ericm4
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!
Matthew Janovic
This is the place where the modern-horror genre begins--people like Italian Renaissance Prince, Carlo Gesualdo. Possibly born in 1561 (or 1566, depending on who you believe), Gesualdo was born into nobility, and was the recipient of a Principality in the town of Venosa, and a Duke of the Kingdom of Naples. The Gesualdos were connected by blood-ties to nearly every noble family in Renaissance Italy. Carlo was considered a child-prodigy like Mozart, and was an accomplished performer of the lute and harpsichord. In 1586, he married his cousin, Maria d'Avalos. The woman was known for both her incredible beauty and her amorousness (though this is debatable), and the marriage was possibly ill-fated due to Gesualdo's abusive-behavior. It is unknown whether this is the reason for d'Avalos's infidelities, though his second-wife consulted a witch who poisoned the Prince in an attempt to enchant him. Both his wife and concubine were imprisoned and tortured for the deed, dying shortly-afterwards from the ordeal. It's uncontroversial that the Prince was a sadist, and Gesualdo had wanted them hanged, but the Church interceded. However, it does appear that infidelity was the reason why Carlo murdered d'Avalos and her lover in what is considered the most heinous murder in the history of music.By 1590, the marriage had gone-sour: the Prince had found the apartment that the two lovers were using from an uncle (a Cardinal who had unsuccessfully attempted his own affair with d'Avalos). The place was a niche-room in his own palace, and he commenced the planning of a murder. In a premeditated-act, Gesualdo told d'Avalos he would be away on a hunting-trip overnight, but he and a personal guard waited-nearby until the two had consummated their lovemaking, falling-asleep. Gesualdo kicked-in the door and stabbed Maria d'Avalos dozens-of-times in the abdomen and vagina, as well as similar sexual-mutilations on her consort, the Duke of Andria. It is said in the local-legends of Venosa that after Gesualdo had dragged their bodies into-the-street, a San Dominican monk committed an act of necrophilia on the body of d'Avalos. Afterwards, Gesualdo had their bodies publicly-displayed on the steps of a Church, eventually using the corpses for an alchemical-experiment that rubberized their organs and circulatory-systems. The bodies are still on-display in a Church in Venosa, as Carlo was an alchemical-genius. Because he was a Princeps, there were no charges.From the time that Carlo Gesualdo murdered his first-wife, until his death in 1613, he did penance by composition and flagellation. It is said that he suffered from asthma and constipation, and was possibly further-enfeebled by his poisoning by the witch and sorcerer at-the-behest of his concubine and his second-wife. For the rest-of-his life, Gesualdo composed his haunting madrigals, and was well-known in his time as a composer of genius. Today, he is even more well-known, which is probably due to the depraved life he led, and this documentary by the also-legendary Werner Herzog (commissioned in 1995 by ZDF). The murders haunted him until-the-end: immediately-after the killings, he personally cut-down the forest surrounding Castle Gesualdo, much like Macbeth's fear of Birnham woods. Interest in the occult was universal in the time of the Prince, and it begs-the-question whether Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were informed-of Gesualdo's story through the court of Elizabeth the I. A surprising number of Elizabethan plays come from stories whose origins reside in Renaissance Italy. It's my opinion that it bears some investigation. By the end of his life, Prince Carlo Gesualdo was madder than Macbeth. Why do I think the modern horror-story originated with Gesualdo? A hunch.Werner Herzog does incredible justice to the story of Gesualdo, and the events which made him famous. But, he goes further by interviewing contemporary-residents of Venosa on the impact left by the man into today. In contemporary Venosa, many people around the town still shun the name of Carlo Gesualdo, while the mentally-ill fancy they ARE the Prince, reincarnated. Others, such as the mad opera-singer who "haunts" Castle Gesualdo, fancy they are Maria d'Avalos. It seems the belief in magic is alive-and-well in Venosa and Ferrera, and local-occultists enter the castle to exorcise it regularly with all-manner of approaches (one uses a bellows-bagpipe). With skill, Herzog wipes-away centuries with his approach, making this story a living one about the battles within all of humankind that continue into these times. The music of Carlo Gesualdo is unearthly, yet it is so terminally-human, just like his legacy. Perhaps we find him so interesting because he was 300-years ahead of his time, compositionally (and alchemically). This is the documentary as high-art.
nbott
Gesualdo was a nutcase, but a brilliant one. His madrigals are among the most moving moments in music history. You will walk away from this film realizing all of the above. While using what appears to be actual employees at the various sites of Gesualdo's life, we are given a tour of his physical life and his music. There are performance excerpts from his madrigals. There is a learned professorial type giving us a biography of his life.Simply put, if you enjoy great vocal music, you will want to go out and buy recordings of this master artist. I have recordings of his first 5 books but I can not yet find a recording of his 6th book of madrigals. This film is not quite the over-the-top approach that Mr. Herzog usually takes, but it is quite strange anyway. It is now out on DVD and I highly recommend it.
