荷索帶我們一窺文藝復興時期義大利天才作曲家卡洛傑蘇阿爾多（Carlo Gesualdo ）的瘋狂人生，這位16 世紀的親王兼聖樂作曲家，他的音樂啟發了華格納等人的作曲風格，但他卻又是個善嫉的虐待狂，因妻子瑪麗亞外遇，妒恨交加之下將她與情夫凌虐致死，甚至做成標本。他又因為懷疑兒子並非親生，竟然命兒子在合唱團的歌聲中盪鞦韆，致死方休。此後他返回城堡，抑鬱寡居終老。一連串瘋狂殘虐的行徑，不但在當時引發爭議，後人也對這位一手殺人、一手寫聖樂的傳奇人物充滿猜測與想像。
一向著迷於瘋狂人物的荷索，藉由此紀錄片走訪傑蘇阿爾多的城堡故居，以旁述的方式重現探索觀察這位殺人王子兼作曲家的傳奇人生，也找來樂團重新演出他的經典樂曲。在記錄、追訪、重現之中，帶領觀眾走回16 世紀的古堡中，聽見傑蘇阿爾多的聖潔與死亡的聲音。
荷索自己曾說：「這是最接近我心的一部片」。
The film explores the music of Carlo Gesualdo
and the legends sur rounding Ge sua ldo's
personality, his cursed castle, and his murder
of his wife and her lover. Between narration
and interviews, several of Gesualdo's madrigals
are performed. Herzog also visits some workers
from a local mental health clinic, who claim that
they once treated the woman who claimed to be
a ghost, and that they in fact have two patients
currently who believe themselves to be Carlo
Gesualdo.Herzog calls Death for Five Voices "one
of the films closest to my heart.
-------------------------------------------------------------
韋納荷索 Werner Herzog ―
德國知名導演、演員與編劇，1942年出生在慕尼黑。執導過多部劇情片及紀錄片，如《天譴》、《陸上行舟》、《灰熊人》等等。其中作品《太陽牧者》、《侏儒也是從小長大》曾分別在國民戲院的Body Song 及感應的謎與惑－「催眠、
附身、集體瘋狂」影展中放映。
He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and
Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of
19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed
more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such
as "Aguirre, the Wrath of God"(1972),"Nosferatu"(1978), "Fitzcarraldo"(1982), "Lessons of Darkness"(1992), "Little Dieter Needs to Fly"(1997), "My Best Fiend"(1999), "Invincible"(2000), "Grizzly Man"(2005),"Encounters at the
End of the World"(2007), "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"(2010).
Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of
prose, and directed as many operas.
