At 05:20  27/06/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >At which point does _Aguirre, the wrath of God_, become
> >documentary? What makes it more documentary than any other
> >historical epic?
>
>  From the moment it begins, AGUIRRE never ceases to make reference to its
>own production, from the water drops on the camera lenses, to the bright
>red paint-blood, to the real locations and indigenous people.  When
>watching we feel the filmmaking crew embarking on the same odyssey as the
>characters in the film.  All accounts hold that Kinski's volatile
>personality was in fact not all that different from Aguirre's, and that the
>crew suffered all kinds of physical and emotional hardships, mirroring the
>casualties depicted in the film.  One of Herzog's innovations is not to
>have his actors "act"; essentially they play themselves.  Similarly, one
>could say that Stroszek and Kaspar Hauser are two variations on Bruno S.
>himself (the ex-mental patient and the wild child).  In a sense, any
>fiction film is a document of its own making, but Herzog's special brand of
>performative "realism" lends itself to this kind of reading.


Very interesting, Matt. Fascinating and perplexing actually. But I think in
some ways this avoids the real problem of accounting for the ways in which
documentaries are different from fiction films.  The latter of course
always document something.  For example I look at _The Searchers_ and it
can be for me a document providing evidence as to Ford's style of
directing. Moreover if I look at John Wayne's acting then I can see that
Ford too got his actors to play themselves.

However can one really say that the purpose of _The Searchers_ is to
provide evidence or to document Ford's direction or Wayne's acting?  Or to
take Aguirre can we say that the purpose of that film is to document
Kinski's madness?

Rothman in his book on Documentary Classics gets bogged down in a
discussion on the non-difference between Lilian Gish playing a character,
Susie, and Nanook playing Nanook'. Rothman's argument essentially is that
both Gish and Nanook are performing. I have argued that there is a
difference in a prior posted on this thread, but I will pursue it a little
further if I may.

In _Aguirre_ we have Kinski playing Aguirre.  If I understand you correctly
you are arguing that this is the same as Kinski playing Kinski'. (As far as
I am aware there is no documentary on Kinski where he gets to perform
Kinski' and I have never sighted his autobiography).

To shorten this discussion let me repeat that Aguirre and  Kinksi'  refer
to different entities, though both in differing degrees may give us
information about Kinski. In the case of the film _Aguirre_ it is
incidental, while in any possible documentary that could have been made
then such information would have been central to the purpose of the film.

regards

Gary

Note to all - I am enjoying this thread and hope to learn a lot from
it.  ***Please*** do not let it degenerate into abuse of one another.