{"id":629,"date":"2009-01-04T20:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/?p=629"},"modified":"2011-04-23T15:24:01","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T20:24:01","slug":"dvd-aguirre-the-wrath-of-god-herzog-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/2009\/01\/dvd-aguirre-the-wrath-of-god-herzog-1972\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Beginning my month of attempting to familiarize myself with the films of Werner Herzog, I think it is good that I’ve gotten his arguably most acclaimed film out of the way. Instead of viewing his other work and expecting this to be superior to all of them, I was able to watch it with a minimized sample of comparison, and was therefore not disappointed. This is the first fiction film that I have seen by Herzog. Prior to Aguirre<\/span>, I saw Grizzly Man<\/span>, Lessons of Darkness<\/span>, and Encounters at the End of the World<\/span>. Of those three, only Lessons of Darkness<\/span> really blew me away. I had known before seeing any of them that Herzog was interested in nature, insanity, and culture, and I thought that Lessons<\/span> was able to address all three of these themes in very fresh, interesting, and often terrifying ways. <\/span>With Aguirre<\/span>, all three of these themes clearly make a huge presence.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help but be reminded by Terrence Malick’s two most recent films, The Thin Red Line<\/span> and The New World<\/span>, while watching this. I knew about a few things that Malick was influenced by from Herzog, and I also know that his use of the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold<\/span> in The New World<\/span> was, seemingly, an hommage to Herzog’s several uses of the piece in his work. But I wasn’t aware of the strong cinematographic similarities, notably the long, languid takes of swamps, jungles, and rivers as well as the interludes of small creatures. The presence of something new runs through both of their works, contrasting the dying subjects. With Herzog, though, what is dying is often the characters’ minds in preparation for their bodiies’ deaths. The last shot of this was so effective because I saw Aguirre functioning on the last thread of his sanity, and I knew the only logical next step for him.<\/p>\n

I was a little wobbly in my reception to Kinski’s Aguirre. He has a strange, mousy voice made him sound more whiny than intimidating sometimes. But as he descended into complete absurdity with his mission, his mannerisms and speech had a sad and destined tone that I was very captivated by. I thought that the entire final act was moving, thrilling, and strange in a well arranged way. In all, the acting, photography, and setting are all very good, and I don’t think it is surprising this is his classic. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if there are several of his other films that I enjoy more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beginning my month of attempting to familiarize myself with the films of Werner Herzog, I think it is good that I’ve gotten his arguably most acclaimed film out of the way. Instead of viewing his other work and expecting this to be superior to all of them, I was able to watch it with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3369,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions\/3369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}