Aguirre: The Wrath of God
From Freepedia
Image:Aguirre the wrath of god 01.jpg
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) is a 1972 German film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role. Many are not aware that the film was shot in English, for distribution purposes.
The story follows the travels of Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of a lost city of gold (El Dorado).
The film opens with a haunting combination of sound and image (a Herzog trademark - see Fitzcarraldo and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser). Using a minimalist story and dialogue and the powerful acting of Kinski, the film creates a compelling vision of madness and folly, counterpointed by the lush but unforgiving Amazonian jungle.
The soundtrack is composed and performed by Popol Vuh, a German progressive/ethno band that has also contributed to other Herzog films.
Herzog has acknowledged that the story line is a work of his imagination, notwithstanding the fact that several of the film's lead characters — such as Aguirre and Francisco Pizarro — were historical figures. Additionally, there are a number of persons and situations which may have been inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal's account of an earlier Amazonian expedition.
The camera used to shoot this film was stolen by Herzog from a school he attended. The monkeys that appear in the end of the film were stolen from an airport.
According to the director's commentary to Aguirre, the monkeys weren't stolen. Herzog paid several locals to trap 400 monkeys -- he paid them half in advance and was to pay the other half on receipt. The trappers sold the monkeys to someone in LA or Miami, and Herzog came to the airport just as the monkeys were being loaded to be shipped out of the country. He pretended to be a veterinarian and yelled "Those monkeys don't have their shots!" or something along those lines. Abashedly, the handlers unloaded the monkeys, and Herzog loaded them into his jeep and drove away.
