Approaching death himself and conceiving an excellent metaphor for the disillusions of his own happiness, Edgar Allan Poe published in 1849 a poem by the name of Eldorado, whose last stanza alludes to the folly of those men of centuries earlier venturing into the Amazon, searching for an imaginary city: “‘Over the Mountains / Of the moon, / Down the Valley of the Shadow, / Ride, boldly ride,’ / The shade replied,– / If you seek for Eldorado!’”
The morbidity of the lines captures a futility besetting the conquistadores who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, trekked across the Peruvian terrain into the Amazon. The myth of El Dorado is the perennial expression of human greed, which in the era of New World colonialism found its greatest subject in the expedition of the Spanish headed by Don Pedro de Ursúa. Second-in-command, Don Lope de Aguirre, the tyrant of bluster and futile fury, incited mutiny and memorialized himself in the colonial annals as a man hoping to find his El Dorado.
Embellishing this expedition that is said to have ended after Don Lope de Aguirre was killed by fellow Spaniards in Venezuela, Werner Herzog in his film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, contributes to the mythos of the man and makes it incomparable and luminous. Deluded by the glory of his failure, Aguirre is a brutal and brazen figure who dares scorn the gods, becoming a darkly scintillating hero.
Herzog has created a lasting portrait of the man because he conveys, with beautiful photography and participatory camerawork, the futility of man attempting to conquer nature; and because he employs Klaus Kinski, who embodies the “Wrath of God”. It is a seething and powerful performance that is sui generis and cautionary—an extremity of humankind, redoubtable and dizzying.
The opening shot of the film unravels the Amazon with the ominous score of Popul Vuh, setting a tone that pervades the mist hovering over the rainforest. Having related that “a large expedition of Spanish adventurers under the leadership of Gonzalo Pizarro set off from the Peruvian Sierras,” Herzog presents the immensity of the mountains dwarfing hundreds of conquistadores and their slaves as they straggle down the mountainside. This glorious long shot affirms at once the opposition of man and nature, and throughout the film the long shots, lucid and graceful, contrast nature with the earthbound and lowly men attempting to conquer it. This contrast miniaturizes men, and the story exemplifies the consequences of their defiance.
Noting the contrast that these glorious longshots bring about, Vincent Canby writes that “the conquistadores endure terrible trials—whirlpools, Indian attacks, rebellion within their own ranks—yet the mood of the film is almost languid.”[1] It is a torrid and relentless atmosphere: the mise-en-scène is full of furious movement, and the camera continually gathers droplets of water, making the shots seem participatory, as of a documentary shot by a compatriot of Aguirre. These effects contribute to an immersive story underlining the opposition of man and nature.
Spoken by the monk Gaspar de Carvajal, the narration points up the opposition of man and nature, poetizing the futility of the expedition. Carvajal, speaking with the mistress of Don Pedro de Ursúa, relates that “as for man…his days are like grass, as a flower on the field, so he blossoms. For when the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.” Having revealed that their plight is vain and impermanent, Carvajal allies himself with the madmen leading the expedition, becoming impassive and careless out of self-interest; he begins to exemplify the corruption from which not even religion can spare him.
Impotent and unavailing, religion becomes parody when Carvajal exhibits a specious piety. Offering the Bible to a native on their raft, Carvajal is ridiculous when he says, “this is the Bible. It contains the word of God that we preach to bring light into the darkness of their world.” The scene confirms that the madness of Aguirre is an extremity that his compatriots are ever approaching.
But the extremity of Don Lope de Aguirre is inimitable. While not physically imposing, he compensates with a swagger that menaces after he revolts against Don Pedro de Ursúa. And the countenance of Klaus Kinski is unforgettable: a chiseled bone structure, a strong jawline, and penetrating and deep-set eyes, which “are those of a natural-born tyrant, a visionary who can see only his delusions.”[2]
Klaus Kinski moderates the powerful theatricality of his outbursts with a paternal tenderness; in a scene of startling naturalism, Aguirre presents his daughter with an arboreal creature, somnolent and writhing in his hands, and their laughter and sensitivity are arresting, a contrasting poignancy from which all violence and inhumanity have vanished.
The tranny and menace of Aguirre increase as the expedition nears its end on the Amazon River, when all but Aguirre have died; and after reaching the final scene and the beautiful arc shot observing Aguirre in a delusional cocoon, one is left with emptiness, human folly, and the stunning beauty of nature. But despite its apparent emptiness, its void of possibility and meaning, the story seems complete, even daring in its coldness and realism.
A similar film, more operatic and with terrific production values, Apocalypse Now likewise has the wonder and menace, the folly and danger, of mankind in a foreign land. But comparing it with Aguirre, the Wrath of God, one finds that the latter has the greater intimacy, and the more coherent vision. While bigger often implies better, the implication here is false—a point that Stuart Jeffries substantiates, writing that “while the latter uses minimal story and dialogue to express its potent vision, Coppola’s film is all talk and display, wearing its high-art credentials (Brando intoning Eliot, Wagner as napalm’s aural backdrop) like badges of honour.”[3] Economy and minimalism, and authenticity pervading the vision and story, are the hallmarks of Herzog’s success. To any viewer of the seminal madness of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, that opinion should be creditable.
But comparison can seem a fait accompli in all discussions of Don Lope de Aguirre.
- Vincent Canby. “‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God,’” nytimes.com, 4 April 1977, https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/04/archives/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god-haunting-film-by-herzog.html ↑
- Peter Bradshaw. “Aguirre: The Wrath of God—review,” theguardian.com, 6 June 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/06/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god-review ↑
- Stuart Jeffries. “Aguirre, Wrath of God,” theguardian.com, 20 October 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/20/aguirre-wrath-herzog-arthouse ↑
