1:07 - Kinski stares into the camera lens, which actors are not usually supposed to do as it breaks the fourth wall, but his mad 10,000 yard stare makes it like he is actually telling you with full conviction that he is "Aguirre, the wrath of God".
Incorrect, he would scream all the way through, in fact that was his original vision for the scene, the director suggested that he stays calm, kinski didn't liked that and called the director megalomaniac. They did it anyway though.
Siegfried Kircheis I'd like to see some films about the British madness in foreign territories. The Chess Players is an excellent film. But the British empire struck almost everywhere, it is scary how many films made to this day focus on the regal crap when there is a true story to be told about the actual people
I think this works so well because it was released during the Vietnam War, and was thus relevant to contemporary insanity without being set within contemporary insanity.
It's strange. I think at this point it was almost like Aguirre's madness was actually sustaining the group. No doubt they were all so exhausted and starved that their mental faculties were barely functioning... the only one who maintains a wariness of Aguirre is the priest, who is powerless to act.
@@Losrandir'Who else is with me?' Classic last line... I assume that you know the film is an allegory on the rise & fall of Hitler? Sums up brexit idiocy too: there is no way out of the jungle.
Like Ahab in Moby Dick. Near the end of the hunt he challenge God himself during a storm and his crew cheer him, and so do Ismael, despite he's aware that it was madness. All of their quest of revenge was madness after they already hunted a whale. And in Moby Dick the religious Starbuck try to make Ahab reason in multiple occasions, untill when Ahab finally treat him with a gun.
@@Jackp2003 My personal favorite is Despair. Tom Stoppard script in English based on Nabokov's Russian novel, with Dirk Brogard. How could you go wrong? And The Marriage of Maria Braun.
The opening shot of this movie defines the entire film, we are mere ants in this vast farm and we can be squashed without mercy. That's just the truth about nature.
Interesting how he looks straight into the camera a few times during the monologue. That is a no in acting of coarse, and yet when Kinski does it, it chills the heart of the audience and adds to the intensity of his performance.
Watched this film for the first time last night and LOVED it. Aguirre and his kingdom of little monkeys. Love the part too where he looks right into the camera and speaks "I am the Wrath of God". Awesome movie!
Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. The end is much more powerful in showing the irrationality of humankind; not wanting to realise despair, even if it is inevitable.
I love how this movie was shot in English (the only language everyone had in common), dubbed over in German, and then retranslated into English for the subtitles. But no copies of the original English audio survived.
@@colonelkurtz2269 We train young men to drop fire on people...and yet their commanders won't let them write, "Fuck!", on their airplanes because it's obscene!
I've been reading a lot of sagas lately, and I've read two--Njal's Saga and Laxdale Saga--that contain a scene where a man is beheaded while counting at a market, and afterwards his head continues counting. My first thought was, "I've seen that in a movie but can't remember which one." Finally figured it out. I wonder if Herzog was inspired by those sagas for this scene.
***** I appreciate your opinion, and the RU-vid comment section is nothing if not pretentious, and I don't think you've misinterpreted this film, just what it's trying to state. Not every film needs to convey a new message with each scene, and this one, as other commenters have stated, is trying to convey much. But I do think this film might not have been meant for people like you; maybe you have a short attention span, and indeed Herzog (one of the greatest directors of all time, in my opinion) takes his time, but the fact is this film is slow, deliberate and almost meditative. This film is my favourite, and about a man's desperation against nature, others and himself. One of the greatest films of all time. I'm not saying that it goes over your head, but perhaps you viewed it with the wrong mindset.
Maybe assert your opinion against him normally next time? Instead of discrediting and patronizing him as being pretentious because he is a "youtube commenter" and judging how he watches films by one preference.
mattjameswilliams Agreed. This is just my opinion, but this film is a great visual expression of how going gradually insane feels like. The concept was so powerful that even Francis Ford Coppola made a 6 hour homage in the form of “Apocalypse Now” (in regards to the workprint). Plot-wise, Aguirre got to the Heart of Darkness way before Willard, though.
Great physicality. Kinski misshapenly leaning his neck to one side while looking across, like he's craning his head to see inside their minds looking for betrayal.
I want to give credit to the phenomenal dubbing of Gerd Martienzen. Gerd Martienzen did not sound like Kinski at all. Kinski sounded a lot like Martienzen, when he has older, pissed off, and out of character (like in Burden of dreams); but in character, his voice was completely different. Still, Martienzen's voice actually sells the scene. Martienzen had done Brideshead revisited with Kinski for the radio 15 years before. Perhaps that helped him pull it off
Then a few years later he showed up in The Hitchhiker and I was like, DON'T YOU PEOPLE REALIZE YOU PICKED UP AGUIRRE??!! That dude is crazy, what were you thinking?!
Klaus Kinski really carries this movie. The other characters are boring and sometimes badly acted, but you want to watch until the end just to see what happens with Aguirre.
That is Kinski through the eyes of Herzog. If the same dialogue is delivered like Kinski wanted it will be immature af. this is the wrath of god. Calm and collected, something that stretches for eternity
@@stevekaczynski3793 Oh yeah, I meant when he was placed in front the camera. Off-set he was apparently the son of Beelzebub. Imagine what his family had to endure. Herzog's 'My Best Fiend' says it all.
The Wild Pole Kinski in his natural state: a haunted soldier twice captured and thrice escaped. This man knows desperation and hunger, the madness of the naked urge to survive at all costs. Hence that mania in his eyes.
The talking head...a deliberate touch of "physical surrealism" to add to the general dissociation from reality. In order to make voice you need airflow from the lungs. Herzog knew it and of course he knew that we know. But he still did it, because it adds to the horror fairytale he recites...
Also, they couldn't afford the ridiculous price Kinski asked for dubbing (1/3 of their budget had already gone to his salary), so the German is spoken by another actor.
It originally was shot in English since it was the only language the actors shared in common but when filming was done, Herzog found that the audio quality was very poor so he had all the actors except for Kinski dub it over in german. They got a voice actor that sounded like Kinski to do his dub since he wanted an insane amount of cash to do it.
...und nur Bekloppte können solch Bekloppte auch noch wertvolle Ehrungen und Preise verleihen... das so ein Verrückter zu Lebzeiten auch noch dafür Geld bekommen hat, ist mir Schleierhaft.
