Mark Kermode reviews Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) | BFI Player

my BFI player choice this week is one of the most celebrated movies by the Bavarian filmmaker who is currently the subject of a documentary radical dreamer and of a BFI retrospective season entitled journey into the unknown the films of Vera Herzog one of herzog's key collaborations with actor clae kinsky whom he memorably called my best fiend it's a 16th century story of an increasingly megalomaniacal Spanish Soldier leading a group of conquistadors down the Amazon River in search of a city of gold a GE the wroth of God it's hertzog has claimed that he wrote the screenplay for Airi the Roth of God on a football coach in two and a half days using only his left hand because his right hand was occupied warding off a very drunk goalie who at one point vomited over his typewriter ruining several pages of script the contents of which were promptly lost forever ever as with so much of hertzog's work the creation and production of the film which was shot in the jungles of Peru has become the stuff of Legend with Herzog remembering that we lived in sheer poverty floating on wraths with everyone who was acting in the film living in their costumes rotting and rusting away kinsky was in particularly confrontational form throughout throwing violent tantrums and rages each day until Herzog reportedly threatened to shoot him when he tried to walk off the movie 10 days before the end of the filming I once asked Herzog if the story was true that he had pulled a gun on kinsky he said no it was an exaggeration the gun was in his pocket but it was loaded and he would have used it if he had to which he didn't and somehow the film got finished and what a film it is from an eerie vision of a boat perched in the highest branches of a tree to the sight of kinsky cast a drift on a raft full of monkeys a gir is experiential Cinema filled with a kind of ecstatic truth that has become herzog's trademark few filmmakers have pushed themselves and their collaborators in the pursuit of art the way Herzog has and fewer still have made films as Visionary and thrilling as air watch and tremble in [Music] wonder

Channel: BFI

Views: 11,048

Keywords: British Film Institute (Publisher), British, film, institute, films, movie, movies, cinema, BFI

Id: D36Zy9fXRg4

Length: 2min 59sec (179 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024