I'm half your age...... But I know a lot about film, so I'm talking anyways.
1. Ebert doesn't have that much sway with people. I've read reviews of his for movies he loved that the majority of people don't like. And there's some movies that he doesn't like that many people consider classics. But the thing about Ebert is that he is A REAL critic, and that's why he's so fondly respected. Ebert's knowledge on film history and his communication with filmmakers gave him the insight to actually critique films, often brilliantly. I love reading his reviews. They really are better.
2. I came into this movie blind, and I loved it. It is a very rich movie, and yes, even the acting and dialogue have lots to do with that praise for the film.
You have to understand that, during this time in cinema, countries were going through their "New Wave" period. Most started in the '60s, like France did, while America started in the late '60s - '70s. Same goes for German cinema too. And this period was the expansion of WHAT A FILM MEANS. This spans from hyper fantasy that made you aware that you're watching a film, to hyper reality that made movies look like they were practically documentaries.
When you say you prefer movies with rich dialogue, well this is something New Wave filmmakers tried to define: What should be said? How should it be said? Should anything be said at all? What Werner Herzog does with Aguirre isn't to talk of big ideas, or even build characters, but to exercise using chaos and pain on the film set to give the audience the feeling of chaos and pain through cinema. When you see the actors tired and suffering, that's because they are tired and suffering through how testing making this film is. He doesn't have his characters speak too often, only either getting to a certain point, or Kinski going of an ego rant, because Herzog doesn't want you to see the movie through an analytical eye. It's too distracting from the moment. Have a film that way and you're using the logical side of your brain and only following what's being said. Instead Herzog wants you to dwell into the moment, see the horror in the forest, see the exhaustion and anger in the actors' face. When Kinski says something crazy you're supposed to feel in that insanity, not interpret what is being said, or keep in in mind thinking it might be relevant in a later scene.
It's a certain power in the movie that comes from the passion and the commitment to give something no other filmmaker would be willing to do. It's a movie that you can't get away with making now. It's a movie made for a time and place. It might not sound impressive, but very few directors took this approach, it was different, this movie specifically was like none other before it, and it set the template for what movies can actually do and how powerful a film can be if you make it in this style, what mood you can create if you make a film around the mood and feelings of events and not necessarily the narrative. It's this generation of films that had the biggest impact on movies today.
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jonhopper217
8 years ago
I appreciate your comments and agree with most of your points. Obviously, without this film, there is no vision for something like Apocalypse Now...although, the novel Heart of Darkness is credited as the inspiration.
I have read interviews and articles about this film since and interestingly enough, it was a hit in Paris, before even being released in Germany (or anywhere else). It was also originally in black and white, which is almost impossible to imagine.
One thing Herzog himself has said, is that it wasn't actually a visionary style, but his way of going back to the way film making was intended. If you're shooting a scene of a jungle in Peru, you film in inside a jungle in Peru. He has also said, the scant amount of dialogue was to impress upon us the time. Not so much that each word would hold power, but that people who have been together a long time, simply run out of things to say and when they do speak, it's usually out of rage and frustration.
My real point wasn't whether or not the film is appreciated or how it was done, but Ebert's impact on it as an all-time great. It should be noted, despite its popularity as a cult classic, it had never received a single vote until 2002, when Ebert, who chose it as one of the greatest movies ever made, voted for it, as did one other critic. In the poll in 2012, with Ebert sick and being deified by nearly everyone involved in film, it was chosen 90th in Sight and Sounds top 100 by critics and I believe in the top 50 or 60 by directors. That's a huge leap for that list.
Obviously, it's a fine film, but I wonder if it would even mentioned along with some of the classics, if not for Ebert going back in 1999 and announcing it as one of the cinematic marvels of our time.
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TheMichael
8 years ago
Well in that case: (sorry, I seamed to have missed what your main point was), this sort of thing happens quite a bit: old foreign films being rediscovered and praised. Sometimes these films don't pop-up back into the minds of American critics. Same thing happened to the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Once Upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone, even It's a Wonderful Life was just seen as a B-movie until it was shown seasonally on TV and a new generation loved it. ACTUALLY, that's what Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut did before they were filmmakers, they reviewed old Hollywood movies that, at the time, people thought were just cheap entertainment, and they wrote about how artistically important and influential they were.
So yeah, Ebert's name is brought up, but that's because he was a friend of Herzog, he talked to him, and he was able to see an old film that didn't get a big distribution in the US in the first place, only a few people would have seen Aguirre, and it isn't until VHS and video stores that these movies reached more people and a new generation of critics would see Aguirre because Ebert brought it up, they realized IT REALLY DID do something special. It's not a matter of people not thinking it wasn't a good movie until Ebert said it was good, it's a matter of not many people having the opportunity to have seen the film in the first place, but then that under-the-radar film gets discovered again. Like I said, this sort of thing has happened to PLENTY of films.
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Trax-3
8 years ago
It was also originally in black and white
No way, what the hell?
It has highly typical 70s colour film look to it.
There is just about 0% chance that it was originally "in black and white"
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jonhopper217
8 years ago
I had to look that up...the actual first every appearance of the film was on German television, thus why I read it was in Black & White. Critics, then demanded to see it on a large screen (and knowing it would be in color.) So not shot or released in B&W, but the first viewing of it was in black and white.
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