Conjuring: How the Virtuoso Romantic Learned from the Enlightened Charlatan

Barbara Maria Stafford
Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 2, Romanticism (Summer, 1993), pp. 22-30

commonality between enlightened and romantic

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    Rosenstone argues that dramatic history films merit consideration as historical documents, though they do not “do history” in the same manner as traditional sources.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 Yet Rosenstone’s article allows one to view Aguirre as a valuable historical document because it offers another way to understand Spanish colonialism through Herzog’s personal vision, a perspective that is unique largely because of the creative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.

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.

    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.

Cited by Gitelman Always Already New.
Focusing on the period from about 1880 to 1905, Jonathan Crary examines the connections between the modernization of subjectivity and the dramatic expansion and industrialization of visual/auditory culture.

Cited by Paulin - discussion of Wagner's 'concrete remaking of the spectator's experience' at Bayreuth, in a way that anticipated the coercively 'attentive' conditions of cinema spectatorship. 

Cited in Techniques of the Observer on myth of persistence of vision

Implications of the Cel Animation Technique - 'animated film' first meant any motion picture. cartoons = equal distinct mode c. 1913. invention of celluloid animation reduced expense and allowed cartoons to flourish.

Machines of the Visible - photography decenters eye's place of mastery which had since Renaissance (123); becomes gauarantor of conformity of delusion with norm of visual perception. "The mechanical magic of the analogical representation of the visible is accomplished and articulated from a doubt as to the fidelity of human vision, and more widely as to the truth of sensory impressions. I wonder....if there is not, in the very principle of representation, a force of disavowal which gives free rein to an analogical illusion that is yet only weakly manifested by the iconic signifies themselves?"

The Place of Visual Illusions