WERNER HERZOG ON AGUIRRE, A BRIEF COMMENT

Werner Herzog: Very early in the beginning of Aguirre there is a shot of the ferocious river, boiling. You see it for a long time. Seeing it for three seconds would be enough to know it is an angry boiling river. But I believe you see it for thirty seconds or so. It is completely out of proportion. But having seen that so early in the film, you accept more easily as an audience all of the disproportion to come, the disproportion of a character, the disproportionate fever, the disproportion of losing orientation, the disproportion of grandiose designs of conquering the continent with 30 starving men. It prepares the field. You plough the fields very carefully to sow and then you harvest.