After suffering through Tous les Matins du Monde and Farinelli, both atrocious, over-romanticized films on "early music," Death for Five Voices is refreshing. Herzog's films walk the line between fiction and nonfiction, but always seek to express truth. I am a huge fan of his work, but do have some issues with this film.
Perhaps after directing a few Wagner operas, Herzog couldn't resist the temptation to go with the Wagner and Strauss comparisons many of the subjects in the film made, but this sort of romanticizing detracts from the film and misplaces the true context for why Gesualdo's music has a message valuable to contemporary society, in fact, a message that I think is quite in line with Herzog's approach to film making.
Herzog has said that all of his films are documentaries. I think this is evident when looking at his casting, for example. Could you imagine anyone else playing Stroszek or Kaspar Hauser besides Bruno S.? So many actors become the roles they are playing and work very hard to do so, but there's a certain emptiness to it. Someone like Bruno S. is a real person and the story is just an elaboration on his own humanity which shows through the films. I think Kinski, though more trained as an actor, expressed deep humanity in the films he was in with Herzog in the same way. This is to say that Herzog's films contain an element of subjectivity and individuality on a case by case basis, not a systematic basis.
Music composed in Gesualdo's time also contains this sort of subjective element. Vocal music was the ideal. Scores weren't reduced onto two staves like piano music, each vocal part had it's own staff. Each line was as important as any other. There was no system of tonal harmony to bind the music together. This is as true for Gesualdo's music as it was for his contemporaries - he wasn't alone in this as the film would otherwise lead you to think - only his chromaticism is a bit more extreme than most. In all actuality, the late romantics that Gesualdo is incessantly compared to in the film represent the ultimate fruition of the harmonic system that is antithetical to the height of renaissance polyphony.
Personally, I attribute the rise of instrumental music and equal temperament tuning to this shift in musical composition. If the piano had not become the dominant medium for music in the ensuing years, I suspect music would have developed very differently. Perhaps Gesualdo's music is a glimpse of what could have happened if western civilization had gone in a different direction.
There is a very obnoxious scene where the composer/prince plays the opening chords of Tristan and Isolde, something that obnoxious conductors and college music theory professors enjoy doing over and over again for some reason to demonstrate how amazing chromaticism is. I don't think Gesualdo's music has anything to do with Wagner.
It's not Herzog's fault (if you don't count his refusal to sing while a teenager). It is just his sometimes naive enthusiasm for things - this beautiful quality which makes his films so charming and extraordinary in other cases, particularly The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner and How Much Wood Would a Wood Chuck Chuck: he is able to look at things at face value without preconceptions.
Herzog can even be pardoned for stretching the truth in many cases. This time, though, I think his stretch of the truth which in other cases leads to a deeper truth, distracts from it. It's almost as if Herzog is trying to make the film about Wagner. Gesualdo's troubled story seems like an act from a tragic opera.
With that said, I loved the Italian feel of the film. I am sure Herzog would say he dislikes Fellini (if he's even watched any of it), but the pace of the film reminds me of the circus-like atmosphere of the typical Fellini film. One memorable scene in a kitchen with an elderly man and woman, both speaking exuberantly and constantly at the same time, going on and on, quite directly to the camera. What beautiful humanity Herzog captured in this shot. Another shot at a mental institution was very intriguing. The shots on location of the castles and locations haunted by the story were wonderful. This film is well worth watching as long as you don't let the Wagner thing bother you too much!
Perhaps after directing a few Wagner operas, Herzog couldn't resist the temptation to go with the Wagner and Strauss comparisons many of the subjects in the film made, but this sort of romanticizing detracts from the film and misplaces the true context for why Gesualdo's music has a message valuable to contemporary society, in fact, a message that I think is quite in line with Herzog's approach to film making.
Herzog has said that all of his films are documentaries. I think this is evident when looking at his casting, for example. Could you imagine anyone else playing Stroszek or Kaspar Hauser besides Bruno S.? So many actors become the roles they are playing and work very hard to do so, but there's a certain emptiness to it. Someone like Bruno S. is a real person and the story is just an elaboration on his own humanity which shows through the films. I think Kinski, though more trained as an actor, expressed deep humanity in the films he was in with Herzog in the same way. This is to say that Herzog's films contain an element of subjectivity and individuality on a case by case basis, not a systematic basis.
Music composed in Gesualdo's time also contains this sort of subjective element. Vocal music was the ideal. Scores weren't reduced onto two staves like piano music, each vocal part had it's own staff. Each line was as important as any other. There was no system of tonal harmony to bind the music together. This is as true for Gesualdo's music as it was for his contemporaries - he wasn't alone in this as the film would otherwise lead you to think - only his chromaticism is a bit more extreme than most. In all actuality, the late romantics that Gesualdo is incessantly compared to in the film represent the ultimate fruition of the harmonic system that is antithetical to the height of renaissance polyphony.
Personally, I attribute the rise of instrumental music and equal temperament tuning to this shift in musical composition. If the piano had not become the dominant medium for music in the ensuing years, I suspect music would have developed very differently. Perhaps Gesualdo's music is a glimpse of what could have happened if western civilization had gone in a different direction.
There is a very obnoxious scene where the composer/prince plays the opening chords of Tristan and Isolde, something that obnoxious conductors and college music theory professors enjoy doing over and over again for some reason to demonstrate how amazing chromaticism is. I don't think Gesualdo's music has anything to do with Wagner.
It's not Herzog's fault (if you don't count his refusal to sing while a teenager). It is just his sometimes naive enthusiasm for things - this beautiful quality which makes his films so charming and extraordinary in other cases, particularly The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner and How Much Wood Would a Wood Chuck Chuck: he is able to look at things at face value without preconceptions.
Herzog can even be pardoned for stretching the truth in many cases. This time, though, I think his stretch of the truth which in other cases leads to a deeper truth, distracts from it. It's almost as if Herzog is trying to make the film about Wagner. Gesualdo's troubled story seems like an act from a tragic opera.
With that said, I loved the Italian feel of the film. I am sure Herzog would say he dislikes Fellini (if he's even watched any of it), but the pace of the film reminds me of the circus-like atmosphere of the typical Fellini film. One memorable scene in a kitchen with an elderly man and woman, both speaking exuberantly and constantly at the same time, going on and on, quite directly to the camera. What beautiful humanity Herzog captured in this shot. Another shot at a mental institution was very intriguing. The shots on location of the castles and locations haunted by the story were wonderful. This film is well worth watching as long as you don't let the Wagner thing bother you too much!