herzog

(Part 2)

The circle motif is something very evident in many of Werner Herzog’s films. In films like Aguirre and Stroszek, characters were often found travelling in a circular route, both metaphorically and physically. 

Critics have also pointed out that the base of the circle was analogized as an abyss - an impossible ideal where characters tried their utmost best to conquer. The fact that they travelled along the circumference of the circle meant that they would always keep a distance from the center of their concern - the goal they have strived so hard to achieve. Some of the men in Aguirre’s troop were trapped in a whirlpool along the river, and the raft turned in circles, until it disappeared the next day, signifying death. When everyone around Aguirre died, he could finally become the next thing as good as becoming God - the nemesis of God, which he called as ‘The Wrath of God’. With some monkeys on the raft, the camera tracked Aguirre who has descended into complete madness, and the circular path suggested as if he was locked inside his solipsism. The monkeys at the end of the film suggested that evolution, or our development of civilization, has lifted or led us to nowhere. The sad fact is, we have always been going in circles. Likewise in Fitzcarraldo, the haunting vision of a single umbrella travelling its way down the river served at a great premonition of the doomed failure of his wildest dreams.

In contrast, Stroszek is a film that dealt with the alienation of the individual of the modern world. Though it may appear the theme is directed against America, it was not an anti-American film, as the situations in the film were far more universal than that. Stroszek, due to his personality and more so the world that has shaped him, would meet a tragic end no matter where the filmmaker has placed the character in. That’s the reason why Stroszek would prefer going back to the correctional institution that has confined him, because he did not see any improvement in terms of his well-being even if he was set free to the outside world. It is clear that Herzog was not blaming Stroszek for his failure. He was blaming the problems of our world that have led Stroszek to these troubles in the first place. Stroszek represented the archetype of an underdog, the sort of characters the audience would more likely to meet in the real life. While landscape was also featured in Stroszek, it was a barren landscape, one that suggested emptiness or hopelessness rather than myth or mystery.

After a failed robbery attempt and a series of miscalculations, Stroszek found himself stranded and drove his car in circles, until the gas ran out and he pulled the trigger on himself. Wasn’t that a great analogy for his life? Or maybe anyone’s life? The scene was further satirized when police was called to deal with a dancing chicken automaton nearby, which for some unknown reasons could not be stopped. The metaphor here was provocative, yet both scenarios pointed to a similar conclusion. If no further coins were put into the machine, the dancing chicken would just move aimlessly until the power ran out… to the end of life.

The exuberant visual style from Werner Herzog will fascinate anyone who is passionate about cinema! 

(2/2) 

by Ed Law  

Film Analysis

HERZOG

Werner Herzog is one of the representatives for the German New Wave, along with Wenders and Fassbinder, and the movement was part of a trend in the European New Wave of the 1960s and the 1970s. Herzog’s approach to film is really like his memorable characters : he is daring, provocative, and is committed to deliver a vision which penetrates any possible limits set by cinema. He famously worked with Klaus Kinski, a volatile yet fantastic actor; and Bruno S., and these 2 great artists have collaborated with Herzog to make some of the most memorable films from West Germany, such as Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Stroszek, and Fitzcarraldo and so on.

While Herzog is brilliant to his approach to characters, he is also proud of the fact that he is a great director of landscape. Landscape in a Herzog film is an important element, and often a strong attribute of his mastery of cinema, because it represents the opponent to humanity’s struggle - Nature. Herzog’s portrayal of nature is indifferent, antipathic and unsentimental. It is the chessboard where his characters move and interact, with each other or address the call of challenge from nature itself. 

Much of the dramatic conflict in Herzog’s work stems from the individual versus the surroundings that often overwhelm these characters in question. These characters, no matter how bigger than life they are (as in the case of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or basically any Herzogian characters portrayed by Klaus Kinski), are consumed by ambition, desire, dream, and obsession that drive their actions. Herzog may be implying that madness and obsession, two themes very frequently featured in many of his films, can just be two sides of the same coin. Often, the world in a Herzog film is limited in the sense it will not be able to fulfil the grand vision an individual may wish to perceive - most notably in Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo. The antithesis of Aguirre, brilliantly portrayed by Klaus Kinski, is Stroszek, just as masterly portrayed by Bruno S. The two iconic characters are sort of like Yin and Yang of Herzog’s cinema. They represent a pair of personalities when one looks at the world they find themselves in.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God is Herzog’S most famous film. It is a tale of a doomed voyage. The style and theme of the film has influenced Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line and Alejandro G. Inarritu’s The Revenant. The story detailed the struggle between Aguirre, an egomaniac who was at odds with both institutions and nature. Like Colonel Kurtz, Aguirre could not consider as an evil genius. As Herzog has also stated, there is no point to analyze whether Aguirre should be considered a hero or a villain, because he was both. What makes Aguirre fascinating is that how far he could go on both ends. He was a tremendously daring person, and yet it was totally reasonable to consider him as an egomaniac, even if such a psychiatric assessment might not exist in Aguirre’s era.

A similarity between Aguirre, Apocalypse Now, The Thin Red Line and The Revenant is that they all contain scenes of exploration through the river, as the difficulty of the mission escalates. Metaphorically, as the journey continues, the characters are descending into the darkness of humanity and madness one seldom wants to confront. While the characters claimed to be civilized and expressed their desire to help and civilize the local people, they were motivated by self-interest and irrational obsessions rather than any enlightened views. So in both Herzog’s and Coppola’s films, the colonizers were driven by greed and an intense thirst of power and control. Even institutional measures like organized religion was not free of scrutiny, as the priest in Aguirre went as far as stating the awful truth, ‘you know my child, the Church has always been on the side of the strong’.  When it came to the pursuit of wealth and resources, this religious personal was not much different from Aguirre himself.

(1/2) 

by Ed Law 

Film Analysis