Hi all, I am kinda new here, at least as a poster. Anyway, kyotopunk and I just finished watching 2 very interesting flicks this weekend. The first was none other than Werner Herzog's visual masterpiece, Aguirre: The Wrath of God starring Klaus Kinski. I found the film to be quite extraordinary, and the soundtrack was absolutely perfect, quiet and eerie (being a lover of soundtracks, I am now seeking this one out). But, the DVD I watched (from Netflix) left me wondering, is there a better (wide screen) release of this film? And also, while I am not yet very well versed on many of Herzog's films, I was left wondering also what the original spoken language of this film was. This version was dubbed in German and subbed in English. But one of the trailers from the extras section of the DVD was in English, leading me to believe that there must at least be an english version out there somewhere, which I would love to see. I could not tell if the film was originally shot in English at all, or if possible there were just audio issues due to the nature of the creation of the film, that warranted the entire overdubbing of the dialogue. Anyway, has anyone in the group seen a better version or know more about this one?
The second film we watched was one of Boris Karloff's last, Targets. It was an interesting film about a crazed gun enthusiast who goes on a sniping spree. How Karloff's character ends up the protagonist is amusing, especially at the very end. It is also worth watching the short "introduction" to the film by the director Peter Bogdanovich, who we all know better as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg from the Sopranos.
These are definitely worth checking out if you have not seen them.
|NFP|GasMask
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October 10 2005, 03:59:19 UTC 6 years ago
Aguirre, The Wrath of God is one of my favorite films and I'm surprised to see it mentioned here, but I love chatting about it. I'm a big fan of Kinski's work and I also admire the director Herzog a lot. As to your questions about the movie, Aguirre was originally shot and shown in 1:33, not in widescreen so there is no widescreen print of the film available. The movie was also "multi-lingual" so all the actors spoke whatever language they felt most comfortable using at the time (English, German, Polish, whatever) but since it was originally a German film, German actors dubbed the movie and the subtitles were in English which is a bit weird and rather confusing. Hope this helps answer your questions.
I also like Targets a lot! It's a rather unnerving film for it's time. I've only seen an old VHS copy of the movie so I should check out the DVD version soon. I'd like to see the intro you mentioned. I love how Karloff sort of plays himself in the film. That was fun to watch!
October 10 2005, 04:18:25 UTC 6 years ago
Targets is really a good watch, although it is quite dated looking. But nonetheless an interesting take on the transformation from 'old' style horror movies into the 'new' style.
October 10 2005, 04:35:42 UTC 6 years ago
The language thing with Aguirre is really odd and confused me a lot when I first saw it. It seems like Kinski is dubbed in half the movies he made and it bugs the crap out of me. He has such a great voice even when he's speaking English with a heavy German accent.
How does Targets look on DVD? I remember the VHS print of the movie I saw being pretty grainy.
October 10 2005, 04:45:16 UTC 6 years ago
Targets
The quality of the Targets DVD is pretty good, a nice wide screen transfer. The audio isn't acceptionally good however, but this is probably just the way the original audio was anyhow...|NFP|GasMask
PS-I am now loading up my Netflix que with Herzog/Kinski flicks :)
October 10 2005, 04:59:38 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Targets
It's nice to know the Targets DVD looks good and is in widescreen.You're in for some real nice surprises with the Kinski/Herzog films! Being an old fart myself, I came across the Kinski/Herzog movies in the late 80s and they really effected me deeply. I had been a Kinski fan since I was a kid because he always showed up in unusual horror films on late night TV when I was growing up, but Herzog really harnessed Kinski's screen presence into something profound in my opinion. :)