Fitzcarraldo
Description
The story has the elegant, mysterious simplicity of a parable – or a dream.
Deep in the Amazon, a man obsessed with smoldering ambition struggles to make his fortune. His method lies in reaching an inaccessible forest of fourteen million rubber tires. His madness burns in his goal: to build his own personal opera house in the jungle.
Werner Herzog's amazing career has produced a succession of masterpieces: the hypnotic "Heart of Glass," the visionary "Aguirre, The Wrath of God," and now "Fitzcarraldo," a testament to the force of his originality – and the strength of his will.
For almost five years, Herzog labored to bring his epic to the screen. On location in Peru and Brazil, he faced delay, illness, accident, political unrest, even the defection of stars originally cast in "Fitzcarraldo" after shooting had commenced. Against all odds, Herzog succeeded.
His triumph – the victory of art over practical reality – is mirrored in a haunting central image. Star Klaus Kinski orders a 320-ton steamship to be hauled uphill by hundreds of Indian workers. Inch by inch, the ship makes its bizarre portage to the river tributary which will carry Fitzcarraldo to his goal. In cool irony, the strains of grand opera float out over a jungle oblivious to the meaning of man and his works.
As in previous Herzog films, Kinski seems the perfect embodiment of Herzog's uncompromising vision. Claudia Cardinale co-stars as Molly, the whorehouse madam who backs Fitzcarraldo's dream, and her performance is warmly appealing.
"I am looking for new images in film," Herzog has said. "I know that I have the ability to articulate images that sit deeply inside us, that I can make them visible."
"Fitzcarraldo" is the eloquent proof.