impressions of the film that one of the things I did to acclimate myself with the film was to pretend I was on a different planet. It turns out that many of the images Herzog chose WERE intended to give this effect and that my sense of the liminal, the dreamlike quality, are all very much in keeping with both the film and the filmmaker. What hadn't occurred to me until last night was it's keeping with the tradition of Heart of Darkness (including, and/or Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now which was made almost ten years later, but I suspect may owe something to this film.)
Herzog grew up incredibly poor in a Bavarian mountain village largely shoeless ("my mother would make me some approximation of footwear in the months containing an 'R,'" he said) and without film, television, or telephone. He did not even see these things until moving to Munich at age 12. It was about this time when he first met Kinski, who was living in the boarding house. He did not yet know he would be a filmmaker, but Kinski's absolute rage really made an impression. He still thinks of himself as Bavarian, and much of his early forays into film were self-taught. Along with other filmmakers of the day (he is often linked to Wenders and Fassbinder, though I don't know if he would claim those associations himself) they had the task of not only reclaiming German cinema, but reinventing the funding and distribution system. One of the most inspirational things about his work is his dogged pursuit of his vision. He is willing to compromise to accommodate circumstances, but he refuses to budge when it comes to getting his films made. Anyone whose ever seen documentaries of him (Burden of Dreams, for example, an overrated account of his travails making Fitzcarraldo) will be a little shocked by his repeated insistence that he must make whatever film he is working on or die in the attempt. There is more than a hint of fanaticism in these statements, and his films are so odd one sometime can't help but wonder whether they are worth putting his life (not to mention those of his actors and crew) on the line to complete the film. But after meeting the man, I think I understand. He puts his life on the line for all of this films: not because they are irresponsible or dangerous (though after you hear of some of the conditions during the making of Fitzcarraldo including amoebic dysentery and an escalating border skirmish, you might wonder.) but because this is what his life as a filmmaker has required. This man should've never succeeded as a filmmaker, but knew who he was and what he must do. It is a mark not just of his vision, but his persistence that he has emerged as an international force in filmmaking.
Yesterday, I posted Ebert's thoughts about the first evening (I hope he posts about he second evening, too, and captures some of Herzog's inspirational quotes. The man is a gold mine of aphorisms.) and if you haven't already clicked through to his descriptions of filming cave paintings, you should really take a look, not just because it's fascinating material, but because his curiosity, intelligence, generosity and engagement really comes through. Seeing him this past two days has been an enormous blessing---I keep wanting to use the word 'mitzvah'---because I couldn't help but feel, even as a silent participant in a sea of faces, that he had come to speak directly to me. Logically, I know this is silly, but my heart was both open---and needed to hear---what he had to say. Thanking us for supporting him and his work, lauding the 'interruptus' format, which he thoroughly enjoyed, he ended the evening by promising, "As long as there is breath in my body, I will continue to make films for you."
Roger Ebert on the first night of Cinema Interruptus with Werner Herzog. He titled it 'The ecstasy of filmmaker Werner Herzog' and I have to say I agree:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/the_ecstary_of_the_filmmaker_h.html
Film critic Jim Emerson and comedienne Julia Sweeney on the selection of Aguirre for CWA:
http://www.kgnu.org/cgi-bin/programinfo.py?time=1270476000
I thought I would write a few more things about Werner Herzog while they are still on my mind and topical (rather than trivia). With regard to Aguirre specifically, this was a film conceived and written over two and a half days while drunk on a bus with his soccer team. He did not write traditional 'screenplays' in the formate that is used now; it was more of a short story. And as he got together everything he needed to make it (yes this was one of the films made on the 'expropriated' 35mm camera from film school) the story had to adapt to circumstances. Aguirre was shot on a budget of $360K, which is small even by the standards of the day. He used all sorts of shortcuts, including location, to achieve his ends. You also might be surprised to know that most the film was filmed in one-take and sequentially as: 1. he had only 40,000 feet of raw film stock, 2. the journey---first down a mountain, then a river---would be impossible to reverse. There were only three locations: the mountains outside Machu Picchu in the opening shots, then two different rivers (as it would have taken hundreds more miles to continue navigating the rapids on the first river, before getting to the low-lands.)
The movie opens with a shot of hundreds of people descending single-file down a steep mountain pass with mists on one sides, looking like an abyss. This is an image that will stay with you if you ever see the film and was done in one very long take. A crate drops off the side, then a canon---exploding as it hits the ground---to give a sense of danger. (Herzog says they blew up the canon so they would only have to take one on the raft. They are not cast-iron, but the wheels were heavy enough to make them nearly impossible to move through the jungle.) Herzog mentions it was raining and quite slippery. He had to line people up in reverse order of how he wanted it shot. Several people got vertigo and had to be tied to the brush on the sides of the path. "There are no cuts to show there are no cheats," he said. Herzog is insistent upon the 'realness' of his films... which isn't to say they aren't acts of the imagination, but that what you see is actually happening: it isn't an special effects. Someone raised the question of lighting and Herzog said in the jungle (and particularly upon a raft) there is no electricity. Everything is done with natural lighting with the assistance of a few reflectors. His non-acting crew consisted of 8 people.
The filming took place over a period of five weeks with just about everyone traveling and camping together: mostly in costume: to reduce the load they carried and to get the look of decay he was looking for. They definitely look worse for wear as the film proceeds and this is part of the 'realness' Herzog describes in filming in sequence. You are seeing the actual wear, tear, mold, and rust. However, you may note that the women stay pristine throughout. This was intentional on his part. He wanted to show the men descending into beasts, while the women remain almost untouchable. In one of the later scenes when one of the women walks into the jungle in a golden dress (her fiancee has died and she has no further protection on the raft) he said that he did not want questions about the literal aspects of getting a beautiful dress to stay pristine in the jungle, or the logic of the moment. "Everything is real, but it is also stylized," he said. (This is a repeated phrase, btw.) "She goes into the jungle a queen."
Herzog also spoke at length about Kinski's costume. They developed those leather bands around his arms to give a sense of a monster bound or contained within. The armor was deliberately deformed... just a little off... to give the impression of some physical deformity on the part of Aguirre. Kinski's physicality in the role, looking sometimes like a hunchback, sometimes 'like a crab' (Herzog's words) never definitely reveals a particular deformity, but is consistent with the idea that there is something not right with this person. They also tied his sword very high---closer to his armpit than his hip---to continue this sense of deformity and make it awkward to reach. Herzog noted particularly a dagger that Aguirre carried, saying this was a touch Kinski insisted upon. The dagger when unsheathed was about a foot-long and thin as a needle so if someone was stabbed by it they would "collapse without bleeding." Considering Kinski's reputation for violence, it's amazing they let him have any weaponry at all.
One of the interesting things about Cinema Interruptus is that people are always wondering about the filmmakers intent. They usually focus on the narrative symbolic, where the filmmakers usually focus on the technical feats. Here is an example of the difference between a filmmaker and a general audience member.
General Audience Member: It's interesting that you say the script originally began on a glacier because the people coming down the mountain look like water. Was that intentional? (Answer: No. Despite attention to certain details, like the costumes above, Herzog calls his style, "stand and deliver" making use of whatever opportunity presents itself and working around obstacles like flooding and rain.)
Filmmaker: This is a period-film with a hand-held camera using a wide-lens. This is something I don't think you can see in any other film. Could you talk a little about the lens you used? (In this particular shot had a 24 mm lens. Herzog very often stopped the film to praise the work of his cinematographer and describe the difficulty of the shots (as in one scene when they are filming through the wooden bars of a cage.) He does not use a viewfinder or a storyboard. "When you are filming in a place so filled with life, you always know where to put the camera," he said cryptically.
And finally after about a bazillion political questions about history and the inevitable agenda emanating from the People's Republic of Boulder he said, "I'm a storyteller, not an accountant of history." Aguirre was a real man from the period who did send a letter of secession to the Spanish king, but other than those details almost everything in this film is invented, down to the Jesuit's document that acts as the films framing device.
He also commented that a film like this would never get made now. Insurance, for one thing, is just too expensive. He claims that he was not then, nor is he now, an irresponsible filmmaker, but the climate has changed to one of, "institutional cowardice."
Here are some other things you might be interested in knowing about Aguirre:
* Kinski sounds as though he is just as deranged as usually described and refused to even see the film until it became popular in France.
* Herzog knew that his characters would get picked off one by one and usually picked the most annoying cast members to off. There was a port town down the river and every time someone 'died' they would be sent downriver on a raft. Negatives were also sent this way, though a corrupt shipping company accepted the negatives, filled out the paperwork, then chucked the negatives into a field where Herzog's brother found them. The second half of the film was shot without knowledge of where the negatives were, or after discovered, whether or not they could be developed.
* German film critics hated the film. At this time each film made in Germany had to pass a board where it was given a rating on a system of five-stars to demonstrate its cultural appropriateness. Cinemas were then given tax breaks when showing films with a higher amount of stars. The board hated Aguirre and it, along with a hardcore porno film, were the two films that year to receive no stars. The film was picked up by two theaters in Paris where it gathered a following eventually leading to a year of sold-out shows. It was only then that it gained attention in the rest of the world: both here in the states, and back in Germany. This process took several years during which time Herzog didn't know if it would recoup anything from the experience. Hilariously, once he came out with Fitzcarraldo---also featuring Kinski and the Amazonian river system---the French were over it and totally uninterested in the film. (Herzog said: "You cannot trust the French, particularly in matters of taste.") For people who have never seen Herzog, I think that Fitzcarraldo is a much more accessible film.
* there was some discussion of timing: one of the things that very often makes Herzog's films uncomfortable is not only his evocative use of music (he is passionate about music and often commissions new works for his films), but the way he messes with timing, stretching out shots or focusing on unusual elements for longer periods of time than is typically comfortable for an audience.
* I mentioned in my first impressions of the film that one of the things I did to acclimate myself with the film was to pretend I was on a different planet. It turns out that many of the images Herzog chose WERE intended to give this effect and that my sense of the liminal, the dreamlike quality, are all very much in keeping with both the film and the filmmaker. What hadn't occurred to me until last night was it's keeping with the tradition of Heart of Darkness (including, and/or Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now which was made almost ten years later, but I suspect may owe something to this film.)
Herzog grew up incredibly poor in a Bavarian mountain village largely shoeless ("my mother would make me some approximation of footwear in the months containing an 'R,'" he said) and without film, television, or telephone. He did not even see these things until moving to Munich at age 12. It was about this time when he first met Kinski, who was living in the boarding house. He did not yet know he would be a filmmaker, but Kinski's absolute rage really made an impression. He still thinks of himself as Bavarian, and much of his early forays into film were self-taught. Along with other filmmakers of the day (he is often linked to Wenders and Fassbinder, though I don't know if he would claim those associations himself) they had the task of not only reclaiming German cinema, but reinventing the funding and distribution system. One of the most inspirational things about his work is his dogged pursuit of his vision. He is willing to compromise to accommodate circumstances, but he refuses to budge when it comes to getting his films made. Anyone whose ever seen documentaries of him (Burden of Dreams, for example, an overrated account of his travails making Fitzcarraldo) will be a little shocked by his repeated insistence that he must make whatever film he is working on or die in the attempt. There is more than a hint of fanaticism in these statements, and his films are so odd one sometime can't help but wonder whether they are worth putting his life (not to mention those of his actors and crew) on the line to complete the film. But after meeting the man, I think I understand. He puts his life on the line for all of this films: not because they are irresponsible or dangerous (though after you hear of some of the conditions during the making of Fitzcarraldo including amoebic dysentery and an escalating border skirmish, you might wonder.) but because this is what his life as a filmmaker has required. This man should've never succeeded as a filmmaker, but knew who he was and what he must do. It is a mark not just of his vision, but his persistence that he has emerged as an international force in filmmaking.
Yesterday, I posted Ebert's thoughts about the first evening (I hope he posts about he second evening, too, and captures some of Herzog's inspirational quotes. The man is a gold mine of aphorisms.) and if you haven't already clicked through to his descriptions of filming cave paintings, you should really take a look, not just because it's fascinating material, but because his curiosity, intelligence, generosity and engagement really comes through. Seeing him this past two days has been an enormous blessing---I keep wanting to use the word 'mitzvah'---because I couldn't help but feel, even as a silent participant in a sea of faces, that he had come to speak directly to me. Logically, I know this is silly, but my heart was both open---and needed to hear---what he had to say. Thanking us for supporting him and his work, lauding the 'interruptus' format, which he thoroughly enjoyed, he ended the evening by promising, "As long as there is breath in my body, I will continue to make films for you."
Roger Ebert on the first night of Cinema Interruptus with Werner Herzog. He titled it 'The ecstasy of filmmaker Werner Herzog' and I have to say I agree:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/the_ecstary_of_the_filmmaker_h.html
Film critic Jim Emerson and comedienne Julia Sweeney on the selection of Aguirre for CWA:
http://www.kgnu.org/cgi-bin/programinfo.py?time=1270476000