Fitzcarraldo
Fitzcarraldo is Werner Herzog's masterpiece about Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald an entrepeneur in turn-of-the-century Amazonian rainforest who is obsessed with building an opera house in the jungle. The movie opens with this marvelous scene of Fitzcarraldo and his companion Molly rowing up to a gala performance featuring Caruso. Even though the performance has started and he does not have a ticket, he manages to push his way in, manically explaining that he has traveled thousands of miles and rowed two days without ceasing to try to get to the performance. He holds up his hands, which are bleeding and covered in bandages.
This is a perfect opening for a film that is about passion and fanatical obsession. Fitzcarraldo keeps coming up with get-rich-quick schemes to fund his opera, only to have them fail through ill-fortune, or an inability for others to see the potential in his business. One scheme for an ice-making business is met with derision by the other wealthy rubber merchants in his town. The audience looks at the ice and imagines all the ways that this rough jungle outpost could improve their quality of life. The rubber merchants look at the ice and ask, 'What would I want that for?'
Fitzcarraldo's experiments are largely funded by Molly, who seems to be a madame with a house full of beautiful native girls. Molly, despite her long experience of Fitzcarraldo's fiasco, always seems willing to put up money for the next scheme. I think her willingness to bankroll F is two fold: she loves him, that much is clear; but she is also delighted by Fitzcarraldo's exploits. Even when he fails, he does so on a grand scale. Opera is an appropriate passion for this man, whose own ambitions are larger-than-life.
Klaus Kinski plays Fitzcarraldo with an insane vigor. Most of the film focuses around another one of his grand schemes to raise funds for the opera. I don't want to give up too much of the suspense of this film, but his plan requires transporting a boat over a mountain, and somehow through his own intensity and the music of Enrico Caruso, he manages to get a reclusive native tribe to help him attempt this feat. To find out whether or not he's successful, why the indigenous tribe helps, and what ultimately happens to Fitzcarraldo's dream to build an opera in the jungle, you will have to watch the movie yourself.
A few more words about the film that I think I can get away with without inserting spoilers:
1. There is nothing more insane than trying to transport a steamship over a mountain than trying to reproduce the feat on film. Herzog has a deep and abiding interest in these kinds of human obsessions and endeavors, in part because he is one of these creatures of vision himself. I was surprised to hear an interview with him on the radio, yesterday, involving the publications of his journals for Fitzcarraldo. You can hear it for yourself:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106012800&ft=1&f=2
2. My father would love this film, which features---among other things---a fantastic feat of engineering. The attempt to transport the boat over a mountain features a complicated, man-powered, pully system made largely out of vines and trees. Herzog has commented on the wonder of ancient engineering, that humans with minimal technology could do something as complex as Stonehenge.
3. Herzog has a very dark vision of humanity, but the ending of this film is supremely uplifting. To a certain extent, we are all superstitious creatures squatting in the darkness, but this movie makes an excellent argument for the grand gesture, for taking risk, and for the kind of personalities who have this kind of vision.
This is a marvelous film. I would love to see it on the big screen. If you have a chance to see this film, you shouldn't miss it.
The NYTimes reviews Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog's journals about the ordeal of making the film.
This is a perfect opening for a film that is about passion and fanatical obsession. Fitzcarraldo keeps coming up with get-rich-quick schemes to fund his opera, only to have them fail through ill-fortune, or an inability for others to see the potential in his business. One scheme for an ice-making business is met with derision by the other wealthy rubber merchants in his town. The audience looks at the ice and imagines all the ways that this rough jungle outpost could improve their quality of life. The rubber merchants look at the ice and ask, 'What would I want that for?'
Fitzcarraldo's experiments are largely funded by Molly, who seems to be a madame with a house full of beautiful native girls. Molly, despite her long experience of Fitzcarraldo's fiasco, always seems willing to put up money for the next scheme. I think her willingness to bankroll F is two fold: she loves him, that much is clear; but she is also delighted by Fitzcarraldo's exploits. Even when he fails, he does so on a grand scale. Opera is an appropriate passion for this man, whose own ambitions are larger-than-life.
Klaus Kinski plays Fitzcarraldo with an insane vigor. Most of the film focuses around another one of his grand schemes to raise funds for the opera. I don't want to give up too much of the suspense of this film, but his plan requires transporting a boat over a mountain, and somehow through his own intensity and the music of Enrico Caruso, he manages to get a reclusive native tribe to help him attempt this feat. To find out whether or not he's successful, why the indigenous tribe helps, and what ultimately happens to Fitzcarraldo's dream to build an opera in the jungle, you will have to watch the movie yourself.
A few more words about the film that I think I can get away with without inserting spoilers:
1. There is nothing more insane than trying to transport a steamship over a mountain than trying to reproduce the feat on film. Herzog has a deep and abiding interest in these kinds of human obsessions and endeavors, in part because he is one of these creatures of vision himself. I was surprised to hear an interview with him on the radio, yesterday, involving the publications of his journals for Fitzcarraldo. You can hear it for yourself:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106012800&ft=1&f=2
2. My father would love this film, which features---among other things---a fantastic feat of engineering. The attempt to transport the boat over a mountain features a complicated, man-powered, pully system made largely out of vines and trees. Herzog has commented on the wonder of ancient engineering, that humans with minimal technology could do something as complex as Stonehenge.
3. Herzog has a very dark vision of humanity, but the ending of this film is supremely uplifting. To a certain extent, we are all superstitious creatures squatting in the darkness, but this movie makes an excellent argument for the grand gesture, for taking risk, and for the kind of personalities who have this kind of vision.
This is a marvelous film. I would love to see it on the big screen. If you have a chance to see this film, you shouldn't miss it.
The NYTimes reviews Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog's journals about the ordeal of making the film.