His boat sinking, his remaining men dying of fever or slain by natives, his only child felled by an arrow, Aguirre the blasphemer, the betrayer, the "Wrath of God" dreams of a conquest as limitless as heaven.
@@scottsimmons7897 I also agree Satyricon is a great work of art, but I must protest that Aguirre is more important for these very serious times. As you will recall Satyricon is a homoerotic story about Giton (played by Max Born, who was not homosexual, and still alive and married living in NZ). It was a different time, and different stories could be told in the age of sex awareness in early seventies. This is a different story but more relevant for these times of greed, malice and as Bowie, Kinski’s friend put it “failures for fathers mothers of chaos”. Now it will take men accustomed to penance, religious conviction, and austerity such as Kinski to defeat the Americans and save North Europa. Such convictions are seen even better in Jesus Christus Erlöser. That film has nothing to do with Herzog, who was nothing himself without Kinski.
"Don't forget to pray otherwise God could come to a bad end" probably the best line in the movie. Really shows madness of Aguirre who to me is a symbol of mankind's desire for conquest.
Marcus Galeano If everybody stopped praying to God, would He still exist? Even if He DOES exist, but everybody forgot about him, would he still matter somehow? Aguirre says God needs us more than we need Him. Or it's just one of Aguirre's/Kinski's sublime non sequiturs
Avarice incarnate. From our development of metallurgy to our creation of the nuclear weapon we have yearned to rule reality and subjugate the unknown. When taken to its logical conclusion and without philosophical consideration to guide us, we are all starving conquistadors, bleeding out in the middle of the Amazon.
The image at 1:50 is one of the great photos in world cinema in that decade. The helicopter shot beginning at 4:30 is one of the greatest, if not the greatest moving shot, of the seventies.
+garrison968 That was actually shot from a motorboat. The boat was expertly piloted, and the low angle does a good job of further hiding the boat's wake. You can still see the waves rocking the raft, though.
With this scene I believe Harzog has really captured a precious insight on the human. Circumstances may vary according to the historical moment, but the essence is the same: that of a remote folly which possesses a man, exalting and rising him above others, even in defeat.
Look no further than the state of the current world, with global masses elevating demagogic populists at the expense of knowledge and experience. We have learned nothing.
Kinski os beyond Brando, or any other American from your fetid fascist former colonies of the British Empire. He was a spiritual leader and a visionary. To compare Him with anyone living or dead with the possible exception of Luther or Christ is to completely misunderstand Him. The only mistake He ever made is failing to murder Herzog in his sleep. “Ich werde meine Tochter heiraten,” #KINSKILIVES
This is the pinnacle of nihilistic existentialist filmmaking. And probably my favorite movie of all time. I want to watch this masterpiece just before I die...
This is an astonishingly ambitious movie and it is really about MEN, how the desire for power and wealth is a type of madness but drives US ALL. It is in our genes. We are all mad.
A Masterpiece of cinema. Herzog is beyond great as is Kinski and the two together - the results speak for themselves. Remarkable how stupid and inane a lot of comments are on here. A few insightful good ones also.
Well imagine being crushed by crazy ugly whacky Klaus Kinski and then being shouted a by that scary face.. poor monkey must have been emotionally scarred for the rest of his brief life. Mental trauma.
The ending of Aguirre is so fitting because it shows his delusion since all of his followers and fellow soldiers have died on their journey to find El Dorado. But Aguirre maintains his God Complex and obsessions even though he is ruler of no one except for a bunch of monkeys that raid the float.
Not defending Kinski or anything (he was really crazy IMO) but these "pedo" claims were made during the #metoo hype. It's always when claims are made 20 years after (Kinski died in 1991) and the fact that the victim is the only evidence we have is beyond suspicious. I hardly believe a lot of claims similar to this.
@@bal_masque There was no "metoo hype". You're confounded that when other women came forward with their stories of abuse, that others would find the courage to do so as well? Then you're a great fool. If you knew anything about Kinski you would have no doubt he did what it alleged. I don't care for anyone who says "Not defending X or anything", they use this to hide their deceit.
Aguirre was an almost sociopathic asshole, but I still wanted him to win in the end. It's such a strange movie compared to modern cinema, anything released in the last ~20 years. It's almost like a documentary of an expedition that gradually falls apart.
It's based two Spanish Colonial expeditions to Peru, one of which was led by a captain of the same name. Most of it is from Herzog's imagination but many details are accurate. One of the reasons it looks like documentary is because it was filmed like one. Cameramen traveled overland with their equipment the way the actors did. There were very few motor vehicles involved in the production. Herzog doesn't use production tricks: everything he filmed his actors and producers actually did. Check out _Fitzcarraldo_.
Probably not, but he DID improvise grabbing and tossing aside the monkey. For more about Klaus Kinski's creative process in Werner Herzog's films, watch the documentary "My Best Fiend". It's very entertaining.
My favorite part. I think this whole scene is somewhat allegorical. Where did the spider monkeys come from? Doesn't matter. Where there is a mass there will be a longing for omnipotence. Aguirre transcended himself and his El Dorado.
@@ozymandiasramesses1773 Squirrel monkeys, Herzog bought hundreds of them then couldn't sell them after. I'm sure they were delicious to what ever ate them.
They're both good movies. Why compare them? Aguirre is about a man pushed to the limits by nature and Joker is about a man pushed to his limits by society.
Horrific Fried Donut Well, if you are capable to appreciate Aguirre, it means you could be saved from alienation so, I'll try. I'm french, so I could link you some french articles/podcasts that are very pertinents in their critic of Joker, but I don't know if you can understand them. To sum up my point : I compare both movies because Aguirre is one of the most recognized author film that depicts the fall of a man into madness etc., and could be linked to films like Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter, which Joker explicitly refers to. But : if Aguirre is a documentary like depiction of the rude and brutal amazonia and Taxi Driver a deep captation of the atmosphere of New York at the time it was shot, Joker is only an artificial tentative to recreate what worked before, the decor of the film is a mix of what a greyish city of the 80s would looks like, but its set up and filmed like a commercial. Here I just focus on the setting because I want to be precise, but what I want to say globally is that Herzog and Scorsese have a vision, a vision of their settings, of their characters, of their story ; and Todd Philipps has nothing to say, no idea of what to do with his camera. So he just let Joaquin Phoenix occupy the screen for 2 and half hour and hope to get an oscar. The maim, crucial difference is that Aguirre is an author film, and Joker is made to please his producers. I have been pretty affirmative here, but if you wants to make your opinion, I can advise you to : continue to watch a ton of Herzog's films ; if you like Phoenix, to watch PTA's "The Master", where he do mainly the same performance than in joker but this time there is someone behind the camera.
@@lejardinierdugoulag7883 I don't think Phoenix's character in The Master is anything like his character in Joker. And Todd Phillips definitely had a vision for the character. Read the script if you don't believe me. Is Joker derivative? Yes, but ketchup is also derivative of tomatoes, and we don't lambast ketchup for simply being derived from something else.
Also squares well with Donald Trump being ill of COVID in October 2020 in the White House, and claiming a non existing victory over Biden, and rigged election, and the whole shit.
Love the monkeys leaping into the water as Klaus Kinski approaches. Stay on the raft with Kinski as he's being goaded by Werner Herzog or swim for it in piranha infested water? "Over the side!"
I think a better ending would be to have Aguirre abandon the raft. After which, he seeks Inez in the forest where she departed. In a desperate measure to find her he apprehends her. They have an intimate scene, but is punctuated by an abrupt arrow impaling her. They share an intense moment as he holds her limp body in his arms. The symbol of lost dreams destroyed.
@@saran5263 they all got down the river in real life, but then aguirre was put to death and was chopped into four pieces, his head was meant to have been on display on a spike in valencia 60 years after his death
0:08 "I used to be a philosopher... then I took an arrow to the knee." ROTFL That movie is insane. Just like Aguirre, Kinski, and Herzog. So much craziness in a single movie.
Interpreto que Aguirre llego a su purgatorio al parecer siendo el único que no fue atacado y lastimado. Seguro murió poco después de empezar alucinar, sus últimas palabras ya sonaban a delirios y pocos rastros de lucidez.
Lo pone a uno a pensar en el precio tan alto que pagaron los personajes de la pelicula por su codicia. Toda la miseria que tuvieron que pasar solo por el dercho de poder decir yo tengo mas.
Anyone know the name of the music that becomes more audible around 2:50? It sounds like Popol Vuh/Florian Fricke, but it doesn't seem to be on the "official" Aguirre soundtrack album, which is a shame since it's such a beautiful plaintive melody.
One of the most sublime and haunting sequences in the history of cinema. I wouldn't know about the wrath of God, but this film is certainly an argument for divine inspiration.
Everyone on the raft was delirious with fever and malnutrition by that point: malaria was the implication. Everyone but Aguirre. He was basically invulnerable. The only thing that could harm him was his own madness.
Sort of. Apparently Herzog would regularly let Kinski rant until he couldn’t be anymore over the top, then film him doing a more subdued kind of madness on camera.
he shouldn't be so CROSS all the time - if he more gentil and chilled about stuff then god and the pygmies would have been far more generous towards him, I feel...
4:16 Never noticed the monkey shit himself in fear of Klaus Aguirre Kinski. ROTFL. AGUIRRE "I AM THE WRATH OF GOD" MONKEY "Eat my shit" (Aguirre throws the monkey)
Marcus Galeano I have a feeling it’s a nihilistic comment, almost mocking the priest suggesting that he better pray so that he has a good final memory of god as afterwards there is nothing. I might be wrong though
A bizarre, orange-haired madman with a strange sexual attraction to his fair-haired daughter, sets off to plunder the riches of the works with a crew of questionable qualifications is undetered as his team dwindles one by one until he's left with his own madness, never considering that's is his own flaws that are dooming him.
Benjamin Britten has been quoted as saying: "I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like, I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers." I'm not sure I'm arrogant, but I can be impatient, and my jury about whose fault it is that I found nothing other than a few pretty shots in Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes, which appealed to me is still out. Oddly (although German acting can be a bit.. odd..) wooden acting from everyone other than Kinski, of course, who's always over the top (which is GENIUS in Woyzeck, a FABULOUS movie adaptation!) It fizzles out at the end, as we slowly drift into dehydration and boredom.. Not for me, although as I said: that could be my fault (many would say so!). Also Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu are great movies, but Aguirre.. no.
It also depends on when and how you see it. I saw it in my early twenties, alone, in a foreign city, in a time of exploration and openness, and I was literally stunned. I remember stumbling out of the theater like a sleepwalker. This film has a purity that talks to a pure soul. Now, in my forties, I would appreciate the film's courage, but I wouldn't (and couldn't) let myself be swayed. It is a matter of luck.
Just finished this movie, I enjoyed it but it had a strange, wonky way of telling its story and man was this ending... disappointing, but expected. So many questions like, was the boat actually there? Was Aguirre really the last one alive? Were those actual arrows or metaphors for their fears of the natives manifesting from their fever-driven delirium like the Slave said? Excellent film showing the madness of man who still to this day attempts to conquer and subdue a chaotic, unforgiving world that ultimately, doesn't need him.
All those questions are what makes the film so powerful, transcending the idea of truth, myth, spirituality, sanity and nature. These questions are meant to be made, the answers come from the viewers own meditation on them.
BREXIT/Nov 2018. Theresa May, surrounded by dead bodies and fighting monkeys faces her now vanished cabinet about her great deal: she asks to an indifferent world. A tragedy from Schiller or Milton, still ignorant of the fact that the only way off the sinking raft is across treacherous water and into a hostile forest, she still feels that she is in charge. "Who else is with me?"
@@rabd3721 Covid hides Brexit deceit. Covid is a natural disaster. Brexit is a self inflicted one. 'Do not call the wolf from the forest' - Russian proverb.
Interesting point. Maybe that's what Werner wanted, but I prefer to see it as a bunch of dudes who venture into the wilderness and are consumed by it and the desire of gold, and the contrast of their desires (a gold city) and the truth (unending green wilderness)
