A tale of madness, a tale of conquest, a tale of hubris — this is Aguirre, the Wrath of God. This is also, in many ways, the story of Werner Herzog, who directed the film, and Klaus Kinski, who starred in it. Aguirre is in the canon of cult films, and has been since for nearly 40 years. But what did it do to deserve such respect? Let’s carry a Virgin Mary statue into the jungle and investigate.

The praise: While the film did poorly in its home country of West Germany — probably because it aired on German television the same day it hit theaters — it was an immediately cult favorite elsewhere, running for months in art-house theaters in France, Mexico, and elsewhere. It had a similarly enthusiastic reception when it finally opened in the United States in 1977. In Sight & Sound magazine’s 2002 survey of the best movies ever made, three people included it in their top 10 lists: director Santosh Sivan and critics Nigel Andrews and Roger Ebert. The film appears on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest movies of all time, Empire magazine’s list of the best films of world cinema, and Entertainment Weekly’s list of the greatest “cult films.”

The context: Werner Herzog probably isn’t insane in the literal, clinical sense, but you’d be forgiven for assuming otherwise. Many of his films are about people who are obsessed or crazy — the protagonists in Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and the documentary Grizzly Man, for example. Five of Herzog’s films starred Klaus Kinski, who genuinely did have mental problems, and whose behind-the-scenes clashes with Herzog were legendary.

The line between fictional madness and real madness is also blurred by Herzog’s filmmaking methods. He shoots on location and avoids high-tech special effects. To make a movie about someone doing something crazy, he generally has to do something crazy. The classic example is Fitzcarraldo, which has a sequence in which a crew of men drag a 320-ton steamship over a hill from one South American river to another. To film this, Herzog went to South America and had a crew of men drag a 320-ton steamship over a hill. (The documentary Burden of Dreams chronicles the production of the film and appears to be the story of a madman making a movie about a madman.)

A decade earlier, Herzog had his first collaboration with Kinski and the Amazon River. Aguirre, the Wrath of God was inspired by Herzog’s readings of actual adventures of the Spanish conquistadors, and features several real historical figures (including Aguirre), but is almost entirely fictitious. Herzog had met Kinski in the 1960s and considered him the only actor intense (i.e., crazy) enough to play Aguirre. Kinski agreed.

Though it didn’t require anything as elaborate as steamship relocation, the production of Aguirre did presage the production of Fitzcarraldo. Herzog brought his cast and crew to the Peruvian rainforest and shot on location there and on the nearby Amazon tributaries. The film begins with an extraordinary shot of dozens of people trudging single-file down a winding mountain path, dragging cannons, animals, and supplies with them. You realize immediately that this is real, as is everything else in the film. Real rafts, real rivers, real monkeys. Herzog doesn’t deliberately draw attention to it, but it’s hard not to constantly think about what a logistical nightmare it must have been to make this movie. You wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out several people had died in the process. (None did.)

The movie: In early 1561, as Pizarro and his conquistadors search for the legendary city of El Dorado but are mired stuck in the thick jungle, a small expedition is sent down the Amazon River to see what lies ahead. Pizarro appoints the upright and circumspect Don Pedro de Ursua to lead this group, with Don Lope de Aguirre second in command. Aguirre has his own ideas about how to handle the dangerous mission.

What it influenced: You might assume Apocalypse Now, with its similar tale of river-bound madness, was influenced by Aguirre. You would be right. Francis Ford Coppola has acknowledged the connection, and critics have noted visual similarities between the two. Terrence Malick’s The New World and The Thin Red Line likewise bear some resemblance to Herzog’s dreamy, startling, violent visions.

What to look for: As is often the case with Herzog’s movies (not to mention interviews with him), Aguirre is mostly intense and serious but occasionally out-of-nowhere funny. “The long arrows are becoming fashionable,” observes a man calmly after being shot with one. In another scene, a priest laments the difficulties of preaching Christianity to the native Indians: “It’s a tough business. These savages are hard to convert.” The reason that’s humorous is that the priest and his cohorts have just strangled one such savage for not knowing what a “book” is.

Herzog and Kinski disagreed on how Aguirre should be portrayed. The director wanted him to be quiet and menacing; Kinski favored the raving lunatic persona. Hergoz managed to get his way, for the most part, but watch Kinski’s eyes. You can see the fury boiling up behind them — partly in character, partly from Kinski’s actual frustrations with Herzog. He looks like he could snap at any moment. And by “he” I mean either Kinski or Aguirre.

In one scene, the explorers awaken to discover that their rafts were swept away during the night. This plot development was not in the script; it was included because, you guessed it, a storm actually washed the rafts away.

Herzog had his actors speak their dialogue in English, the only language that the multi-national cast had in common. Everything was dubbed into German later, though, and while an English audio track is provided on the DVD version, the German one is far superior. (The English dub came even later; the original audio, shot on location, was mostly unusable.)

Further reading: You should stop whatever you’re doing right now and read Roger Ebert’s interview with Herzog from 2004. The director talks a lot about Aguirre, Herzog, and his process in general. Ebert’s review of the film is also worthwhile, as is J. Hoberman’s fine 2006 essay from the Village Voice.

Tags: aguirre the wrath of god, klaus kinski, werner herzog