Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog
German
“It’s only the dreamers who ever move mountains”
If the judgment criteria for a film included the way it was made and the circumstances under which it was pulled off, Fitzcarraldo (1982) perhaps would rate as the best movie ever made. The Reason? Take a look at the outstanding documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo – Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982) – and see if you can believe it. Watching the making of Fitzcarraldo is like watching Picasso paint in Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso (1956) as we practically witness the work of art take shape through an array of improvisations and brainwaves and burst out into its moment of glory. One begins to wonder if the final product alone is sufficient while assessing an artist or if the tools and means of its creation should be considered too.
I may sound like appreciating the making of the film more than the film itself. But that in no way takes the credit away from Fitzcarraldo as a standalone piece. Some consider it as Herzog’s best film. Clearly, it is up there with the likes of Stroszek (1977), Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) and a few others. Fitzcarraldo follows the titular character’s larger-than-life quest to harvest rubber from a practically isolated plantation in order to make money to build an opera house. The central activity involves the towing of a gigantic ship from one Amazonian tributary onto another with the help of the supposedly savage natives. The story and the one behind it are legends by themselves and I would like to just add whatever we see on-screen is indubitably autobiographical – not in the physical sense, but the emotions underneath.
Fitzcarraldo is clear evidence that Herzog has this natural inclination to stage operas. Even though he would argue against bringing ideas of opera into cinema and vice-versa, Fitzcarraldo comes out as a grandly staged opera with its own exhilarating crescendos and chilling decrescendos. Herzog direction percolates into as far as his locales that seem to have taken a demonic life of their own. The ever-shocking Kinski in tandem with that element of Herzogian mystery are sure to haunt you long after the film has ended.
The Seventh Art 
March 22, 2009 at 5:24 am
Interesting piece as always…Srikanth, for me, this movie gives us a basic understanding of the director Herzog and his condition to stretch the boundaries(physical and mental) of a human being one that is reached through some form of a regression when put man vs machine vs. surrounding.
The documentary continues to fascinate me more than the film itself. The film what we witness at least shows us the madness of the character Kinski, but the documentary blurs the line and unmasks the madness of Herzog one that he chose Kinski to depict. I continue to like the docu more.
And one of the fascinating memories I have is watching Augirre Wrath of God and being introduced to the films of Herzog on giant screen on the shores of Puri during the BYOFF film festival early one moring around 2006…Its only on a big screen could one witness the madness and the landscape for which the PC and TV continue to be a second fiddle.
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March 23, 2009 at 9:12 am
Yes, The big screen is the only correct way to watch Herzog’s films… But sadly….
The relationship between Kinskl and herzog seems to be like the one between an object and its imageon the mirror… Poles apart yet the same.
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March 25, 2009 at 8:22 pm
[…] from three of Herzog’s films in which Presser worked – Invincible (2001), Cobra Verde (1987) and Fitzcarraldo (1982) – though there are quite a few snapshots from some of his other films too. With almost an […]
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September 4, 2010 at 6:57 pm
[…] is set in the eponymous opera house in Manaus, Brazil, which one might remember from Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982), and consists of a single half-hour shot filmed in 35mm of a native audience listening to a […]
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