Zorach, Cecilia Cazort. "Geographical Exploration as Metaphor in Recent German Narrative." The German Quarterly 59 (1986 ): 611-627.

    Zorach’s article analyzes the symbolic meaning of geographical exploration specifically within the context of German culture. She states that it is a long-standing theme throughout German narrative, heavily tied to the fact that historically Germany did not play a major role in any of the great explorations. Zorach argues that exploration is a way of exploring the boundary between civilization and nature, with the explorer acting as a figure between these two worlds. Exploration also acts as a metaphor for artistic expression, with creativity imagined as the last frontier and the outcome of conquest. On a whole, the exploration is never about contributing to society or advancing knowledge, but is conceived of as a more personal and subjective experience in which irrationality is a common theme. The journey is not a progression to discovery, but a haphazard product of individual consciousness in which the problematic searchers become far more interesting than the successful heroes.

    As this article points out, the geographical quest in Aguirre is about far more than finding El Dorado. The search for the Golden City is a MacGuffin or plot device that keeps the narrative driving forward but has little to do with the actual actions portrayed. Instead, Aguirre carries out this predominant theme of German narrative in the ways that Zorach suggests. The subjectivity and irrationality that she highlights as key elements are present in the manic figure of Aguirre as well as in the confusion between illusion and reality that occurs at the end of the film in the form of the ship in the tree. The journey is one man’s quest to carve a place for himself in history and follows a psychological rather than physical trajectory. At the same time, the idea that geographical exploration is a metaphor for artistic expression is reflected both in the character of Aguirre and the process of filmmaking. When Aguirre discusses his desire to “make history while others put plays upon the stage,” he is declaring the direction of history as his own form of creative expression. Zorach further argues that, in a way, he is talking about filmmaking. By disregarding the real expedition of Lope de Aguirre, Herzog is purposefully defying logic to create his own world that places art above historical fact. The goal of the geographical exploration of the film as a whole can be viewed as making history itself into a form of artistic expression.

Rosenstone, Robert A. "Inventing Historical Truth on the Silver Screen." Cineaste 29 (2004): 29-33.

    Rosenstone argues that dramatic history films merit consideration as historical documents, though they do not “do history” in the same manner as traditional sources. He takes issue with the idea that historical writing is viewed as incontrovertible fact, suggesting that it is really more of a genre of writing that cannot ever be read as the ultimate truth. Films dealing with history therefore cannot be expected to act as a window onto how the past really was, but must be judged as a construction in which the filmmaker selects certain facts as the most important, links the story to a broader context, and even makes up a few things. Rosenstone states that it is this process of invention inherent in the historical film that gives it its strength, for it provides a “counter-discourse” within history in which the insight of the individual filmmaker adds to the ongoing process of making meaning from the past. We can never truly know the past, but films that portray historical events are valuable as alternate interpretations of history and as reminders that the work of recording history is itself largely a construction.

    The ideas of historical truth and invention figure heavily into Aguirre, a film based on actual events but which is also very divergent from the recorded accounts of Lope de Aguirre’s journey in the Amazon. Judged by the criteria of historical writing, Aguirre fails due to its many inaccuracies, exaggerations, and inventions. Yet Rosenstone’s article allows one to view Aguirre as a valuable historical document because it offers another way to understand Spanish colonialism through Herzog’s personal vision, a perspective that is unique largely because of the creative liberties he takes. On another level, Aguirre can be viewed as a commentary on history that supports the same issues Rosenstone raises. The theme of illusion that runs throughout the film is linked to the notion of creating history. Just as the perception of Aguirre and his men is clouded at the end of the film, unable to distinguish illusion from reality, in recording history one can never claim to be giving an objective representation of the past. By playing with and even creating history in Aguirre, Herzog shows that standardized history is itself an illusion and that the job of historical documents is to simply offer different ways to think about the past.

Davidson, John E. "As Others Put Plays upon the Stage: Aguirre, Neocolonialism, and the New German Cinema." New German Critique 60 (1993): 101-130.

    Davidson notes the intersection of various forms of history within the New German Cinema movement, Herzog’s work, and Aguirre in particular. He argues that New German Cinema emerged from the country’s complex and changing relationship to colonialism, centered on the idea that Germany became colonized by American culture and lost its own form of artistic expression. Thus, the film movement was founded on a myth of starting from “ground zero,” trying to regain a voice distinct from Hollywood but at the same time allowing the country to regain its place within Western culture. In addition, the films would serve as a promotional tool in Third World countries with a shift to the neocolonialist emphasis on portraying Western culture favorably to the previously colonized nations.

    Within this historical context, Aguirre functions as a commentary on German film history and the process of moving into a new era. Davidson cites the opening scene of the film as a kind of homage to German film heritage, stating that the descent of the conquistadors down the misty mountainside recalls both the tradition of German mountain films and the opening scene of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Yet as the film progresses it both reformulates and rejects this canon as the Spaniards must leave behind all of their relics, symbolizing the “baggage of history.” Aguirre picks up on New German Cinema’s myth of starting fresh, allowing Herzog to formulate his own kind of new historical reality. In addition to referencing the histories of colonialism and German film though, Aguirre offers a commentary on the act of creating history and the illusion inherent in the process. The Spaniards record their journey and lay claim to land throughout the film by writing it down in a completely futile manner, which Davidson argues suggests that the writing of history is an empty illusion. Thus, even as filmmaking may be creating an illusion of reality, it is in fact similar to the process of creating history. In effect, as a filmmaker Herzog does what Aguirre claims he will do: to “make history” as opposed to others who merely “put plays upon the stage.”

Bachmann, Gideon. "The Man on the Volcano: A Portrait of Werner Herzog." Film Quarterly 31 (1977): 2-10.

    Bachmann takes a look at the personality of Werner Herzog in an effort to understand the man behind the films. In particular, he examines Herzog’s penchant for storytelling in his own life and the way in which he tends to exaggerate reality in recounting his experiences. Bachmann states that Herzog draws no line between fact and fiction and does not see this embellishment as fictionalized invention. In fact, the author claims that the secret to Herzog’s films is his “ability to convince the viewer that Herzog’s version of the truth is in fact truth.” The man has the ability to create a reality and bring fantastic visions to material fulfillment. He is opposed to the idea that filmmaking is a kind of manipulation and does not believe he alters the objectivity of people or situations by incorporating them into his works. Herzog's ultimate goal is to produce images that enlighten and broaden human understanding, and he feels compelled to go to spectacular ends to force these visions out of himself for the world to see.

    Herzog’s relationship to fiction and reality plays a key role in understanding Aguirre and the way in which it handles history. The film deals heavily with concepts of illusion and the difficulty of distinguishing between fact and fiction, particularly in the final scenes of the film when the men on the raft lose all hold on reality. Yet taking a step back, Bachmann’s notion of Herzog as an inventor (though he himself rejects this characterization) must be considered in relation to how the film seeks to portray history. As several of the other articles in this project stress, Aguirre plays with real historical events and fashions a new story out of an amalgamation of facts and Herzog’s own personal vision. The film truly tries to create an illusion of historical reality, suggesting that the recording of history can never be viewed as a representation of objective truth. While one can examine the character of Aguirre and his quest as a work of illusion within the film, Herzog’s personal process of filmmaking can also be seen as uniquely tied to the creation of an illusion of reality, perhaps even more so than the basic illusion inherent in cinema as a mechanical production. Aguirre and Herzog’s overall style can be viewed as an allegory for history itself, which is truly all about creating the illusion that one version of the truth is the truth.

Sharman, Gundula M. "The Jungle Strikes Back: European Defeat at the Hands of the South American Landscape in the Films of Werner Herzog." Journal of Transatlantic Studies 2 (2004): 96-109.

    Sharman examines the complex relationship between Europe and South America by analyzing European interactions with the jungle in film. In particular, he focuses on how the jungle can be interpreted as the victor in Aguirre, considering how the characters in the film and even Herzog himself interact with it as a character of its own. For Sharman, the use of the jungle by European filmmakers is a kind of “post-colonial colonization” in which Europeans continue to exploit the resources of South America by trying to co-opt its spiritual and expressive qualities. Throwing man against the jungle and having him lose is a way for the Western world to resolve its anxiety over the advances of science and the possibility that humans may destroy themselves through technology. Thus, even as the Amazon is being destroyed by man’s advances, European filmmakers and Herzog in particular use the victorious jungle to create a new myth in which nature always wins. Sharman warns that this use of the jungle to satisfy a European “metaphysical need” is undoubtedly still a form of exploitation and threatens to further use up the resources of the natural world by fetishizing it as a kind of spiritual object.

    While Aguirre is often viewed as mainly critical of European colonial tendencies, Sharman’s analysis complicates the relationship between the film and the portrayal of Spanish conquest in the Amazon. It is clear that the jungle is the victor in the film, and the completeness of the its triumph is most evident in the final scene when all but Aguirre have fallen and monkeys begin to overrun the raft as the lone survivor makes an eloquent yet futile speech about how he will determine the course of history. But Sharman points out that this European failure, put forth as a representation of historical truth, is “at best an illusion,” a theme that runs throughout the film itself. With the failure of Aguirre, Herzog and the European psyche are able to triumph and find release by using the primitive power of the jungle to deal with their own postmodern disillusionment. Thus, while the original forms of colonialism may be criticized in Aguirre, the film can in fact be viewed as exercising a new kind of cultural colonization through the exploitation of the symbolic power of the jungle. This article establishes the importance of analyzing Aguirre within the historical context of colonialism to understand how a portrayal of the interaction between the West and the jungle in the past reflects and complicates present-day cultural relations.

Kania, Andrew. "The Illusion of Realism in Film." British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (2002): 243-258.

    Film as a technological medium is entirely based on an illusion: the illusion of motion. In this article, Kania addresses the ambiguity that exists between illusion and reality when viewing a film and highlights two different kinds of illusionism involved in cinema. Weak illusionism is simply the perception that the images being projected on the screen at 24 frames per second are moving. On another level, strong illusionism occurs when viewers become part of the imaginary world they see on the screen. Kania tries to dismiss claims made by others that cinema represents a special kind of illusion in which the images really are moving in some kind of “higher-order” sense. Granting this to be true places all visual perception on a slippery slope, for if something is deemed to be real simply because it seems real, every illusion in the world becomes real and all distinctions between these two spheres break down. Acknowledging that reality only exists in opposition to unreality or illusion, Kania concludes that in the case of film we must accept that it is an illusion to avoid complicating matters unnecessarily.

    Kania’s article is useful in understanding the theme of illusion running throughout Aguirre, especially the break down of all sense of reality that occurs towards the end of the film. The characters on the raft experience the very confusion that Kania deals with in the article surrounding how one can know if an illusion is real or not. When the men see a ship in a tree, they argue over its existence while Herzog at first holds the vision back from the audience. While the viewers do not see the image, it is easy to dismiss the ship as the delusions of men approaching insanity. Yet when the ship finally appears in the tree before the viewers’ eyes, they are forced to question their own ability to distinguish between reality and illusion in film. This is the strong illusionism that Kania refers to, which allows viewers to grant the possibility that the ship is there in the imaginary world created on the screen. While other articles have highlighted how the theme of illusion in Aguirre ties into the creation of history, this article allows one to see a similarity between cinema and creating history by highlighting the illusionism involved in filmmaking itself. The confusion of the characters combined with the uncertainty of the viewers regarding the images in Aguirre make us aware that the process of watching a film must always involve entrance into an ambiguous state between reality and illusion.

Godfrey, Brian J. "Regional Depiction in Contemporary Film." Geographical Review 83 (1993): 428-440.

    Godfrey analyzes the style and cultural implications of depictions of the Amazon in several recent films, including Aguirre. He argues that the jungle serves as a site of negotiation for the relationship between nature and culture, offering a particularly rich basis from which filmmakers can express their unique perspectives. While the insights of often auteur-style directors attracted to the Amazon are valuable, Godfrey warns of several biases inherent in regional depiction in film: the personal vision of the director, the production circumstances, the necessity of meeting audience expectations regarding genre and box office success, and the political and cultural concerns of the society to which the filmmaker belongs. It is this last bias that fundamentally shapes a film’s ideology and leads Godfrey to conclude that outsiders bring the themes of their own culture into the Amazon without letting the voice of the Amazon region itself come through in films.

    In considering Aguirre’s treatment of history, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the geographical location of the film carries its own story, which must in some way figure into the film’s portrayal. Herzog is often considered to be an auteur with a distinct personal vision, and Aguirre demonstrates the biases of regional depiction that Godfrey attributes to the cultural and personal beliefs of the filmmaker. Throughout the film, the natives of the Amazon and the jungle itself merely serve as a background to the central focus on the Spanish conquistadors. Godfrey argues that this element reveals that the Western mind cannot fully encounter or experience the Amazon because it functions on a level outside of the linear and rational schemes of the men blinded by their search for El Dorado. Aguirre’s treatment of Amazonian history is therefore a questioning of the biases inherent in all forms of history, for just as filmmaking cannot be viewed as an objective act, the cultural context of those recording the past will always influence the nature of their account.

    Levine examines the many aspects of persuasion in society through the lens of social psychology. In the chapter "The Illusion of Invulnerability," he discusses the phenomenon in society which leads people to believe that everyone else is much more likely to fall victim to some misfortune than they themselves are. For some reason, we all believe that our chances of being vulnerable or victimized are slim to none, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Levine explains this psychological condition through the fundamental attribution error, by which humans assign blame for failure to individual flaws to enable them to ignore their own personal vulnerability. This “illusion of invulnerability” also applies to psychological forces like persuasion, as people tend to believe they are immune to manipulation. As a whole, the article brings up the important role that illusion plays in the art of human persuasion and manipulation.

    Levine provides a psychological perspective on how illusion functions in Aguirre, an element that is key to its treatment of history. The story of Aguirre can be viewed as a lesson in the use of illusion for the purposes of persuasion. Aguirre himself is a master persuader who knows how to expertly manipulate the delusions of the other conquistadors surrounding the myth of El Dorado. It is clear that he has no interest in the Golden City, as he himself says he wants the greater rewards of “power and fame.” Yet, as Waller argues in his article, Aguirre keeps up the illusion of a functioning European society by maintaining the appearance of proper rule through the puppet Guzman and keeping up social and class distinctions on the collapsing raft. Despite the fact that the men are dying and the journey is clearly going no where, Aguirre persuades his men to keep going by playing off their predispositions to the “illusion of invulnerability” and the idea that although none have been successful in finding El Dorado, they will surely triumph. By the end of the film, the defeat of the men can be characterized as the disintegration of the “illusion of invulnerability” as all distinction between reality and illusion falls apart. One of the men finally realizes “Even El Dorado hasn’t been more than an illusion,” and quickly after the boundary between illusion and reality collapses completely when they see a ship in a tree and don’t know if the arrows piercing their flesh are real or not. Going along the lines of Kania’s article on illusion in film, one cannot miss the application of this theory to the art of cinema itself, which is able to persuade viewers to accept its worldview for the running time of a film by creating the illusion of moving image. Aguirre therefore provides a study in the psychology of human persuasion as well as a commentary on persuasive power of film.

Waller, Gregory A. "'Aguirre, The Wrath of God': History, Theater, and the Camera." South Atlantic Review 46 (1981): 55-69.

    Waller cites history and theater as the two main forms of activity occurring throughout Aguirre and explores the relationship between the two. He argues that Herzog uses the camera to combine both spheres, setting it up both as a theatrical framing device and as an instrument for recording history. Throughout the film, the camera plays a number of roles including those of a narrator, a judge, and a kind of diary-keeping figure. It even seems to be a member of the expedition when it jerks about with the conquistadors as they journey through the swampy jungle. Yet Waller argues that the camera's primary role is that of a witness, to both the play unfolding before it and the history being created. His main point is that the character Aguirre uses dramatic staging to attain his goal of forging history by keeping up the performance of Spanish society on the decaying raft.

    For Aguirre, creating a play is a form of control. By using the raft as his stage and crafting roles for the other men on his expedition, he keeps up an illusion of normalcy and order while pushing further into the disorder of the jungle and gaining power. Waller’s article connects well to Levine’s theory of persuasion, as he suggests that Aguirre uses El Dorado and the play-world around it as tools of manipulation and illusion in pursuit of his ultimate goal. For example, he sets up Guzman as King of the New World, draws up a document formally breaking with Philip II, and enforces class divisions in living areas on the small space of the raft. All of this is of course meaningless, and long shots revealing the small raft floating in the middle of the huge Amazon River show the absurdity of this dramatic enactment. Similar to the way in which many of the other articles in this project align filmmaking with creating history through the illusion involved in both, Waller’s article shows that these two forms also have inherently theatrical qualities. In its treatment of historical content, Aguirre the film does what Aguirre the character attempts to do in staging a dramatic story to influence the process of approaching and understanding history.