Fitzcarraldo
Werner Herzog’s 1982 Amazonian epic, Fitzcarraldo, explores the idea of impossible dreams. Set in early twentieth century Peru, the story follows an eccentric Irishman and opera-lover, Brian ‘Fitzcarraldo’ Fitzgerald, who dreams of making his fortune in the rubber business. After appropriating a ramshackle steam-ship, a crew and a parcel of rubber-rich land, he sets off down the Amazon’s tributaries. But to reach his land – which is cut-off from the world by dangerous rapids and tribes of unwelcoming Indians – he must physically haul his 320 ton ship over a mountain. Fitzcarraldo/Herzog actually succeed in doing this, in a feat of Neolithic engineering that is surely one of cinema’s greatest ever accomplishments. Understandably, the production of Fitzcarraldo was fraught with problems and tragedies, but the end result is singularly stunning. Herzog’s impeccable direction and unswerving dedication to ‘ecstatic truth’ are well complimented by lead actor Klaus Kinski, who performs with his usual intense, lunatic brilliance. Highly recommended.
‘…A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong…’
Werner Herzog, on the making of Fitzcarraldo
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Tags: Amazon, Fitzcarraldo, Herzog, Kinski
Fri, Oct 9, 2009
Cinema