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I 77-99 Musical Association, Journal oftheRoyal 12z9

Musical Association (2004);all rightsreserved ? Royal

Searchfor Aguirre: Fitzcarraldo's Music and Text in the Amazonian Films of WernerHerzog
HOLLY ROGERS for Joe Silk (1977-2oo3)

WERNER Herzog directed two epic films set in the Amazonian rainforest: Wrath of God (1972) and Fitzcarraldo(winner of the Director's Prize at Aguirre: Cannes, 1982). Although Herzog has repeatedly asserted the visual primacy of his work, the Amazonian films are intensely musical. Progressing through a series of visually static scenes accompanied by music (musical 'stills'), both have grand-scale narratives almost operatic in structure, reflecting the director's lifelong preoccupation with musical theatre, a fixation that eventually led him into the theatre itself (where he directed 14 operas, including Lohengrin at Bayreuth).1 Intrigued by the epic journey of the Spanish adventurer Aguirre (played by Klaus Kinski), Herzog, in the first of these films, follows the explorer's obsessive searching for the fabled El Dorado, the lost City of Gold located in the swamps of the Amazonian tributaries.2Driven by knowledge that those who
I am most grateful to Roger Parker for his help and patience with this article, and to Ian Cross for his invaluable comments and advice. Thanks also to John and Polly for introducing me to Herzog's films, and to Dom for watching them all (many times) with me. I Herzog directed Lohengrinin 1987. Other productions include Mozart's TheMagic Flute (Teatro Bellini, Catania, 1991, conducted by Spiros Argiris; in 1999 he directed another production in the same theatre, this time with conductor Zoltan Pesko) and four productions of Wagner's Tannhiiuser(Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville, conducted by Klaus Weise (1997); the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, conducted by Gustav Kuhn (1998); the Teatro Massimo, Palermo, conducted by John Neschling (1998); the Baltimore Opera Company, conducted by Christian Badea (2000)). During and after these theatre productions, Herzog directed two films explicitly concerned with opera and musical performance. The first, The Transformation of the Worldinto Music (1994), is a 90o-minute documentary that focuses on the production techniques behind the scenes at Bayreuth, following rehearsals for three different opera productions. The second, Pilgrimage (2001), is a 'film-opera' collaboration with John Tavener. 2 The tale of El Dorado came from Cundinamarca, the 'Land of the Condor', now the Andean highlands of the Republic of Colombia, 7,500 feet above the sea. It refers to the ceremony of an Indian tribe, who reconsecrated their king every year by covering his body with resin before he bathed in a lake filled with gold offerings. He emerged from this lake a 'gilded man'. The legend, first told to the conquistador Sebastiin de Benalcaizar by local Indians, gradually mutated from El Dorado the gilded man to El Dorado the imaginary kingdom of gold. For a more detailed account of the myth, see Robert Silverberg, The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado (Ohio, 1967; repr. 1985).

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discovered the Incas had found wealth so immense as to unbalance the entire economy of Europe, Aguirre joined the 156o-I Amazonian expedition under the conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro.Herzog's film, narratedby a monk called Gaspar de Carajaval (who keeps a diary), offers an interpretation of Pizarro'scrazed search, including a disastrous mutiny initiated by Aguirre. The film is dominated by musical stills in which the explorers float down the Amazon on large rafts, running out of food, yet unable to approach the banks owing to an unseen enemy in the forest; these images contrast sharply with Gaspar'swritten reports, which claim that they are progressing, conquering. Just before the end of the film, the crew, driven insane by desolation and hunger, experience a mass hallucination of a large boat in the treetops, an apparition that undermines the success recorded in Gaspar'stextual account. Aguirre'smusical stills are accompanied throughout by the Lacrimdde Rei, the mystical choir-like music of Popul Vuh, an avant-garde group named after the Mayan Book of the Dead, founded in Munich in 1969 by Florian Fricke.3 Making use of elements from Indian and Oriental philosophy, Popul Vuh fused folk and gospel music with rock influences to produce the Lacrime'ssix and half minutes of Mellotron choirs and synthesizer melodies. The principal instrument is what Herzog referred to as a 'choir-organ'. Inside this strange instrument are 36 tapes running in loops parallel to each other. These tapes, when 'played' by an attached keyboard, resemble the sound of a human choir. With its basis in tape loops, the Lacrime is highly repetitive. Held firmly in place throughout by a cello-like instrument that oscillates between quaver octave Gs on the first two of every three beats, the electronic choir initially moves between only a few closely related chords. These patterns are then repeated, with occasional surface changes that do nothing to disrupt the fundamental structure. When musical variation is heard, it is a change in decoration only, as when the 'female' voices are replaced by a brass-like melody to give a deeper, more resonant feel. The music of Popul Vuh also features prominently in Fitzcarraldo, another tale about an impossible task undertaken in the M irquezian rainforest. However, whilst Aguirre uses textural fabrication as a defence against failure, Fitzcarraldo the character brings his own operatic soundtrack. This time, the protagonist is an eccentric Irishman whose love for the Teatro Amazonas, an opera house in the Amazonian port of Manaus, encourages him to build a similar theatre in the heart of the jungle. In order to fund the venture, he sails into uncharted Peruvian forest, hoping to exploit unclaimed territories of 14 million rubber trees located between the imaginary river systems of the Rio Patchitea and the Rio Ucuyali, south of Iquitos: untouched land that lies upstream of the Pongo das Mortes rapids. To avoid the rapids, Fitzcarraldo
3 The PopolVuh, believedto be the equivalent of the EgyptianBook of the Dead, was written by the K'iche people after the SpanishConquest (AD 1524). However,the entire epic was period (prior to AD 250). The manuscript, probablyformulatedduring the Late Preclassic written in codices, was discoveredin the nineteenthcentury:see PopolVuh:The Definitive Editionof theMayanBookof theDawn of Lifeand the Glories and Kings,trans.Dennis of Gods Tedlock(New York,1985).

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devises a complicated plan: noticing a point on the map where the Patchitea and Ucuyali rivers are separated only by a thin strip of land, he enlists the help of local Jivaro Indians to drag his 320-ton ship (the Molly Aida) over the watershed from one river system to another, all the while playing loud operatic arias by Verdi and Leoncavallo from a gramophone. However, once safely on the other side, the Indians hack away the boat's anchoring ropes, allowing it to float back to its point of departure: a soothing gesture, they believe, for the angry gods who churn their water.

The mythical forest

Fitzcarraldo and Aguirrebear a strong resemblanceto one another in severalways, in addition to their soundtracks. Most striking is the similarity between the protagonists: cast in both title roles, Kinski performs two tales of heroic vision blurred by neurotic obsession. Although the circumstances surrounding the journeys are very different, the presence of Kinski creates similar interpretations: both protagonists are driven to ruthless, suicidal extremes by their quest for success; both are disastrously affected by the rainforest. Moreover, the volatile relationship between Kinski and Herzog created a distinct atmosphere: one generated by a clash of wills, both during and after shooting. Discussing the collaboration in his feature-length documentary My Best Friend: Klaus Kinski, Herzog offers a tightly woven tapestry of archival footage that chronicles the pivotal points of their work together. Reflecting on the highly volatile personality of the actor (who once locked himself in a bathroom for 48 hours) and his refusal to be directed, Herzog claimed that 'every grey hair on my head I call Kinski'.4 Illustrating both of these characteristicsis a famous clash during the shooting of Aguirre:believing in the 'voodoo of location', Herzog took his actors and crew into the remote rainforestwhere his obsessive quest for authenticity had them living on rafts, plagued with fever and almost starving to death. After three and a half weeks of shooting, the film's negatives disappeared, prompting an explosive tantrum from Kinski, who immediately threatened to quit: rumours began that Herzog had resorted to directing Kinski from behind a rifle, threatening to shoot the actor with eight bullets and use the ninth on himself.5 Further problems developed on location in Fitzcarraldo,documented in Les Blank'sfilm BurdenofDreams. Herzog's insistence on actually dragging the ship across the mountain resulted in many disasters, including tribal and cast revolts, two plane crashes, a border war between Peru and Ecuador, and two crew members undergoing kitchen-table surgery after being shot with arrows. (The local Indians became so scared of the hysterical Kinski that they offered to shoot him.) Herzog admitted, during Fitzcarraldo'spremiere at Cannes, that he had attempted to murder Kinski; his arson plot was thwarted only when Kinski's
4 Fiachra Gibbons, 'Herzog Admits he Tried to Kill Kinski', Guardian (21 May 1999), 24.

5 A threatto which Kinskirepliesin his recentlyreissuedautobiography: 'whoeverheardof a KlausKinski,KinskiUncut(London,1989),98. pistol or riflewith nine bullets?'

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dog woke him because the house was on fire.6 In defence of his actions, Herzog's documentary repeatedly shows Kinski ignoring the director's suggestions and announcing, during shooting in Machu Picchu for Aguirre, that 'you have to beg me: even David Lean did that'. Responding to Herzog's exasperation and death threats, Kinski, in his autobiography, calls Herzog, among other things, 'a miserable, hateful, malevolent, avaricious, money-hungry, nasty, sadistic, treacherous, cowardly creep'.7 Whilst the volatile collaboration left a distinctive residue on Aguirreand Fitzcarraldo,the resemblance between the films is heightened through their shared setting. Discussing the generic forest in their book TheIconography ofLandscape, Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove describe associations attached to nature as 'cultural images', explaining views of landscape as 'a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings'.8Traditionally,the symbolism of the forest has been very diverse, its dense lack of order representing anything from a nightmarish place of demonic possibility to a haven of enlightenment and peace. Seizing this dual potential, many cultures have attached enormous significance to the forest, which has been a major setting for both mythical and religious tales throughout history: the tree under which Buddha attained his enlightenment; the Glastonbury thorn with its supposed link with St Joseph; the trees at Amritsar's Golden Temple that serve the memory of Sikh Gurus; Odysseus' journey to Hades, the realm of tall poplars and fruit-destroying willows; the trees of Eden and the heavenly tree of redemption; the forest of the Hindu epic, where both the holiest people and the most evil make their homes.9 In all these tales, the forest represents a move from the 'real' world to a land of shifting forms and sliding categories, of unknown quantity and magic: a land representing symbiosis between man and natural environment. The mythical forest resists the long tradition that sees nature as something to be overcome. Situating Aguirre and Fitzcarraldoin this mythical forest, Herzog inherits a pre-established,magical 'other'land. However, although belonging to the general tradition of the forest tale, Herzog'ssetting is defined more clearlyby its Amazonian peculiarity.Although encumbered with their own historical and conceptual baggage, Western images of the Amazon have always been semantically diverse. Beginning with tales of the earliest explorers, the Amazon has changed from a magical land of golden cities, potential wealth and power to a place inextricably linked to recent climatic changes and desertification: awash with metaphorical cliches, the rainforest has apparently become 'the lungs of the world', our 'last
'Herzog Admits he Tried to Kill Kinski'. 7 Quoted in Janet Maslin, 'With Friends Like These . ..:The Story of Kinski and Herzog', New YorkTimes (3 November 1999), 12. 8 Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove, 'Introduction', The Iconographyof Landscape:Essayson the Symbolic Representation,Design and Use of Past Environments, ed. Daniels and Cosgrove (Cambridge, 1988), I-Io (p. I). 9 Thomas Parkhill, The Forest Setting in Hindu Epics: Princes, Sages, Demons (Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter, 1995), I. 6 Gibbons,

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frontier'.10 Clear signs of progress and change within the area, which has remained resistant to large-scalehuman development, are hard to determine. As the conceptual 'last frontier' against modern rationalism, the rainforestretains its timeless, mythical status: culture and human history are what the forest is not.11 Engulfed in such ahistoricalperceptions, Aguirre and Fitzcarraldoleave their own milieux to encounter a vast collection of myth and legend that is largely unaware of the rest of the world; a ready-madeatmosphere of remove and alienation that has not fundamentally changed from one journey to another. As a result, although set over 2oo years apart, the peculiarities of the Amazon allow direct comparison between the two adventures:encouraged by legend, Aguirre tries to substantiate a mythical land, only to encounter absence and fear, 'a place where God never finished his creation'. Fitzcarraldoattempts to introduce opera and technology into the forest only to fall at its metaphorical feet.

of music Visualinertia:the dissolvedperiphery

Herzog's visual and aural realization of the rainforest reflects the latter'scomplicated mythical derivation. Rejecting traditional ideals of film-making, preventing any ruptures to the illusion of reality, Herzog offers images that rarelymove and sound that remains, paradoxically, unheard.12 Herzog's cameraman for Aguirre named the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and Hercules Segers as a major influence in depicting the forest, paintings which, despite their vast, powerful landscapes, are nevertheless static, able only to record one moment in time.13 Derived from painting, Herzog's forest remains absolutely still, appearing to reject desire for the impression of reality, a rejection that seems to fly in the face of film theory, which has repeatedlyasserted that motion imparts corporeality to objects by drawing them from the flat, filmic surface.14 The movement of the explorers creates a jarring contrast with the painted stillness. Floating along the river, their motion represents the segregation between the mythical world of the forest and the 'real' world beyond, a segregation quickly established in Aguirre. The film begins with an extreme long shot of a large, rocky valley appearing out of the mist, steeped in the sounds
10

Pedro Maligo, Land ofMetaphorical Desires: The RepresentationofAmazonia in Brazilian Literature (New York, 1998), 2. 11 Douglas Davies, 'The Evocative Symbolism of Trees', The IconographyofLandscape, ed. Daniels and Cosgrove, 32-42 (pp. 38-9). 12 For discussion of music in Hollywood film, see Claudia Gorbman, UnheardMelodies:Narrative Film Music (Bloomington, 1987); Caryl Flinn, Strains of Utopia: Gender, Nostalgia and Hollywood Film Music (Princeton, 1992). 13 Quoted in Herzog's i999 film, My Best Friend: Klaus Kinski. 14 Such an uneasy response to stillness has been exhaustively explored by film critics, who have repeatedly acknowledged that it is the combination of motion with the appearance of forms which provides film with the illusion of reality absent in many other visual art-forms. According to Christian Metz, 'it is movement that produces the strong impression of reality'. Drawing on Albert Michotte van den Bercks, Metz suggests that motion imparts corporeality to objects and

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of the Lacrime'.Eventually, movement draws attention to a long line of people in the far distance, snaking its way down the steep, Friedrich-like mountainside. After several minutes, the people at the front of the line begin to cross directly in front of the camera, making their way up the other side of the valley. This descent into the valley and the re-emergence on the other side represents an allegorical split between the security of civilization and a journey into the unknown Amazon. Initially establishing this rift, the line of people seen in the distance lacks any visual dynamism that could detract from the vast, impressive landscape; they appear insignificant against the terrain. As the travellers appear in closer range, insignificance is replaced by incongruity: Spanish and Peruvian soldiers and slaves, wearing steel helmets and breastplates, lead horses and caged animals along the mountain track, while women are carried in enclosed sedan chairs. Following the line down into lower marshy area by the Amazon, the sedan chairs get stuck in the mud, the horses slide uncomfortably: the Western intrusion is perversely out of place; it is clear that the Spaniards do not belong in the photographic stillness. Progressing through the frozen landscape, they continually display the consequences of their intrusion: attempts to leave the raft and penetrate the forest end in disaster; likewise, when the Indians fire arrows from within the forest, they cause outbursts of motion that punctuate the still unreality, and often result in death. However, the motion/stasis segregation, which defines the explorers within their surroundings, gradually begins to break down, allowing the stillness to attack the raft. Made inactive by their surroundings, the Spaniards become increasingly transfixed in inert, voyeuristic postures, stuck in what Lutz Koepnick has described as 'optical paralysis'.15 Serving only to objectify the forest further, this creates an unbreakable dichotomy: movement becomes visually paralysis associated with being and staying alive; stasis suggests entrapment and death. Motion becomes an elemental sign of life completely absent in the stillness of the mythical rainforest.16

gives them a reality that their still representations could not have. Christian Metz, Film Language:A Semiotics of the Cinema, trans. Michael Taylor (New York and Oxford, 1974), 7. Laura Mulvey discusses the relationship between spectacle (stasis) and narrative (movement) in her article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality (London and New York, 1992), 22-34. See also Rose Theresa, 'From Mephistophlbes to Mdlies: Spectacle and Narrative in Opera and Early Film', Between Opera and Cinema, ed. Jeongwon Joe and Rose Theresa (New York and London, 2002), 1-18; Tom Gunning, 'The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde', Viewing Positions:Ways of Seeing Film, ed. Linda Williams (New Brunswick, 1994), 114-33. Brigitte Peuker discusses Herzog's static images in her article 'Literature and Writing in the Films of Werner Herzog', The Films ofWerner Herzog: Between Mirage and History, ed. Timothy Corrigan (New York and London, 1986), Io5-17 (p. Io5). 15 Lutz P. Koepnick, 'Colonial Forestry: Sylvan Politics in Werner Herzog's Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo', New German Critique, 60 (1993), 133-60 (p. 140). 16 Dana Benelli, 'The Cosmos and its Discontents', The Films ofWerner Herzog, ed. Corrigan, 89-103 (p. 94).

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The depersonalized, frightening potential caused by the rainforest'slack of movement is increased by a tense and uneasy silence, a lack of sound that promotes greater terror than the lack of movement. Whereas the Indians are rarely seen during the journey, preferring to remain undifferentiated from the forest, their chanting and drumming is often heard. Whilst these sounds are disturbing in themselves, their absence opens up a chilling gap that is quickly filled by the imagination of the Spaniards:once the Indians are no longer locatable, their presence is everywhere, their danger immeasurable. Silence promoting unease is a common phenomenon, manifesting itself in many ways, from coughing between movements during a concert to the sudden stillness before the storm in the horror movie. The situation was addressed explicitly during the era of early film, when the silent auditorium frequently left viewers unable to relax. Feeling self-conscious, whilst at the same time distracted by the sound of the primitive cinematic machinery, viewers found it hard to submerge themselves in the narrative. Initially, this problem was overcome by the accompanying pianist, who would often play along with the film without particular attention to storyline or scene change. However, whilst allaying the immediate fears of the spectators, the problem of the silent film proved more deep-rooted. A lack of sound that corresponded to the images gave an unreal, spectral quality to the silent motion on the screen: the illusion of reality was not complete until the images were substantiated by their accompanying sonic ambience, allowing the separate components to form an interactive whole.'7 Quick to recognize the problem, studios began to offer cinemas musical scores to accompany particular films: music that responded to the events on the screen in 'Mickey Mouse' fashion. These scores assumed the double function of covering uncomfortable silence, whilst replacing speech and providing the human touch to the technological apparatus that Walter Benjamin famously found lacking in mass industrial production.'8 In exactly the same way as early cinema audiences were unnerved by images without accompanying sound, the conquistadors feel not only exposed and tense in the silence, but also disturbed by their enigmatic, two-dimensional surroundings. Aguirre'sresponse is to order one of the Indian slaves to play his panpipes, hoping the sounds will fill the terrifying void and lessen their feeling of intrusion. Furthermore,just as movement lends a lifelike quality to the image, Aguirre'sintroduction of music aims to free the temporal dimension of the static forest, to shatter its inert, photographic flatness and bring it to life. Nevertheless,
17As Bl1a Balizs has pointed out, 'we accept seen space as real only when it contains sounds as well, for these give the dimension of depth'. Bl1a Balkzs, Theoryof Film: Characterand Growth of a New Art (New York, 1970), 207. However, for some critics, the sounds that accompany images do not have to be realistic. Theodor Adorno and Hanns Eisler (Composingfor the Films, London, 1947) argue that music offers more than the speaking voice: in their view, the talkie without music is not very different from a silent movie. For more discussion, see Royal S. Brown, Overtonesand Undertones:Reading Film Music (Berkeley, 1994). 18Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Illuminations (Glasgow, 1979), 219-53.

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emanating as it does from the raft, which is dissociated from the still riverbanks by movement, Aguirre'smusic fails to conquer the inertia just as his attempts to move onto the banks are rejected by the forest. Whilst stillness continues to promote a timelessness that the motion of the diegetic music is unable to dispel, the lack of response from the banks serves to unnerve the travellersmore, enforcing their isolation by providing a soundtrack only to their intrusive movement through the stillness.19 At the point where the influence of the diegetic sound stops, Popul Vuh's Lacrimetakes over, erupting over the landscape to dominate the scene through both movement and volume. The importance of the synthesized music is immediately obvious: not only does it introduce the static, Friedrich-like landscape at the start of the film, it also frequently reappearsduring the river scenes, most notably when the floating raft is juxtaposed against the forest. However, whereas the breathy notes of Aguirre'sdiegetic panpipe music, although failing to bring the forest to life, suggest a human essence behind the sound, the Lacrime' offers a less readily identifiable basis. As the music is invisible in origin, emerging from the same absence as the Indians (the off-screen, the out-of-sight, the unknown), its function is not immediately obvious. Although it seems as though the music is associated with Aguirre's journey downriver, the sounds never attach themselves to any one imaginable source (as do the occasional sounds from the Indians), nor do they remain fixed in any one place (as do the panpipes). Able to roam the riverbanks, the raft and the river, the Lacrime's disembodiment makes it difficult to hypothesize any semantic intent beyond that of a suturing device, by which the music's function is to iron out antagonism between the still forest and the moving raft. In the same way as the addition of a soundtrack to a silent film could promote 'reality', or at least prevent unease, Aguirre'snon-diegetic music appears to restore dimensions lost in the visual inertia. Counteracting the still forest effigy with sonic eruptions, the Lacrime' opens up another spatial plane within the painted landscape, creating depth: during these musical scenes, it appears as though the forest is brought into a reality that the explorers can understand. Nevertheless, if restoring the illusion of reality within the film is the aim of the non-diegetic music, then it fails. Whereas musical accompaniment to the silent film benefited the viewer, it is the characterswithin Aguirrewho, unsettled by the quietness of the forest, require reassurance. However, those within the film do not benefit from the music at all, but complain of an intense silence; as the Spaniardsgo mad in this silence, the Lacrime' plays. In the same way as the stillness presented impossible objects to the explorers, it would appear that Aguirrepresents us with a silence so profoundly mediated that it manifests itself the silence audible, with a presence every bit as as sound. The Lacrimnemakes
19

nonrefersto film soundswhose sourceis visibleon screen:conversely, 'Diegetic'traditionally to as the 'soundtrack') has no footing in the image.The diegeticsound (most often referred term 'diegesis' was coined by the Frenchwriter1tienne Souriau; for a more detaileddescripix. tion, see Metz, Film Language,

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deludingas the boat in the treetops,a presencethat dismantlesthe reassurance to offer.At the startof the film, of realityor humantouch it initiallyappeared to motion workedwith the moving explorers it seemsas though the Lacrimd's it becomes the visualstillnessof the mountain.As the film progresses, counteract clearthat the music drownsout auralevidenceof the explorers' presence,just as the vast mountaindwarfsthem at the start,makingtheir impact less intrufrom the forestless obvious.Indeed,from the startof sive, theirdifferentiation in the same acousticalsea as their surroundtheirjourney,they aresubmerged the end of the film, when the stillnessfully that foretells an aural merging ings, theirfailureto conquertheirsurroundings. invadesthe raft:the musicillustrates of the However, strangeappearance sound signifiessomethingbeyond both At first, the temporal of the characters. the audibilityand the comprehension to unfold it as music allow the Lacrime of throughtime in an undeproperties in that the sounds this sense it is linear initially seem to be the niably way: the musicofferedrecursoverand audibledesiresof the Spaniards. Nevertheless, admisthe futilityof the expedition,and pre-empting over,underlying Gaspar's is recurrence The Lacrimd's sion at the end: they are 'going aroundin circles'. furtherunderminedby the harmonicand motivic stasisthat lurksbeneathits changing surface:underminedby endless repetition, the temporalityof the musicis stalled.Ratherthan offera thirddimensionto the forest,or offerrelief becomesan auralelongationof the territo the stillness,the Lacrimd's circularity static images. fying,

the unwritten Aguirre

offersa which preventschangeor progress, The staticmusico-visual landscape, and desire with for of discovery conquest. Aguirre's type history incompatible murderous,hystericaldrive However,Herzog'sdistinction between Aguirre's and the unchangingland he chooses to conquer is complicated.Although, beforethey are overcomeby the landscape,the conquistadors appearto inject momentsof realityinto the area,their realityis itself derivedfrom a confused historicalbasis.An historicalfigure,Aguirrewas born in the Basquecountry between15IIand I1i6. Drivenby povertyacrossthe Atlantic,wherehe livedand for 25years,he left hardlya trace,excepta few excerpts foughtin SouthAmerica him as 'so turbuFrancisco from the chronicler (1562), who described Vaizquez referthat no town in Perucould hold him'.20 lent andbad-tempered Significant ences to Aguirrebegin with his recruitmentinto the El Dorado expedition: himselfand a short of the journeyincludethreeletterswrittenby Aguirre reports of primaryevidence,Herzog's accountdatingfrom 1562.21 However,regardless Firstand foremostis his confusion inaccurate. is often glaringly reconstruction
20 Quoted in Stephen Minta, Aguirre: The Re-Creation ofa Sixteenth-CenturyJourney acrossSouth America (London, 1993), io-Ii, 196.

21The account, although technicallyanonymous, is thought to be by the soldier Custodio Hernmindez.

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of journeys: historically, Pizarrowas not present on Aguirre'sexpedition.22Using more than twice as many men as Pizarro had brought to conquer the whole of Peru, Aguirre'slater expedition was the largest to appear on the Upper Amazon for zoo years, and was commanded by Urstia. Similarly, the journey itself provides another factual departure:the real explorersjourneyed across the whole width of South America, travelling East of the Andes from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Unlike Herzog's ending, the real Aguirre and his expedition escaped from the tributaries, only to disprove the popular sixteenth-century belief that the great rivers of the world flowed out into paradise:Aguirre and his travellers flowed out into a prepared army, who seized him as the traitor, murderer and tyrant he had confessed himself to be. Stemming from the discrepancies of Herzog's reconstruction, the process of writing or rewriting history becomes an integral part of Aguirre. Imitating the methods of their own creation, the characters in the film obsessively record events in their journals and diaries, with little or no concern for the difference between the real and the fictitious, an activity that performs a twofold function. First, the names, dates and major events are clearly provided for the viewer, as the charactersissue written decrees, compose important letters to their country and mark off the passing territory. Second, the increasing abstraction of the journey turns the writing down of events, however tentative, into assurance against hallucination, madness and futility, with a reality for the charactersthat even their arrow wounds do not assume.23 However, like Herzog's interpretation, the way in which the characters record events rarely resembles what is actually happening, despite its claimed legal and binding status: for example, Guzm in claims that drifting along the river in morbid fear has enabled the party to conquer an area of the surrounding land six times larger than Spain.24 Aguirre'smen obsessively carve up their surroundings on paper, sure that they are progressing, conquering. As they become caught up in their literarysuccess, the speed with which events are turned into written 'fact'by the Spaniardsbegins to gather momentum, responding exponentially to their dwindling physical progress.During the film, the recordingof events, whether good or bad, becomes so fast that the act of writing history appears to coincide with its actual making; it soon becomes unclear which comes first, the event or its reported account. Eventually, the explorers'copious writings begin to obscure reality,masking the dangerous lack of action with fictitious victory. Events become less often recorded
22Althougha greatPeruvian led an expedition25 yearsbeforeAguirre's traitor,Pizarro journey, seizedPeru,where he ruledfrom 1544until 1548,when he was duringwhich he successfully finallycaughtand executed. 23 Peuker, and Writingin the Filmsof WernerHerzog',107. 'Literature 24 of the fifteenthandsixteenthcenturies, suchmethodsof conquestwere Duringthe explorations not at all uncommon.Indeed,the historian John BrianHarleyhasgone so faras to suggestthat havebeen the weaponsof imperialism as muchas gunsandwarships: 'insofar mapsandjournals as mapswere used in colonialpromotion,and landsclaimedon paperbeforethey were effectively occupied, maps anticipatedempire' ('Maps, Knowledge,Power', The Iconography of ed. Danielsand Cosgrove,277-312(p. 282)). Landscape,

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after they happen, than the fact prophesied before it has come to pass: as Aguirre states, 'we have decided to put an end to the quirks of fate: we are forging history, and no fruits of this earth shall henceforth be shared'. Finding that recording or planning history ensures against mistakes or failures, the explorers prefer the verbal world they are constructing to the visual and aural surroundings they attempt to ignore. Nevertheless, their verbal demise is played out near the end of the film when crew member Gonzales, mad with hunger and illness, drinks the monk Gaspar'sink, thinking it medicine: the moment the monk proclaims 'I can write no more', their history disintegrates. When the act of writing is no longer permitted, everything falls away to reveala reality in which the characters, controlled by the river, the forest and the Indians, have nothing; no land, no conquest, only an empty rebellion that has ended in disaster.With the prevention of writing, history threatens to disappear into its own fictional conception, becoming a nonsensical mirage as elusive as the Amazonian Indians themselves. The Spaniards have failed to make history and disaster is certain: it is only minutes before the film's tragic conclusion. However, exposure of the non-history beneath the writing occurs well before its physical demise. Despite numerous scenes in which Aguirre and his puppet leader Guzm in are seen writing, the principal text of the film belongs to neither: instead, the narrationcomes from the diary of Gaspar,a journal that exists today. Citing the evidence of this journal, the opening scroll refers to the diary as the only possible source of the story to follow; indeed, Gaspar'svoice is heard first on the voice-over, making him the narrative 'I' of the film, although mist, mountains and music quickly overwhelm him. Told through this diary,Aguirre's writing assumes a secondary role: a narration recollected by another. However, corresponding to Herzog's liberal use of history, Aguirre'swriting is actually a false recollection: historically, Gaspar did not accompany Aguirre at all, but was present on Pizarro'sjourney 25 years before. Moreover, existing documentation of the journey goes a long way to suggest that Gaspar, known as the 'demon of the Andes', far from being the benevolent monk portrayed by Herzog, was a pathological killer who shared many of Aguirre's characteristics. Undergoing fundamental change, 'Gaspar' relives his own memories 25 years after assigning them to paper, retelling his journey through a different conquest. Appearing altered, he fails to provide in his diary a coherent basis for an authorial account of events: instead, the monk watches as his own characteristicsmanifest themselves in the persona of Aguirre. What is actually presented is a variety of sixteenth-century figures and events condensed into one narrative attempt at South American conquest. Aguirre himself becomes a postmodern creation, a suggestive mix of legend, truth and error as elusive as the myth of the gilded man. Such an amalgam of characters and events fundamentally undermines the notion of truth and documentation within the film: the perversion of history exposed in Gaspar's text promotes distrust not only of the explorers' written claims, but also, as an extension of that text, of all verbal narration. As a result, attention naturally returns to other narrative devices. Aguirre, aware of the

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downfalls of his writing, attempts to secure control of sound, ordering panpipe music to be played. However, the sounds fail in their task, neither supporting the written narration, nor bringing the flatness of the forest to life. Just as the writing remains writing, failing as it does to correspond to, or influence, the images, the music remains empty sound. Moreover, semantically devoid, its isolation from Aguirre'stext creates a rift between his two narrational attempts: a rift that weakens his chances of attack against the images.

The imagined land

Juxtaposed against Aguirre's divided narration is the forest, a landscape presented as a musico-visual whole. Although the lack of movement and sound from the bank appearspassive and undynamic, it becomes clear that image and non-diegetic music are working together continually to contradict the written/spoken narrative, endlessly correcting the false statements and claims made by Guzmain. However, the Spaniards'wholehearted belief in their writing carried away by their textual fabrications, makes them ignorant of the Lacrimal; the and the failure it represents. Endlessly recurring, the are deaf to music they the lack of their illustrates impact presence in the forest has, projecting Lacrimd their fears of failing to make history by remaining unchanged throughout the film. They are unwittingly submerged in their aural demise, and their deafness foretells their eventual textural downfall. Only at the end of the film, when the semantic structure of the non-diegetic music finally collides with the text ('we are going around in circles')is their fabrication exposed, an exposure from which they do not recover. Working with the image to represent the rainforest's mythical stasis, the revealsknowledge of Aguirre'sdemise from the outset. Nevertheless, the Lacrime' nature of the Amazonian myth, embodied in the non-diegetic music, is complicated. Despite improved geographical understanding, the area remained impervious to Western rationalism for much longer than scientific progress should have allowed. For centuries after the first voyages into Amazonia, attitudes to the area remained fundamentally unchanged from both within its parameters and beyond them: reconsideration of Aguirre'stexts in light of progress was a slow process. Whilst the Amazonian Indians proved able to retain their beliefs in the face of scientific rationalism through deeply ingrained cultural structures, there appears to have been little attempt from beyond the forest to use this rationalism as a weapon of conquest.25 Even when the area was fully mapped
25

A number of possible reasons can be offered for such interpretative stasis. First, the area encouraged less interest during the seventeenth century owing to its geographical position on the periphery. Concerned more with their immediate surroundings, the seventeenth-century revolutions aimed to eliminate magical or superstitious reasoning from their European doorstep before looking to the relatively unexplored 'other' world. Second, when attention was finally focused on the Peruvian rainforest, the strong, ingrained belief structures of its inhabitants were more developed and resilient than many of those encountered before. See Godfrey and Monica Wilson, The Analysis of Social Change (Cambridge, 1945), 95.

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out, some of the strange events offered by Gaspar and other chroniclers have become no less enigmatic: interestingly, attempts to reinterpret early 'discoveries' have been noticeably and consistently lacking; uncovering the truth has proved much less intriguing than maintaining the myths. Desire to retain intrigue can be seen early on, when the discovery of the true lake of El Dorado by Hernain Pdrez de Quesada during the early quests failed to smother the powerful ideal: instead, the truth was dismissed by invaders such as Raleigh (1617 exploration), who continued to search for the impossible utopia.26 When it was finally established that the mythical El Dorado could not and did not exist, the legend stopped prompting exploration and moved into literature, where the voyages of numerous protagonists continued to search for the land, some in vain, others more successfully. Although it is constantly redefined with every journey, every actual and literary return to Amazonia has its basis in Gaspar'sstory. Visible in a multitude of subsequent accounts, Aguirre'sjourney has remained fundamental to the way Amazonia is referredto. Such an influence, which has even encompassed a move into literature, suggests that there is much more to the myth than its truth. Once resituated in literature, El Dorado gradually became a synonym for utopian desire: less an actual City of Gold, and more the utopian ideal of the searching protagonist (in the case of Fitzcarraldo, El Dorado was an opera house in the jungle). The rainforest has become more than our last frontier against overdevelopment and urbanization: not only does this area, the lungs of the world, do our breathing, it has also become a popular resting point for our imaginations. Indeed, as the closest contact that most Westerners get with the Amazon is through fiction, literaturehas become its most important interpreter.Viewed through the proverbial looking glass, the mixture of internal preservation and external desire projected onto the forest provides us with a perfect fictitious escape: we actively want to maintain the Amazonian myth.27 Returning to the music in Aguirreand its endless recurrence, we can see that its significance stretches much further than the confines of the film. Rather than follow the narrative adventure of each protagonist, Popul Vuh's non-diegetic music remains indifferent to the characters, and to the changing surface of the Amazon. Enforcing instead the separation of people from nature, reality from myth, each recurrence of the Lacrim6'schord pattern displays the forest's root
26

de Quesada discovered El Dorado, a lake called Guataviti on Early in the quest, HernainP&rez the Bogoti plateau. In 1540, he became the first of many to drain the lake and recover the golden objects that had been cast into it. Nevertheless, the amount of gold did not conform to his hopes, yielding only 500,000 pesos de ora in all. He thus persuaded himself that Guataviti was not the true lake of gold, which must lie somewhere east of the plateau: the search continued accordingly, with a steady locational shift towards the Amazon basin. Sir Walter Raleigh and Columbus later joined the pursuit. For a more detailed account of the search, see Silverberg,

TheGolden Dream.

27 Mary Louise Pratt has shown how Europe has depicted South America as mere 'nature', an unclaimed and timeless space. Imperial Eyes: TravelWriting and Transculturalism (London and New York, 1992), 126.

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in legend: a continual return to Aguirre'sfictional beginning. Not only do the repetitions illustrate the circularity of the journey and the inability of the conquistadors to escape their still surroundings, they also represent the place that the journey holds in history. Whilst playing out the immediate failure of the explorers, the music also demonstrates the enormous significance that that failure will hold in constructing perceptions of the forest for the next 500 years: their historical failure becomes one of the largest imaginative successes.

Fitzcarraldoand the magic boat

The larger picture represented by Aguirre'ssoundtrack includes Herzog's other Amazonian film, Fitzcarraldo.The reappearanceof Popul Vuh's distinctly individual sound in the later film further enlarges the circular influence of the Lacrimed: although in detail the music is different, the soundscape is immediately recognizable. Complementing this aural attachment to Aguirre'smythical past is a visual correspondence between the two films: owing to a lack of obvious historical markersin the forest, the areainto which Fitzcarraldotravels,centuries after Aguirre, appears fundamentally unchanged; the trees, the river,the atmosphere are all as the conquistadors left them. However, although Fitzcarraldo replaces Aguirre'shaphazard exploration with careful planning, using detailed maps to expose the possible dangers (the rapids, the landscape, the Jivaro Indians), the moment he leaves Iquitos, his preparations begin to go awry: geographicalknowledge is persistently thwarted by the multitude of other, unexpected forces at large in the forest. Drifting up the Amazon with recorded music and a steamship, Fitzcarraldo'stechnical mastery is quickly undermined: his guns and explosives fail; his operatic music sounds absurdly out of place. He is surrounded by belief in Amazonian spirits and water demons, and it quickly becomes clear that Fitzcarraldodoes not travel into a mapped-out, nineteenthcentury forest, but into a world based on the fictional texts that have constructed perceptions of the area. The forest that he encounters is governed by the mythical history 'forged' by the Spanish chroniclers, a place that 300 years have left untouched. However, although the forest appears unchanged, time has neither stood still for 300 years nor swung back on itself to allow Fitzcarraldo a literal return to Aguirre'sera. Indeed, the very concepts of both static and teleological time are fundamentally at odds with the mythical time Aguirre established for the forest: rather, the Amazon's past, present and future coexist to form an atemporal 'frontier'. This multi-temporal incorporation is demonstrated during pivotal scenes of both films, scenes that establish important points of contact between the protagonists. First, losing all ability to differentiate between illusion and reality towards the end of Aguirre, the crew begin to hallucinate: just as the Indian myths warn, the river begins to play tricks on them; reality becomes 'the illusion of dream'.Tired, lost and frightened, the explorers resign themselves to a moment of distorted reality, witnessing a boat resting in the fork of a tree, high above the water line. 300 years later, Fitzcarraldostands in the fork of such

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a tree, surveying the land he is about to conquer in a moment of lucid reality: shortly after, he accomplishes the impossible, hoisting his boat up to the height of the treetops. The moment of Fitzcarraldo's apparent success coincides directly with the moment of Aguirre'sdemise: as the Molly Aida teeters on the mountain, Aguirre, nearing the disastrous end of his journey, encounters Fitzcarraldo. To understand the interaction of these scenes requires return to a previous discussion, one that considered how Aguirre'swritten invention coincided with its material realization to turn every event into the past even before it happened. This coincidence, which is mistakenly proclaimed by Aguirre to enable his men to 'forge history', paradoxicallycreates action from text, whilst at the same time it constructs text from action. An impossible circularity develops: the characters immediately become the past of their own writing, living out events that have already been recorded as history. Inventing themselves and their own future as the film progresses, they confuse the chronological thread of past, present and future by allowing text and action to become out of sync with one another. However, although the chronological confusion suggests that the conquistadors are in charge of their own fate, this illusion is short-lived: the moment they see the boat on the treetops, Aguirre'sperformative method of creating history starts to take on a life of its own.28 Fictitious events begin to occur that have not previously been stated in writing: within the frames of Aguirre, make-believe history breaks out of its textual mould and gathers its own momentum, appearing to work independently of Gaspar'spen. Nevertheless, an inter-filmic reading of events suggests that what Aguirre actually sees is not an isolated hallucination, but a premonition of Fitzcarraldo's later journey. In this sense, although it initially appears that events are happening beyond Gaspar'swritten control, the vision of the boat prompts events to be written down centuries before they actually take place: Gaspar's text far exceeds its own temporal boundaries, unravelling chronology to become prophecy rather than history. What the conquistadors actually see is the hold their journey will exert over perceptions of Amazonia for many centuries. Aguirre'smythical presence in the forest is explicitly illustrated, as Kinski also plays the character suggested in the hallucination, allowing the Spaniard to encounter a vision of himself, of his everlasting presence in the forest. The hallucination, prophesying its own historical reception, illustratesAmazonia'scontinual recurrenceto Aguirre'sbeginning. As such, the boat in the treetops becomes a visual manifestation of the Lacrimde: although the Spaniards cannot hear the music (which representsthe mythical constant through variation of its primary theme), for a split second they are able, in a sense, to see it. However, such temporal coexistence can occur only if the primary story is revealed to be part of the very myth it constructs. Herzog establishes the mythical nature of
28 Roland Barthes has interpreted performative action as follows: 'the fact is that writing can no longer designate an operation of recording, notation, representation, depiction; rather it designates exactly what linguists call a performative, a rareverbal form in which the enunciation has no other content than the act by which it is uttered'. Barthes, 'The Death of the Author', Image, Music, Text,trans. Stephen Heath (London, I977), 142-8 (p. 145).

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Gaspar'stext in two ways: first, by melding several journeys into one narrative strand; second, by using music which illustrates that Aguirre'sfailure is, from the very beginning, incorporated into the Amazonian story. Returning to the earlierdiscussion about Herzog'sperception of the Amazon being built on a past not necessarilytrue, it can now be understood why this is not a problem. Whilst the act of writing history in Aguirreplays out an admission of the film's fictional untruth, this does not matter as the rainforesthas come to exist predominantly in our imaginations, becoming a resting place for our Western escapist desires. Controlled by the cycles of the Lacrimed, perceptions of the area endlessly refer to a fictional beginning, undergoing continual displacement to mythical time, a 'non-chronology' where multiple eras and stories collide.

The musical escape

Aguirre's demise is a direct consequence of his deafness. Unable to hear the musical recurrence, he fails to recognize both the immediate futility of his writing and its portentous significance for the future. Moreover, Aguirre'suse of panpipes, far from preventing his crew from becoming visually and aurallylost, strips him of all acoustical defence against the forest, allowing it to overcome him completely. Fitzcarraldo'sattempts to attack the forest through sound are more successful. Although both protagonists use music to allay fear of silence by energizing the still forest, the types of sound chosen are fundamentally different. Whereas Aguirre'smusic fails because it originates in the forest, Fitzcarraldo equips himself with his own soundtrack, an operatic accompaniment firmly rooted in a world beyond Amazonia. The film begins by displaying the highly artificial nature of opera through a performance of the final moments of Verdi's Ernani in the Teatro Amazonas, connecting opera with civilization, culture and society from the outset. Fitzcarraldo, having rowed 1,240 miles down the Amazon to see Caruso sing, introduces his obsession with opera straight away.Towards the end of 'Caruso's'performance, the dying protagonist directs his gaze and voice towards the back of the audience where Fitzcarraldo is standing transfixed: 'He pointed at you,' whispers Molly, his friend.29About to die, Ernani propels his final vocal moments towards Fitzcarraldo,who appears to receive and absorb the character'sebbing musical life. Immediately descending into the operatic world thrown out to him, Fitzcarraldo finds himself surrounded by music when he leaves the theatre: returning home to his 'audience' of children and pigs; venting frustration through a deranged ringing of the village bell; being released from jail in order to stop a child from playing the violin outside his window. His mental descent (ascent?) continues during a party at the rich rubber-plantation-owner'shouse: setting up his gramophone in the middle of the gazebo, Fitzcarraldo's wind-up 78s begin to drown out the diegetic flute music. Punching a man who attempts to turn the music off, Fitzcarraldo becomes frenzied, downing a drink to 'Verdi, Rossini, Caruso': 'I will
29

The operascenewas directedby WernerSchroeter.

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eclipse you,' he cries to an amused audience; 'I will out-million you. I will outperform you. The reality of your world is just a crude caricature of the makebelieve reality of grand opera.' transferfrom the visual world to a musical one, Demonstrating Fitzcarraldo's these preparatoryevents establish his defence against the auralstasis of the forest. Once his journey has begun, the explorer, armed with a gramophone on top of the ship, plays arias from Ernani, Pagliacci, Rigoletto,La Boheme and Ipuritani with obsessive fervour. Mixing the operas with little regardfor dramatic or even musical coherence, Fitzcarraldoassumes the role of journey's composer, placing the arias into a new, spontaneously arranged 'film-opera'; a collaboration that harks back to a time when film and opera greatly influenced one another.30 Although the musical artifice, grandeur and convention associated with the music of Leoncavallo and Verdi initially appear at odds with the natural disorder of the forest, the setting is in fact much more conducive to Fitzcarraldo's dramatic tendencies than the 'reality'of industry-driven Iquitos. Treating landscape as a 'pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings', Fitzcarraldoextends the stylized artifice of the Teatro Amazonas into the forest, exchanging the 'real' world for an operatic one.31 Supported by ancient legend, the forest provides potential for dense and complicated plots, the static scenery replicates extravagantlypainted, two-dimensional theatre sets, and the Indians provide an off-stage chorus: in short, Fitzcarraldotravels into a readymade mythical 'make-believe reality of grand opera'.32Viewing the forest in this way allows Fitzcarraldo to reinterpret the landscape to correspond with his operatic vision: ratherthan create a rift between forest and boat, the music turns the surroundings to his advantage, creating a scenic setting for his musical journey. Fitzcarraldo'sinterpretation of the Amazon as a stage, a positive force to be included rather than overcome, relegates landscape to a supporting role, allowing him to devote unlimited time and energy to opera, which remains overwhelmingly present throughout. However, between the arias, several other types of music beyond Fitzcarraldo's control and his aural perception battle for centre the primacy of the gramophone recordings are two main stage. Undermining sounds: the contrasting non-diegetic music of Popul Vuh, to which the
30 Over the short span of cinema's life, the two disciplines have experienced a certain symbiosis,

ranging from filmic adaptations of entire operas, with plot, unrealistic setting and operatic gesture kept intact, to snippets of Italian operatic favourites in contemporary Hollywood. The collaboration was particularly prolific during cinema's early years: more than 150 opera-related titles were produced before 1926. Figures quoted in Theresa, 'From MWphistophdlesto Melies', 7. See also Jeremy Tambling, 'Film Aspiring to the Condition of Opera', Opera, Ideology and Film, ed. Tambling (Manchester, 1987), 41-67. 31 Daniels and Cosgrove, 'Introduction', I. 32 Operatic films often translated theatrical pieces in their entirety, at times even preserving unrealistic settings rather than exploring the greater latitude in location available to screen opera (locations can be indoors, outdoors or animated). See Noel Burch, Life to ThoseShadows, trans. Ben Brewster (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990); Marcia J. Citron, Opera on Screen(New Haven and London, 2000).

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characters remain oblivious (at least at a conscious level); and the unsettling chanting, drumming and panpipe-playing of the Indians, audible sounds with an invisible source. These two types, together with the operatic recordings, occupy many diegetical levels during the film, each retaining its own aural niche to avoid direct contact with the others. It is not until the climax of the 'opera', when Fitzcarraldohauls the boat over the mountain, that these strands finally meet, initiating a complicated musical interplay. During this scene, all musical types occupy the off-screen, emanating from beyond the two-dimensional images. Michel Chion, naming sound whose source remains out of shot acousmitre, suggests that the implications of such noise have a provenance in God, who could be heard but not seen.33He suggests that acousmhtre assumes properties of divinity, investing the unseen voice with omniscience: as a result, the acousmatic typically has ultimate and omnipotence of knowledge things seen and unseen by charactersand spectators alike. Acousmatic power was clearly demonstrated in Aguirre through the non-diegetic a sourceless sound accorded unequivocal control of the forest: in FitzLacrime', carraldo, the phenomenon is more complicated, as the acousmatic space is occupied, as we have seen, by severalmusical types, at differing levels of diegesis. Most traditionally acousmatic is the chanting, the 'off-stagechorus': an ominous sound whose uncertain origin and purpose provokes a desperate searchfor visual grounding by the crew. However, tension is finally broken during the mountain scene, where chanting and image meet for the first time: leaving the boat, the camera slowly pans around the landscape, eventually resting on a group of three women. This visual identification strips the chanting of its terrifying potential by removing the unknown sounds from the explorers'imaginations and placing

them firmlywithin sight. Anchoredto its image, the chanting, now accom-

void, filled only with naturalsound:voices, hammering,trees falling.After a to fill this void with Carusoin celebration while, the cook promptsFitzcarraldo
of their imminent success, a request that begins a two-minute scene of the ascending Molly Aida accompanied by the start of Puccini's La Boheme,Act 4.

panied by drums, loses its omnipotence: it is no longer a threat to Fitzcarraldo. The visual grounding of the chanting produces an absence, an uneasy musical

33Acousmhtre formsa linchpinof Chion'stheoriesof sound in film:it refersto a voice in theatre or cinemathat is 'off-stage', whose audibility does not dependon seeing.In his earlier writings, if the sourceof the sound is not visible,then the soundis an acousseem clear-cut: descriptions mitre,althoughthe sourcemust have 'one foot' in the image.An acousmhtre typicallymoves froman acousmatic to a normalstate,or viceversa: thus a soundis acousmaticized or de-acousin Cinema)Chion maticized.However,in laterwriting (such as the 'Epilogue'to The Voice admitsthat he had overgeneralized. What happenswhen a character speakswith backturned, at lengthin 'PartI: offeringa heardvoice without movinglips?Chion exploresthe acousmhtre The Magic and the Powerof the Acousmhtre', The Voice in Cinema,trans.ClaudiaGorbman aboutdisembodied soundin her article'Debussy's Phantom (NewYork, 1999),17-57.Speaking io (1998),67-96, Carolyn Abbatesuggeststhatacousmatic Sounds',Cambridge Journal, Opera soundcreatesa senseof mysterythat resistsbeingcaughtup in interpretation: she also usesthe which is predicated on the presenceof his voice in the absenceof exampleof God'sauthority, his body.

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music createsa confusedauraldiegesis, Mixed with real-world noise, Puccini's contendwith Fitzcarraldo's in which soundsof the rainforest operaticintrusion. next mixture is the further the However, complicated by a sound that morning, within the film:as the boat, partially concealedin thick mist, remainsunheard half of the mountain,both diegeticalsound begins to move up the remaining the and operaarereplaced by hauntingguitarriffsof PopulVuh, a replacement with that signifiestwo things. First,the music, althoughheardbefore,interacts other soundsfor the firsttime: initiallyin time with the drumming,it eventuthe diegeticbeat entirely, ally replaces supplantingthe chantingboth on screen their diegetic and off. Not only do the Indianslose their powerfulacousmhtre, foothold is also overcomeby the non-diegeticmurmurof the forest.Second, to Fitzcarraldo's present,but also exist in PopulVuh'ssounds are not restricted vital male aural As voices enterthe music, a link. Amazon,producing Aguirre's the to the Lacrime'is obvious: the similarity immediately guitarsdo not progress, but repeatsmall motivic cells beneathlong-heldvocal notes, ones which FitzFitzcarraldo likeAguirre,failsto hear.Likethe earlier carraldo, explorer, rejoices of in his apparent the music. oblivious success, the soundtrack their Nevertheless, victory, replaces suggest althoughthe images endless the recurrence: return of with Popul Vuh's operaticaccompaniment on the Lacrime) foretellsthe Molly music (albeita variation circular motivically when the boatis let loosedown madeexplicit Aida'simminentdemise,a prophecy the rapids.Musicalthreat is fuelled by a rising distrustin image:when the chantingand its source (re)unite,the forest'spotentialdangerappearsfalsely textual Fitzcarraldo's trustin his dependence, quelled.Rather, resembling Aguirre's the narrative it. musical that undermines visualsuccessis explicitly corrected by fail music whilst both to hear the that surrounds them, However, protagonists he comes armedwith music deafnessis less fatal than Aguirre's: Fitzcarraldo's able to attack Popul Vuh from its own non-diegetic absence.Although not in shot, the in the sensethat the gramophoneis regularly explicitlyacousmatic, music offered is a recordingfrom an out-of-sight opera; music played at is equippedwith a a differenttime, in a differentplace.AlthoughFitzcarraldo note the film: his 'voice'is a he utters not a voice, single throughout singing that recorded one, a mechanical reproduction struggles throughprimitivetechdistant sound.34 to offer Clearly reproduced,the voice poor-quality, nology
34Therehasbeenmuch discussion recorded sound in film. Baltzscontendsthat 'what concerning we hearfrom the screenis not an imageof the sound but the sound itself,which the sound camerahas recordedand reproduced again. . . . There is no differencein dimension and and reproduced sound, as thereis between realitybetweenthe originalsoundand the recorded real objects and their photographicimages.' Opposing this argument,Rick Altman, Alan thatrecorded sound'sfidelityto the originalis an illusion: WilliamsandThomasLevinmaintain in a differentacousticspace- not in a streetbut inside a if recorded soundswere reproduced theatre- it would constitutea differentsound. Williamscontendsthat everysound, whether is uniquesinceit is 'spatio-temporally specific': everysound is historical originalor reproduced, from the time and spacein which that event is made. in that everysonic event is inseparable La belle Joe, 'The CinematicBody in the OperaticTheatre:PhilipGlass's Quoted in Jeongwon ed. Joe andTheresa,59-73. and Cinema, et la bite',Between Opera

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remains separate from any live source, producing an 'uncanny' sensation;35an explicit playing out of what Chion has called the 'impossible unity' of voice and body in film.36The resultant split of music and image allows Fitzcarraldoonly a secondary voice: powerless to influence the musical course of the arias once they have begun, he appears to be not only as deaf, but also as mute as Aguirre. Offering the disembodied voices to the Indians, hoping to fool them into believing he is their 'white god', Fitzcarraldodiscovers that his opera is powerless: the Indians, excited only by the enormous white presence of the Molly Aida, take little notice of the sounds. Nevertheless, just as Fitzcarraldoloses control of his music, it assumes a force of its own. Whereas insufficient musical defence allowed the Lacrim e'to overwhelm Aguirre's physical and textual endeavours, Fitzcarraldo'sbold soundtrack overlays the forest's 'invisible' sound with opera. Straddling the divide between acousmetreand diegetic foreground, the operatic voices are able to comfort the characters, whilst corresponding directly with the forest through music, something that Aguirre's panpipes remained unable to do. The arias invade Popul Vuh's acoustical space in an explosion of alien musical life, making it impossible for the non-diegetic music to drown out their presence, or obscure the differentiation of boat and forest. At one point, the strength of the opera outgrows Fitzcarraldoto such an extent that its need for the gramophone diminishes, allowing the brief appearance of Western music (not opera, but a Strauss waltz) on the non-diegetic soundtrack: Fitzcarraldo'smusic not only emanates from the same imageless source as Popul Vuh, but moves directly into its territory. Although opera becomes a force independent of Fitzcarraldo, he benefits from its complicated acousmatic audibility: despite their shared deafness, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre differ from one another precisely through their ability to listen. Whereas arias, in their original setting, were sung and (at times) witnessed by characters disturbingly ignorant of their musical immersion, Fitzcarraldo's

35 Freud has discussed the effect of a figure meeting itself: the person is apt to take an instant dislike to the image as it seems like a ghost and conjures up the spectre of his/her own death. See Sigmund Freud, 'The Uncanny', Art and Literature: Jensen'sGradiva, Leonardoda Vinci and Other Works,trans. and ed. James Strachey and Albert Dickson, The Penguin Freud Library,14 (Harmondsworth, 1985), 334-76. 36 For discussions regarding synchronization as loss of intimacy between sound and image, see also renounces the possibility of united Adorno and Eisler, Composingforthe Films. Slavoj :Zi-ek sight and sound in film in 'I Hear You with my Eyes; or The Invisible Master', Gaze and Voice as Love Objects,ed. Renata Salecl and Ziiek (Durham, 1996), 92. For other accounts of the loss inflicted on film with the achievement of synchronized speech, see Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art (Berkeley, 1957; repr. 1966); Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form and The Film Sense, trans. and ed. Jay Leyda (New York, 1957);Rick Altman, 'Moving Lips: Cinema as Ventriloquism', YaleFrench Studies, 6o (1980), 67-79. In Music and Silent Film (New York and Oxford, 1997), 42, Martin Marks discusses the seeming contradictions of film based on opera during the era before standardized synchronization of sound.

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in the film.37Providing operaticdisplaysare acutelyaudibleto the characters intensemomentsof musicalself-awareness, the ariasshock the crewinto visual inertia.Motionlessand impotentto act, they lose theirimmediatephenomenal stillnessthat Fitzpoweroverthe audience's sight, becomingpartof the forest's like had to counteract music: carraldo, Aguirre, hoped any sound from through the Indiansquicklydies away,any movementfrom the MollyAida comes to a halt as the crew stand immobile,reminiscentof Andy Warhol's 'non-mimetic' filmic bodies.38 The emphasisof listeningover movementis paramount: Fitzin operathat he remainsunaware carraldo becomesso engrossed of PopulVuh's motivicrecurrence, the endlesscyclesthat swamped it is, paradoxically, Aguirre; his musicalacuitythat causeshis deafness. Becausethe forest's poweris musicalratherthanvisual,Fitzcarraldo's operais able to attackthe Amazonon its own terms.At the root of the opera's powerful acousmatic siren-likemusic, is the positioning,and protectionfrom the forest's addition of voice; a sound that providessomethinginherentlymissing in the forest.This additionhas nothingto do with wordssung or commentary offered, as the importanceof each aria's libretto, removedfrom its originalsetting, is and viewers. Not only do Fitzcarraldo's crew negligible to both characters text to or act the emotions in to, out, disregard entirely,failing respond sung the lack of on-screen for the subtitles libretti hinders any way, easy foreign for the viewer.39 Suchdisregard to underminethe prime comprehension appears functionof the aria:usedoften as soliloquy,in which a character, usuallyalone, can expressemotion or reflecton action so far (as CarolynAbbatewould say, can 'narrate'),the aria is traditionallyan important, if repetitive, textual moment.40 to retainthe narrative of each ariaused, However,wereFitzcarraldo his new 'work'would become nonsensical:taken from severaloperas, with differentcharacters by a varietyof singers,there is little relationship portrayed betweenthe songs other than their new Amazoniansetting. Recontextualized, momentsof personalreflection arenecessarily in orderto rendered meaningless a narrative for cohesive the preserve journey.
37 As Abbate points out, it is often only in moments of narration (often the aria) that a particu-

lar character can become aware that they are singing: whilst Fitzcarraldo changes the semantic function of music, creating pure music from song, he maintains the self-awareness of its original

dramatic Voices: andMusical Narrative in theNineteenth setting.CarolynAbbate,Unsung Opera

38

Century (Princeton, 1991). See, for example, Warhol's Sleepand Kiss, in which images have no subjectivity or psychological depth. 39 Fitzcarraldo was filmed in English and dubbed into German. Although the dialogue appears more realistic in the English version, Herzog prefers the German-dubbed version. 40 See Abbate, Unsung Voices.Peter Conrad, speaking about the operatic voice, contends that 'one of the bequests of film to opera is its demonstration that song is soliloquy, not overt statement: that the voice is consciousness - or the yearning subconscious - overheard'. Conrad elaborates on the soliloquy through a discussion of the love duet in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's film Madame Butterfly (1974), in which the characters occupy two different locations. A Song of Love and Death: The Meaning of Opera (St Paul, 1996), 273.

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Michal Grover-Friedlanderhas argued that words in opera are 'unnecessary' for comprehension as meaning is conveyed by other means, most importantly through the force and beauty of the voice: opera becomes 'an example of independence from language'.41Whilst this premiss is a debatable starting point in terms of opera, in Fitzcarraldoit rings true. The terrifying absence of human sound in the forest is counteracted by the presence of an operatic voice: the arias do not replace speech, but provide the suggestion of Benjamin's 'human touch'.42Moving from one extreme to another, an absence of voice becomes an excess of vocality, an exchange that enables Fitzcarraldo'sopera to free itself of any prior dramatic, musical or textual association. Jarring significantly with Aguirre's dependence on writing, Fitzcarraldo'stextual mistrust posits control onto music instead, allowing libretto to become overshadowed by its very performance. Whereas Aguirre'sdefence, divided between text and music, left him open to attack from the forest's narrational cohesion, Fitzcarraldo's singleminded use of music, although offering no easy semantic interpretation, puts up strong resistance to Popul Vuh's sounds, enabling him to stay afloat, both metaphorically and literally. However, the opera provides more than resistance, comfort and ignorance: rather than the circular melodies given by Aguirre'spanpipe player, Fitzcarraldo offers music supported by the pillars of Western tonality, a music that constantly drives towards closure. Such tonal drive overlaysPopul Vuh'sdisembodied circularity with a grounding in progress that prevents any real form of communication between Fitzcarraldo and his surroundings, an incompatibility that, although causing his mission to fail, ensures his escape from Aguirre'smythical fate. Able to defy the endless recurrence to Gaspar'smythical beginning, Fitzcarraldo manages to preserve 'real' time. As the forest ejects him, sending his boat down the rapids, a striking display of motion erupts that evokes the 'strong impression of reality' promised by Christian Metz.43 Not only does opera demonstrate control over the characters by immobilizing them, it also breaks the static mould of the forest by exchanging the stillness of mythical time for the climactic realm of operatic dramaturgy.Movement becomes a visual manifestation of the tonal pulls of the opera, just as the Lacrime"sstillness slowly engulfed Aguirre'sraft. Whereas Aguirre's deafness to the Lacrime'prophesied his eventual textural downfall, Fitzcarraldo's emphasis on opera replaces non-diegetic music not with fictitious writing, but with confident tonality: the stylized musical world of opera becomes a symbol of a reality beyond the Amazon, an escape from Aguirre'stextual impasse. Exchanging music for writing allows him to tap into the hermeneutic nucleus of the forest, dissolving the mythical hold that Gaspar's prophetic text has exerted over the Amazon for so long. However, whilst
41MichalGrover-Friedlander, at the Opera', The MarxBrothers Ain'tNo SanityClaus!": ' "There ed. Joe and Theresa,19-37 (p. 26). and Cinema, Between Opera 42 Benjamin, 'The Workof Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. 43 Metz, Film Language, 7.

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Fitzcarraldo'sdependence on music minimizes the devastating potential of the forest, permitting his escape, it does not fulfil his quest to overcome the rapids, to conquer the Amazon, to introduce civilization into the forest. Although the musical intrusion introduces an incompatibility that provokes violent rejection, Fitzcarraldo leaves the forest essentially untouched, the mythical world of Gaspar'spen intact. It is not 'real' time that Fitzcarraldopreserves: completely overcome by his dramatic yearnings, he succumbs to musical time, defeating the unreality of mythical time with a rival fiction. The journey becomes a musical, rather than a textual, version of the legend. Although redefined, the story is still firmly rooted in Gaspar's creation and Fitzcarraldo fails to stray beyond the bounds of the Lacrime''s unending circles. ABSTRACT This articleexploresthe filmic relationship betweenmusic, text and image throughan two Amazonianfilms,Aguirre: intertextual Wrath readingof Herzog's of Godand FitzWhen Aguirreand Fitzcarraldo encountereach other in the rainforest,300 carraldo. of historyand legend,truthand fiction,is initiated. yearsapart,a complicated interplay the foresthas its own endlesslyrepeatingsoundtrack Awashwith magicaloccurrence, to defend themselvesfrom the (writtenby PopulVuh). The abilityof both explorers forestdependson their relationship to this music:Aguirre,the earlierexplorer, is deaf to the circular sound and attemptsto overlayit with a writtenaccountof theirjourney. on the otherhand,entersthe forestequippedwith a gramophone thatplays Fitzcarraldo, Verdiarias;he comeswith his own soundtrack. betweenthe two journeys Comparison exposesthe conventionalusesof text/speechand music/songin film, to revealmusic as the predominant drivingforcebehindfilmic narrative.