Let's be realistic.

A Masterpiece!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

We really do change a lot. Two years ago this was another Herzog-story on creative madness to me, one of many small ones he has done.I saw it this time with insights from a classically trained musician friend, and myself steeped in observation of storybased limits in Wagner as well as Italian Futurist writings from the 1910's about chromatic -abstract- harmony, among other things on disharmony I have been looking into.The piece is deceptively simple: disguised as documentary truth, we have, pieced together from several narrators, a short story on madness, tormented love, and musical genius that transcends the holy (from the time before Bach). And if the musings of the rough-hewn caretaker of the ruined estate can be safely waven off as tall folk legend, the by all means respectable director of the Gesualdo institute projects confidence, as he looks up from his stack of papers, that he is recounting an account of actual history of things as they happened.We go on to visit places central in events of that story, as well as closely examine some of the trinkets of drama: the actual bed where murders took place, the gruesomely displayed skeletons "most likely" those of illicit lovers.Other narrators are much more obviously unreliable than would satisfy truly fine limits between reality and fiction, but even so, many viewers have come out of this confused. It seems, from the perspective that this is really an account, a gross miscalculation on Herzog's part to include the obviously set-up bit with the supposed mad opera singer, interjecting staged eccentricity in the midst of truth. Not at all.The point is that down to the original - judicial - account, we only have testimonies and conjecture, and we can plainly see from testimonies Herzog has gathered in the course of the film, how difficult it is to surmise the real thing from stories about it. We come out of this with slight variations on the portrait of a man, with dissonance between the voices telling the story. The only truth left is in the music, excerpts of which are marvellously conducted for us.And how stupendous, that music - offered to god - is about slight dissonance between different voices, each one harmonical within itself, but the whole has subtle disharmony that is its own chromatic truth in the face of the harmony of logic, and that truth is we are dissonant beings.If you thought Herzog's recent Cave of Dreams was too ordinary, look again. It's about the same dissonance in our narrative devices.

Werner Herzog, in his storied film career, has made many a good documentary and mockumentary. Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices (Tod Für Fünf Stimmen), made in 1995, is not one of them. Coming from a master of cinema, like Herzog, though, that still means Gesualdo is a pretty good film, but don't expect anything of depth. Ostensibly, the film is a chronicle of the life of a 16th and 17th Century prince and musical composer named Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa. One might think that the sordid tale that emerges in the 60 minute, made for television documentary, was crafted just to satisfy Herzog's own dictates about 'ecstatic truth.' The film centers around Gesualdo's murder of his first wife, one Maria D'Avalos. The legend is that Gesualdo hired goons to rub out his wife in her bed, with an aristocratic lover. The bodies were then tossed into the street where a passing necrophilic monk supposedly copulated with Maria's corpse. No, I'm not making this up, as it seems to be a fact. There are also scenes on various estates of the prince where Herzog seems to just happen upon wacky locals (although he has admitted that they were staged events designed to get at a deeper reality about Gesualdo). There is a poor bagpipe playing musician who comes every week to the castle to play music to ward off the prince's evil spirit. At another time we see a supposed attractive red haired female mental patient running through ruins (never being able to lose Herzog's camera- a tip off to the setup), who, when trapped, claims she is the reincarnation of Maria, and that she lives in heaven, which may or may not be an opera box. It just happens that this Italian 'mental patient' speaks English, has a boom box with her, and is wearing a pushup bustier that enhances her massive mammary glands. She was hired by Herzog for the role, and is an Italian opera singer of some note called Milva.But, the worst thing about the film is the hagiographizing of Gesualdo as a musical genius, simply because several modern composers have tried to link him to their work. Yet, when one listens to the compositions played by an amateur ensemble, well, genius is not the word one feels evincing itself. The music is certainly not bad, but it is merely competent. There is none of the instant recognition of greatness one gets from listening to an Erik Satie piano etude nor the internal spark of seduction that a Vivaldi concerto for classical guitar imparts. Yes, there is a certain legitimacy to the gripe that the singers and conductor in the ensemble are not exactly top notch, but even adjusting a bit for amateurishness, the music simply will never be mistaken for something Mozart or Beethoven penned. Yet, this is exactly what Herzog intends- to build a dissonance between the mediocrity of his music and the flamboyance (mostly because of his wickedry) of the man. Why is he profiling this rather obscure (deservedly so) artist? Simple. It is what Werner Herzog must do to be Werner Herzog. In that sense, Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices reveals far more about its creator than it does about its subject. Witness the multiple breaks of the fourth wall, and the sometimes absurdly long takes of people babbling on about Gesualdo's life whilst Herzog's camera strays to a cobweb upon a window or across a once verdant valley that Gesualdo reputedly chopped down himself over the course of several months.What all this might have to do with revelation of something deeper is....well, nothing. If anything, this film's quirky style is its raison d'etre. One feels that, had Herzog not settled on Gesualdo as fodder. He would have made a film about the very next thing that popped into his mind. And the film's style of embellishment upon already wacky reality seems designed to make Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices a This Is Spinal Tap of classical music, or an F For Fake for music. Why? Again, because it's Werner Herzog. Unfortunately, the lack of depth is what ultimately dooms this film. Other than Herzog's interest in the composer and his luridness, there really is no reason for anyone else to be interested, unlike other great documentaries he's done. Lessons Of Darkness, My Best Fiend, Grizzly Man, and Little Dieter Needs To Fly, all had reasons for their making and/or provided a new twist on something not seen before. Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices is just a quirky little television documentary, possibly a made for hire production.Regardless, intent means nothing, and the end result of all the confabulations, half-assed expertise, and staged incidents is a mediocre film, possibly the worst Herzog's ever made, and certainly the worst film of his I've watched. But, again, the caveat is that Herzog is a great artist, so even his worst has moments of artistic and journalistic redemption that makes a viewer smirk, despite his better angels. The film claims that Gesualdo spent the last 16 years of his life as an increasingly insane and reclusive madman. Whether or not this is true is of no real import, but by the end of this 'documentary' I was of the opinion that had Herzog shot the film as a fiction, along the line of his earlier The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, the film would have been better for its odd flourishes. A touch of his patented 'eye level realism,' a dash of 'ecstatic truth,' and participants that seem to be a bit more engaged, and Herzog could have really bamboozled a fictive account of the wacky composer that his 'straight' mockumentary misses. As it is, Gesualdo: Death For Five Voices is merely a curio, even if from a master. But, after a curio is in one's grip, it ends up in a corner with dust upon it. Swiffer, anyone?

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!

Oh my, this documentary has a lingering fascination with the colourful life of one helluva kinky dude! From masochism to homo eroticism, from murder to insanity, nothing ordinary inhabits the skin of this castle dwelling Prince/ "amateur musician". And yes, I friggin' loved it!! For all the wrong reasons, of course...Like the disparate five voices performing Gesualdo's Midralgo masterpieces, this extremely off-kilter documentary is brimming with schizo discordance worthy of a Herzog stamp. At times godawfully serious, at others offbeat deadpan. Eventually, the film veered off the edge and into LOL looney territory. This straight talking heads docu meet Spinal Tap-like hi-jinks is so generously sprinkled with Pythonite dust, it has become a monster hybrid which only Herzog is capable of making. Yes, once again, we were all fooled by the solemn music and the narrator's earnest German accented voice. And ladies and germs, that ending? Priceless. OK, my quips on this flick so far cannot do it justice. Herzog devotees out there, drop what you are doing right now! Go hunt it down already!Sample below classic lines from yet another Herzogian masterpiece:Italian Chap to a crazy woman: "What is your address? How can I contact you?" Crazy Woman, who is a self-professed incarnate of Gesualdo's murdered wife (don't ask): "I live up in heaven. You can take a helicopter up to find me...."