The cowardly wise man wanted to take the whole world to his hands, but the world belongs to brave fools.
'Fitzcarraldo' by Werner Herzog in production was given no easier than the main character adventurous idea. With a budget, the film failed miserably and was undeservedly forgotten. Unfortunately, unlike many of its brethren, Fitzcaraldo did not acquire a cult status, but only covered with a layer of dust.
For Werner Herzog, this work was somewhat similar to the work of Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now. Like Francis Ford Coppola, Werner Herzog put everything he could into the film and even a little more, considering how many problems he had to go through during filming, which by the way took 4 years. Unlike Apocalypse Now, Fitzcarraldo has never been successful with the public, although curiously it has a number of very similar patterns.
The central theme of the film is completely focused on the disclosure of the main character, we can say in its archetype brought to the absurd, but without sliding into buffoonery. Fitzcarraldo in the narrative with all its outstanding qualities is set as a counterweight to the rest of the world and the characters represented in the tape. He is absolutely not interested in the things that are so interested in “ordinary people”; his motivation, although it seems ridiculous and absurd on the surface, in depth has a “foundation” much stronger than others, indifferent to the material. Absurd adds that the main character is perplexed and does not even suggest why people around him do not share his ideas and views, seemingly so obvious and simple.
The technical aspect of the film, of course, raises only one question, why this film, even after so many years, has not found its audience. The work of the operator and the scenes of large-scale plans are verified to the smallest detail. There are a number of film directors when watching the works of which, even through the monitor screen, a scrupulous approach to every detail is felt, where every frame and plan are verified to the millimeter, Francis Ford Coppola immediately comes to mind.
In conclusion, I would like to note the main mood of the film. One modern musician 'Loc-Dog' in his song once said: 'The cowardly wise man wanted to take the whole world to his hands, but the world belongs to brave fools', 'Fitzcarraldo' reveals this topic in an extremely entertaining and most uneating way.
A great movie about a great loser. Or a crazy movie about a crazy hero. Werner Herzog calls himself a conquistador of the senseless.
Klaus Kinsky was to be replaced by another actor. And not even one - there was a squire performed by Mick Jagger. But they jumped. Filming three years in the jungle is not for everyone. At some point, the director almost played the main role himself. But his favorite enemy, Klaus, came to the jungle. He threw tantrums there, had intercourse with a palm tree, almost was killed by the Indians, tried to escape, but still stayed and did it.
I was driving the boat over the mountain.
You can watch this scene forever. And it lasts forever. Without gluing, without special effects, very slowly the steamer pulls itself up on land with its own mechanical innards.
He wanted to build an opera on the shores of the Amazon. And for this you need to commit a crazy act in its senselessness.
Steamboat, Indians, opera, jungle. And the director's crazy dream.
The world is ruled by dreams. You would say that only happens in movies. But do not forget that filming is not only a colossal work, but also someone's dream.
Especially revealing is the story of the creation of the film “Fitzcarraldo” by German director Werner Herzog.
The film tells the story of a fanatically in love with the music and voice of the great tenor Enrico Caruso ethnic Irishman, bankrupt tycoon Brian Fitzgerald, living in Latin America. In order to hear the voice of the idol live, he makes a journey of 2000 miles in the Amazon. After meeting the beautiful, he decides to build an opera house in the village of Iquitos - the heart of the impenetrable Peruvian jungle. But, as is often the case, the realization of the dream interferes with the financial issue. Fitzcarraldo, as Fitzgearalda is called in America, decides to equip an expedition to develop rubber plantations, hitherto untouched due to their inaccessibility. But the road to wealth lies through crossing extremely dangerous river thresholds and meeting hostile Indian tribes.
Sounds incredible, doesn't it? However, the main character of the film had a real prototype - "rubber baron" Carlos Fermina Fitzcarraldo, who actually made the most difficult transition through a deadly threshold on a ship weighing 28 tons, persuaded to help the Indians.
It's impressive. But that's not all. The fact is that devoted to art is no less fanatical than his hero, director Werner Herzog for four years created a picture of what a person is capable of, driven only by a dream. He repeated the incredible expedition, collecting a ship weighing 328 tons and enlisting the support and consent to film the leader of this Indian tribe. All scenes of the film were performed without the use of special effects: the director with manic passion tried to convince the viewer of the reality of what was happening. Filming took place in the harshest conditions of impenetrable Peruvian forests, untouched by civilization and virginally clean.
That’s how, talking about the embodiment of a crazy dream, absolutely impossible and unthinkable, Herzog embodied his life. He gave us an epic sweep of inspiring story. For his titanic work, Werner Herzog was awarded the palm branch to the best director at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
8 out of 10
For me, watching an old three-hour movie, which is already considered a classic of the genre, is already a serious quest for exposure. But still for the sake of his own domestication, so to speak, it was worth going through and forming his personal attitude to such an epic project of the mad director Werner Herzog. I can tell the story in two words: the ship sailed! Here is the story that lies on the surface. But I will try to take an unbiased look at the pitfalls that can be found here if I wish.
First, it is worth paying attention to the madness of the protagonist Brian Fitzgerald, whom the Peruvians dubbed Fitzcarraldo. His obsession is immediately apparent. Well, would a normal person go the longest 2,000 miles on a boat to listen to an opera? But Fitzcarraldo plans to open his opera house right in these picturesque virgin places to celebrate the name of the legendary Caruso. You can even envy the main character to some extent. It goes beyond what the human mind considers madness and keeps moving forward. But I don't like the hero. A terrible egoist, who, because of his breeze in his head, creates an energy funnel where he sucks everyone in the district. In fact, with his own hands, he did not really do anything to achieve his dreams, but everyone around buzzed like bees. Well, purely outwardly, Kinsky with a crazy look and a creepy perhydrol blonde is far from my standard of male attractiveness.
Secondly, it is worth noting the attitude of the director to the hero. Here only the lazy will not notice that Werner Herzog gives the character his personal qualities. He's just as crazy as he is about to get to his goal. That is, he does not care that someone on the set really has to drag a huge ship on his shoulders. There were no casualties! For example, his perception of the world is unpleasant to me. Thirdly, the director was so carried away by narcissism that he completely scored on the real prototype of the “rubber baron”. I think if you take an interesting fact from another person’s life, you should tell people their story. But the lust for profit is not as romantic as the ephemeral dream of an opera in a Peruvian jungle. In short, it's not my movie at all. A nasty protagonist and director who treats his team like expendable material. There is an unpleasant residue from this story.
PS: But on the subject of dreams from old-school cinema, I would recommend a more soulful drama by Swedish director Jan Truel “Emigrants”. Here more catches not obsession with dreams, but the hope of people for a bright future and faith in their own strength. This is somehow more motivating than the Fitzcarraldo story, in my opinion.
2 out of 10
Prominent West German director Werner Herzog was often attacked for his disregard for danger and creative obsession, forcing him to constantly risk the life and health of the film crew and himself. As a result, opponents of the director and even some of his fans consider Herzog a fanatic ready to go to his goal literally on corpses, as Lope de Aguirre did - the hero of his early masterpiece Aguirre, the wrath of God. In the film “Fitzcarraldo” Herzog’s obsession reached its climax, and the number of traumatic situations to this day remains a record in his long and fruitful career.
Irish meloman Brian Swinney Fitzgerald, or as he is called by the Indians Fitzcarraldo, having visited the Amazonas Theater at an opera performance with the participation of Enrico Caruso, decides on a grandiose and unprecedented act - construction in his native Iquitos, located in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, a real opera house. To implement this crazy plan, a lot of money is needed, and therefore Fitzgerald decides to get rich through the extraction of rubber. To do this, he rents a land plot on the banks of the Ukayali River. However, it is very difficult to get there, because it is necessary to overcome very dangerous thresholds. Then Fitzcarraldo decides on a very desperate act - to pass a dangerous area on another river, and then drag a multi-ton ship across the narrow isthmus of land from one river to another.
Everyone who is familiar with Herzog’s creative method was hardly surprised that the director decided to exactly recreate Fitzcarraldo’s feat, however, even they probably twisted their finger at the temple, realizing the danger of the venture. But here, nevertheless, it is worth noting that Herzog almost the only time in his career went to a creative compromise and somewhat simplified the task, namely - with the help of the Indians, he tore down the hill by hand, thereby changing the degree of inclination from 60 to 40. But that didn’t make it an easy walk.
“Fitzcarraldo” became a real challenge even for such a desperate daredevil as Werner Herzog. In fact, the film became the quintessence of creative searches and the most daring dreams of the director, and the main character is his alter ego. Just as Fitzcarraldo went to the real madness in his attempts to build an opera house in the jungle at all costs, Herzog, sparing neither himself nor the film crew, tried to depict this in as much detail as possible in his film. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the period between leaving the project due to the illness of American actor Jason Robards, who originally played Fitzcarraldo, and the life-saving replacement in the person of Klaus Kinsky, Herzog thought about playing the role of the protagonist himself, since on the other side of the camera he was, in fact, he was. In Fitzcarraldo, Herzog, who had previously strived for Nietzschean self-improvement, becomes the bridge between man and the superman.
The picture, which was given to the director at such a high price, the production of which took more than one year and which was not without injuries and even human casualties, became, nevertheless, the most life-affirming work of Herzog. And Klaus Kinsky played his most positive role here, almost for the first time demonstrating the bright side of nature on the screen. It is the role of Fitzcarraldo that can be considered, perhaps, the main evidence of the real dramatic talent of the famous actor, because other images embodied by him in Herzog’s films can be interpreted as the skillful use by the director of Kinsky’s insane disposition and the ability to tame and direct this disposition in the right direction. In Fitzcarraldo, Kinsky appears before the viewer a real altruist (we do not forget, however, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions), carrying, like Prometheus, the fire of art to his native Iquitos, simultaneously illuminating the jungle with them. Blue eyes and blonde hair, coupled with a white suit and an equally snow-white smile, work here to enhance the sunny image of Fitzcarraldo (if you recall “Aguirre, the wrath of God”, then Kinsky’s appearance also strengthened the image – white patches that are uncharacteristic for the Basque conquistador, knocking out from under the helmet can be interpreted as a certain foreign element, or even a fetish, like the mustache of Adolf Hitler).
Grand in its epicity and epic in its grandeur, the project became for Herzog a real artistic Everest - a triumph of will and a victory of Nietzschean ambitions over common sense. After that, he is waiting for a gradual creative extinction. In the latest conditionally artistic (yes, this word is necessary here!) feature film directed by “Cobra Verde” is already visible some fatigue and humility with the inevitable aging. And the final of the climbing tape “The Scream of Stone” looks like a director’s self-irony – Herzog’s kind banter over his former ambitions. And although he still continues to make films in very difficult conditions, still appeared in his manner caution and a certain mature prudence. Rapid youth gradually passed, though not in a quiet, but relatively measured old age. Roughly speaking, after Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog gradually transformed from a frantic experimental artist into a diligent and consistent artisan. So be it.
It seems to me that it rarely happens that a story about a feat, a heroic or volitional effort, an individual or a group of people, ultimately surpasses the source itself, becoming a real battle, an epic confrontation of man against nature, which in the end is even more interesting and large-scale than the plot of history. In the case of Fitzcaraldo, this is exactly what happened, and the painting from a work of art grew into an almost documentary depiction of an unimaginably complex, laborious, courageous and willful effort to “take heights.” The Duke and his team in the heart of Africa.
The title of the film by the name of the main character rather speaks not about him, since this story is essentially not about an individual person, but about a certain aspiration, effort, perseverance inherent in the human soul. It is likely that this is a kind of monument to the Duke (and Kinsky) his own ambitions, transcending all the facets of the material world and its possibilities. Fitzcaraldo is a collective image, a kind of half-human demigod (subhuman for tycoons, superhuman for Indians), a hero existing simultaneously in two worlds and desperately wanting to connect these two worlds in any way (thanks to Kinsky we can see a magnificent character “not of this world”). One of them is the world of plantation capitalists, where dreams are limited to endless increases in profits, symbolized in the film by the right-wing offshoot of the Amazon. The other is a world of Indians with a wide range of cultural beliefs and established traditions, where dreams of happiness and deliverance from suffering are located to the left of the jungle. Fitzcaraldo (as an image) is an attempt to reconcile two so different worlds ... and an attempt that succeeded.
Despite this, the main character still failed to fully realize his idea - to enrich himself and build an opera house in the heart of Africa, capable of healing souls. But if he did, he would have betrayed the lunar world, completely immersed in material concerns for business and prosperity. And the realization of a dream always entails the death of ideals (" The ideal is sacred and great that we cannot reach its peaks). Yes, the world has not budged, the planters have not abandoned their despotic, merciless exploitation of the natives, who in turn will not be able to hear in their jungles the great Caruso, saving the soul from suffering. BUT. A fact that is invisible to others is still there, and consists in nothing but the triumph and triumph of the human spirit, freedom and individuality over “natural necessity.”
This victory, as I pointed out at the beginning, is even more vividly expressed not through the plot and the characters of the film, but through the film itself and its creation. For the first time, I watched Burden dreams with as much interest as the film itself. The difference between the artistic reality of the Duke and the documentary is striking. Obviously, the German director not only repeated the feat of Brian Fitzgerald, but also surpassed it. Herzog’s ship was several times larger and heavier, moreover – he had to lead and monitor a lot of people, while not forgetting that you need to shoot everything on camera, which entails additional difficulties (such as lighting, sound, etc.).
Many of us, in principle, tend to underestimate the complexity and importance of the very process of creating a film - from finding the necessary funds to the final editing, and sometimes it is he who is a real feat. All works of the highest level are born only in agony (like the torment of all mothers), and Fitzcarraldo is the best proof of this.
This film is shameful and ridiculous to scold. But what can I do to myself? Yes, he has a lot of undeniable merits. And it's not even merit that matters. This movie is a feat. It is difficult to understand how a mere mortal can make a film according to such a scenario and in such conditions, and all without a single special effect. Werner Herzog did. A man of great scale, what is here? He proved that he had no equal.
But the audience is watching! Herzog, carried away by overcoming his hellish conditions, did not care at all about the ordinary, ordinary viewer. You know, I get it. Or at least something. I like the main character terribly, and Kinski’s game is just a pleasure. I recognize the genius of using Caruso's music. Footage in which the steamer slowly drags down the slope, or where he descends from a terrible river threshold, masterpiece.
Herzog's film is beautiful and profound. It's indisputable. But it doesn’t seem to be made for the viewer. It's very hard to watch. It's very long. Very monotonous. Very straightforward. Terribly boring. It's basically a documentary. You don’t have to watch 2.5 hours to know what you’re talking about. Not all Herzogian viewers. Not everyone likes to overcome difficult conditions. Some people just want to relax and relax.
I watched Fitzcarraldo with 10 people. They were people of different ages and professions. They all agree that the film is boring and long. One person summed up his attitude as follows: “If the movie was on TV, he would switch in 15 minutes.”
To claim that Fitzcarraldo is an adventure film is a brazen and unscrupulous lie. Yes, it is a very special, unique and unique creation. Masterpiece, no words. But "adventure" for me means full of intrigue, drive and not let you get bored for a second. And let there be special effects, what is wrong with them? The great Herzog deceived, confused the concepts of "documentary" and "fiction". And in the end I got what the author of these lines yawned every two minutes of his film.
After two consecutive journeys into the historical past, Herzog makes a new pilgrimage to South America, and again to the Amazon jungle. Almost three-year (with interruptions) filming expedition of the film “Fitzcarraldo” gained fame as one of the most difficult and tragic in the history of cinema. Several deaths, a lot of injuries and injuries during filming, which were repeatedly interrupted due to bad weather and accidents, imbalanced the group.
The first did not withstand such a severe regime famous rock singer Mick Jagger, who began to star in the film, but then terminated the contract and left the group. Shooting in the picture equated to a feat that was not possible for everyone. This is best evidenced by Le Bran’s documentary “The Burden of Dreams”, which tells just how difficult the work on the film took place.
As in Aguirra, Herzog remained true to himself, repeatedly surpassing the achievement of the Irishman Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, nicknamed by the locals Fitzcarraldo. A hundred years ago, he managed to persuade the Indians to drag a huge boat weighing 28 tons across a mountain pass. Herzog, being the same fanatic of the idea, was able to do the same with a ship of scales of 340 (!) tons, that is, 12 times more.
A giant ship towering on a mountain steeple, it is unlikely that any other majestic image will be able to adequately express the scale of the aspirations of “Columba Cinema”. All this became possible thanks not only to the ambitious director’s ideas, but also to the desire to tell the story of a man madly in love with opera and the voice of the great Caruso.
Obsessed with the idea of an opera production in a virgin forest, Fitzcarraldo goes to the impenetrable jungle, where there are the richest rubber plantations. On their development, he plans to earn money to build an opera house and invite European stars to perform in it. Once again, exploring the conflict between the world and the personality striving for the absolute, Herzog turns to the hero who, although he suffers a formal defeat here, spiritually still remains the winner.
This film occupies a special place in the filmography of the director. The time of its creation - 4 full 1978 - 1981 years. To describe it first in one sentence, we can say: metaphysical mystery through visual language.
Its plot is simple and unpretentious as a landscape, a ship and a jungle - the main spaces of the film - archetypes floating in, or, more conveniently, on the river of time.
In the documentary The Burden of Dreams, the director calls it a Sisypho-like story about challenging the impossible, serving as a prototype - a real figure - of the rubber baron Carlos Fermin Fitzcarraldo, who crossed a boat from one river system to another through a small isthmus, dismantling a ship; in a dream and film - to build an opera house in the jungle, where to bring the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. Not having enough money, Fitzcarraldo decides to buy a ship and an area full of trees, but difficult to access because of dangerous rapids, which do not allow to move the ship to the upper tributary of the river. A large ship in these conditions is vital for the transportation of equipment, transportation, etc.
And then together with the team decides to move the entire ship from a parallel tributary of the river to the place where they are separated by a very small space of land. With the help of a tribe of Indians fascinated by the music and voice of Caruso, they transport a ship across a steep hillside. After a brief joy and a night of drinking, when the Indians untie the ship at night to appease the spirits of the river and those who died at work, the ship almost crashes in the stormy streams of water, like the Fitzcarraldo enterprise. But the main protagonist finds the strength to turn defeat into victory, bringing a touring orchestra, and solemnly swim with him to the sounds of the opera past the city.
Herzog created the film in the midst of a war between Indian tribes and the state of Peru in the arena of a battle for power and a land full of oil and minerals - in this eternal human comedy. And only after convincing the Indians that he and the crew are not going to stay here forever, they allow him to shoot, and even agree to help. Which was especially helpful when we had to move the ship. Unavoiding attacks by negative aborigines, he finds the river port city of Iquitos - once born of rubber fever in northern Peru, where and when he transfers the scene of the film, where the music-obsessed Irishman wants to build an opera house.
The central metaphor of the film – the transportation of a ship along a mountain slope – became a key image in the work of the German director Werner Herzog, who brought the language of the cinematography to a new level with his ship. Many directors drew inspiration from his amazing wanderings and extravaganzas of small, obsessed and invincible people.
And if we assume that time is the existence of eternity, we can guess for whom the red chair is intended.
Fitzcarraldo is a delightful cinematic ode to human courage, determination, self-confidence, perseverance, resourcefulness, fearlessness, devotion to one’s dream. This is the story of the son of Irish immigrants Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, who became known in South America as Fitzcarraldo. He was a true romantic, a tireless dreamer, a man with an open heart. And he loved Italian opera, especially the tenor Enrico Caruso. Fitzcarraldo took on the most inconceivable projects, such as the construction of a railway across the Andes or the construction of an opera house among the rainforests on the shores of the Amazon. Where sensible entrepreneurs retreated under the pressure of common sense, this seemingly naive but actually stubborn man took up the cause. He did not complete any of his enterprises and he was not rich at all, so among people of respect and “sensibility” he quickly acquired a reputation as a malacholous failure. But there was a woman who loved him and supported him in every endeavor. She approved of all of Fitzcarraldo’s plans, because she believed that one day her beloved man would achieve great success and wipe the nose of all his detractors.
The painting by Werner Herzog depicts the period in the life of Fitzcarraldo, when he, together with his faithful friend, visited the concert of Enrico Caruso in the famous Amazonas Theater, set out to build a temple of opera art in the heart of the Peruvian jungle and invite the great tenor to the opening. For this idea, Fitzcarraldo goes to rubber plantations, because the extraction of rubber at that time was a very profitable business. On his waterway, the legendary dreamer will have to cope with the natural obstacles and mentality of the Indians living on both banks of the Ukayali River.
Werner Herzog treated his work as zealously and responsibly as he treated his enterprises Fitzcarraldo. The German director demanded from his team absolute naturalism and truthfulness in the shooting. Because of his demands, Herzog constantly quarreled on the set with Claus Kinsky, the performer of the role of Fitzcarraldo. But it was worth it. Thanks to Herzog’s perfectionism, the viewer sees an inspiring and touching picture in which the life of the South American peoples of the early twentieth century is described in detail. What stands out is a scene in which Fitzcarraldo and the Indians are forced to drag a 328-ton ship across a kilometer-high mountain range to find themselves in a nearby river and pass dangerous rapids. This episode is the whole triumph of the human mind, physics and inspiration over natural obstacles.
Werner Herzog’s film is worth watching not only to find out whether Fitzcarraldo has implemented his grandiose plan, and admire the brilliant performance of Claus Kinsky (as Fitzcarraldo) and Claudia Cardinale (as Molly, Fitzcarraldo’s muse). The tape allows you to immerse yourself in the realities of a century ago, to realize the depth and diversity of the human soul, to believe in the magical unifying power of art and to feel proudly human.
"Fitzcarraldo" - shot 10 years later free remake of the wonderful film of the same director "Aguirre, the wrath of God." A common theme obsessed with the jungle, overcoming difficulties, Klaus Kinsky against the backdrop of the American jungle landscape. At the same time, the later film is ideologically and artistically weaker, stretched. plot uninteresting and "watery". The work of Klaus Kinsky can be characterized by smooth, without frills. Claudia Cardinale in the prime of her beauty. There are beautiful nature shootings and Italian opera.
Just as power is a drug much stronger than Italian opera, so Aguirre is very superior to its follower in all respects.
There is no point in disputing Herzog’s great technical staging skills (a drawn-out scene of carrying a ship), his ability to shoot a film in difficult field conditions – but besides this, the film is not impressive. The award in Cannes for directing was given precisely out of the desire to pay tribute to the hard work of several sallerist kind.
If we talk about the staged reinterpretation of “Aguirre”, one cannot but mention the large-scale film Coppola made by 1979, in which the material of Cambodia again showed a madman in the jungle and lost from a collision with another civilization. The Apocallipse was the answer to Aguirre. And “Fitzcarraldo” is a flickering of the author’s manner, an emotionally empty film, a cute catharsis at the end of which feelings of delight do not generate.
6 out of 10