REWATCHING AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD: ATHLETICISM, CINE-TRANCE AND THE LEGACY OF WERNER HERZOG’S ANTI-ETHNOGRAPHIC ‘COSMIC’ ETHNOGRAPHY

ATHLETICISM, CINE-TRANCE AND THE LEGACY OF WERNER HERZOG’S ANTI-ETHNOGRAPHIC ‘COSMIC’ ETHNOGRAPHY

Abstract

The article discusses the legacy of Werner Herzog’s film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its release. As the first of three epic history films in which Herzog explores the encounter between the Western Man and the Other, Aguirre opens up a confrontation with a set of film practices that could be defined as ‘ethnographic’. Like ethnographers, Herzog set up his productions in a substantially ethnographic ground—the wilderness of the world far from modernity, through fieldwork and on-site negotiations with the local communities. Herzog is also known for his insistence on pushing his crew into a real ‘ethnographic’ adventure, adding to the demands for ‘athleticism’ to make the film. But is it just the context that Herzog and ethnographic filmmakers choose to shoot in the only thing they have in common? In a certain sense, the genealogy of Herzog’s idea of ‘ecstatic truth’ can be traced back to the notion of ‘cine-trance’ of Jean Rouch, ethnographer and pioneer of ethnocinema. And yet, Herzog breaks with the humanistic methodological frameworks of ethnographic cinema, hence reducing any sort of distance possible between the filmmaker, the crew and the context of the film.