ABSTRACT

This study considers the broader filmic character of Herzog’s documentary style, as exemplified in Death for Five Voices (1995). It sees the inconsistencies and eccentricities, as well as the free invention and the fictionalisation, of the subject as part of Herzog’s striving for poetic—and, at appropriate junctures—ecstatic truth. Close attention is paid to the way the ‘moments of performance’ relate, both structurally and expressively, to the filmic layout, and to how the musical pillars of the structure operate psychologically—both for the viewer-listener, and in respect of Herzog’s representation of Gesualdo’s spiritual journey. Resulting from this manipulative yet inspired approach, through carefully judged exposure to Gesualdo’s highly charged idiom, we are offered a kind of musical ‘real presence’ which goes well beyond the task of mere ‘illustration’ to a regular documentary film.