“Fortune smiles on the brave and spits on the coward.”

Perhaps it’s a bold assertion, but Werner Herzog may be the most fearless filmmaker in the history of the medium. Very rarely have we seen any director who is so willing to put himself in the path of danger for the sake of artistic expression, which he does purely to prove that the impossible can be done with the right approach and willingness to challenge conventions. One of his defining works that exemplifies this concept is Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes), in which he crafts a dramatized version of the titular conquistador, Lope de Aguirre, who was a member of Pizarro’s fleet before staging a mutiny amongst his small crew deep in the Amazon forest as they search for the folkloric El Dorado, the city of gold whose riches are coveted by many explorers who hope to conquer its people. This is a story only Herzog could tell, and the history behind its inception (in which he wrote the screenplay over about two days while travelling by bus with a perpetually inebriated soccer team) is almost as fascinating as the final product and informs so much of what precisely makes this such an intensely compelling work of historical storytelling. Many consider Aguirre, the Wrath of God to be Herzog’s first masterpiece – his previous documentaries and fiction films had been well-received by the paltry (and usually native German) audiences that had initially seen them, but now viewers were confronted with this bold, daring piece of filmmaking that sought to challenge and unsettle conventions in a way that could only come from the most deranged and ingenious of minds. This is the absolute brilliance of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, a film that still manages to be extremely surprising and compelling over half a century since its release, as well as establishing Herzog as one of the most inventive and important filmmakers of his generation, being the first of many unimpeachable masterpieces.

Over a career that has spanned nearly sixty years, Herzog has been driven by the desire to cast as wide a net as possible when it comes to genre, style and even structure of his work. He often considers his writing to be what he will be most remembered for, which is why it is so intriguing to see how his films manifest certain ideas and concepts since they are borne by someone who views himself as primarily a storyteller more than a visual stylist. For earlier works like Signs of Life and Even Dwarfs Started Small, a more writerly approach does make sense, but when dealing with the story of the conquistadors as they navigate the harsh terrain of the Amazon forest, the approach was logically going to be much different. Aguirre, the Wrath of God is one of the most striking and beautiful films of the 1970s, which is achieved through one of the most common elements we find in the director’s work: steadfast and undeniable authenticity. The entire film was shot in a location in South America, and outside of a few setpieces constructed to evoke the period, everything we see in this film is genuine, captured on film in a way that evokes the period that the story is exploring. This is not a traditional historical epic by any stretch of the imagination – Herzog is both too interesting of a filmmaker and not patient enough to go through the conventional motions usually associated with this genre. Instead, it is an atmospheric, almost surreal drama that employs a stream-of-consciousness approach to tell the story, which is formed through paying attention less to the narrative, which meanders in many fascinating directions, and more to the mood evoked by these images and their underlying implications. About as far from straightforward as a historical epic can be while still maintaining some degree of realism, Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a fascinating and harsh examination of the past, which Herzog carefully pieces together through several peculiar but brilliantly subversive techniques.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God was once cited as being “a masterclass in point-of-view”, which is proven in terms of both the story and its tangible execution. The aspects that are most haunting and memorable about this film, outside of the unforgettable visual components, are those that relate to the underlying themes. Alongside his dedication to authentic depictions of his subjects, Herzog is usually driven by his fascination with two themes in particular, namely the declining morality of the human condition, and the inevitable fact that we will all likely surrender to some kind of insanity or obsession at some point in our lives. Aguirre as a character is truly fascinating – he’s a mediocre explorer and even worse as a soldier, yet he successfully leads a mutiny, which he does not because he believes it to be feasible or the right course of action, but rather because he was impelled to take power by any means necessary, even if it requires the elimination of half of his allies or the eventual death of every crewmember that foolishly believed his actions come from a place of being level-headed and logical. Madness is a fascinating concept, and Herzog is one of the few filmmakers who views it as a subject not worthy of scorn or derision, but rather something that can be both artistically resonant and philosophically quite profound. The decision to focus on Aguirre, as opposed to more well-known figures like Francisco Pizarro and Hernán Cortés, may seem counterintuitive until we realize that Aguirre, the Wrath of God is not about the actual quest for El Dorado, but rather how someone can be driven to the edges of madness solely through their unimpeachable greed and lust for wealth – and as we have seen in many instances, pride comes just before the fall, and the presumed end of Aguirre’s life as this film presents offers the exact kind of conclusion that we would expect for someone whose singular purpose was to embody colonial greed and the violent recklessness of imperialism, all of which were defined by his forthright, seemingly incurable insanity caused by an obsession that could never quite be satiated.

Considering the extent to which the film was defined by a protagonist whose descent into madness is the driving force behind the narrative, Herzog made the right decision to cast Klaus Kinski in the part of Aguirre, which became one of his defining performances and the one that kickstarted their decades-long collaboration, as well as being the root of their contentious and sometimes questionable friendship. Kinski commands every frame of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which is a film that only benefits from his tendency to overplay each scene as if it were an operatic climax. His bulging glare and cacophonous voice define this character exactly as Herzog envisioned him: he starts as bold and brave, someone who has broad ambitions but still retains some sense of congeniality at first, before he descends into madness after seeing just how far he can push those around him to do his bidding. The most interesting kind of characters are often those who are defined as villains who genuinely and earnestly believe what they are doing is heroic and valiant, rather than brutal and immoral. For a character like Aguirre, only he has the vision that will bring Spain the glory, and he refuses to view this expedition as a collaborative effort, but instead, one where he is the only candidate with the skills and willingness to take these risks. Knowing what we do about Kinski’s methods of acting, as well as his on-set behaviour, a lot of this character was drawn from his persona, so much that it sometimes becomes difficult to look at one of the character’s many outbursts and wonder whether Kinski is merely acting or taking inspiration from the apoplectic frustration he got from the production, which was well-documented as being excruciatingly stressful and often quite perilous. Yet, it remains a remarkable performance, and every moment he is on screen is incredible, which is one of the many reasons Kinski remains one of the most enigmatic and brilliant actors to ever work in the medium, and Herzog deserves credit for managing to harness his peculiar energy and filtering it into one of the greatest performances committed to screen. 

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is in many ways the quintessential Herzog experience or at least one of two or three films that truly defined him as a filmmaker for several reasons. It was his third narrative feature and by far the one with the largest scope to date – but being a bigger production doesn’t necessarily indicate immediate promise, since it’s less a matter of size and more about the more bespoke elements that the director brings to the production that makes the different. Stylistically and structurally, there aren’t many comparable films – Herzog refuses to follow a specific narrative approach, instead creating a film that feels like a winding journey, where the destination is not only unknown but may not even exist in the first place. The film takes countless liberties, not being too focused on historical accuracy, but instead choosing to approach the story of the titular conquistador as an intense character study that covers his descent into madness, which is both terrifying and wildly entertaining and keeps us thoroughly invested throughout the film. Anchored by one of the most deranged and committed performances ever delivered by Kinski, and driven by Herzog’s sincere curiosity and underlying existential desire to understand the psychological state of this character, Aguirre, the Wrath of God proves to be an extraordinary and complex film that has rightly been consolidated into film history as an essential piece of arthouse filmmaking. Bold and daring, complex and engaging and thoroughly provocative, it’s a piece of storytelling that is almost too ambitious to comprehend, and instead should be experienced more than it should be understood, as is often the case with the director’s greatest works.