FitzcarraldoHave you ever had a passion which took hold of you so strongly, that nothing in heaven or on Earth could tear you from its genesis? It might even be something only a step away from madness, but when you are driven, even the impossible seems hardly a hurdle to overcome. Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo is a film about an impossible dream, but which inevitably requires in part an impossible task to reach its completion, and the manifestation of this insane pursuit in the film results in a genuine marvel of engineering, both stunning and insane, from the main character and the filmmaker both.
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Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski)--"Fitzcarraldo" to the local Peruvians--is one of the varied businessmen capitalizing on the relatively untouched regions of South America at the turn of the twentieth century; but unlike his condescending competitors, his ventures have been generally insubstantial efforts with little gain, or flat out failures. "Fitz" is aided in his investments by his partner and lover, Molly (Claudia Cardinale), who is willing to front the money when Fitz suggests that he has a new idea to turn a profit, one he gleans from looking over a map in the company of a rival and fellow financial supporter (although with mercenary undercurrents), Don Aquilino (José Lewgoy). Fitz's idea is that since an unclaimed area of the jungle is ripe for harvesting rubber from the trees, he needs only to establish a line of transport from there to the Amazon River. The only problem is that the downstream of the Ucayali River ends with a grouping of dangerous rapids, while the relatively safe Pachitea River approaches very close at one point to the Ucayali. Fitz's idea is to take the Pachitea to that nearly-touching point, and bring his boat across from the one river to the other. But a further problem is that there's a veritable mountain in-between, and boats don't work so well on mountains like they do on water. But Fitz has a dream, one he will not relinquish--for Fitz is an opera aficionado, with an obsession for the tenor, Enrico Caruso, in particular. Fitz's dream is to open an opera house in the jungle, and from the very start makes it clear that this is the mad reason for his constant efforts to become wealthy in South America; he even promises his favorite pig that he will have a special seat for him from which to see the opera. So, yes, Fitz has an unusual set of priorities, and the means to realize them.
They say that the quickest way to become rich is to already be rich; this is true for Fitzcarraldo, who is cast in the shadow of his "peers", mocked because of his ridiculous ideas of an opera house in the jungle, which--in all fairness--is an absurd idea. The rich snobs he associates with are wasteful and hedonistic, flagrantly throwing money away at gaming, or literally feeding it to the fishes. Fitz is sympathetic because he at least is determined to succeed, if only by the sweat of his brow--and Molly's financial backing; he did name the ship after her, at least. As Fitz desperately tries to put all the the cards in place to bring his mad dream to fruition, he gambles big, taking out a lease to exploit the land, getting assistance in procuring the boat from Don Aquilino--who insists his mechanic comes along to spy...er, help the endeavor--and he cannibalizes resources from his last venture, ripping out the tracks from his railroad business, because he thinks he might need them later. When he is attempting to purchase the lease, the broker asks him point blank if he even knows what he's doing; Fitz's response tells us all we need to know. Fitz is counting on his raw ambition and determination to carry him to the finish line; but is determination enough to realize your dreams? There is a kind of arrogance in the idea that we can do anything we want if we "set our mind to it", that wanting it enough is enough, when the truth is otherwise, a lesson Fitz learns in his adventure. As Fitz glides down the Pachitea, at one point he and his remaining crew are haunted by the tribal percussion of the natives lurking in the jungle; Fitz's response is to unleash a recording of Caruso, a competing voice to announce his arrival and perhaps his superiority. The result of the two divergent selections of music creates a discordant melody of the sounds, which also represents the foreignness of Fitz in the jungle, but also recalls his total lack of a head for business, that he believes himself the master of his realm, when he couldn't be farther from the truth. When he does parlay with the natives--via his translator and drunken cook, Huerequeque--he discovers that the natives actually want to help him in his herculean effort to pull his ship across the mountain to the other river. The process involves more than just a bunch of people breaking their backs pulling the ship by rope, but a complex system of winches and pulleys, which is frankly an engineering marvel for the primitive material used. In fact, pulling the ship over a mountain is even more insane, considering that this is actually being done by the cast and crew at the behest of Herzog, a process which has become as infamous as it is dazzling. The idea that man can overcome the very forces of nature is frequently a theme in much of Herzog's work; it usually results in the hubris of man being revealed, because nature always triumphs. But if this would simply be the only lesson life has to teach us, does it mean that we should not try? Quite the contrary; Fitz is much wiser and much better grounded in the aftermath, and he is richer spiritually as a result of the quest--so it is for us in all of our impossible dreams.
Recommended for: Fans of a South American adventure period piece, about a mad quest through the Amazon, culminating with a set piece which has to be seen to be believed. In all honesty, even after having seen it, I still barely believe it.
They say that the quickest way to become rich is to already be rich; this is true for Fitzcarraldo, who is cast in the shadow of his "peers", mocked because of his ridiculous ideas of an opera house in the jungle, which--in all fairness--is an absurd idea. The rich snobs he associates with are wasteful and hedonistic, flagrantly throwing money away at gaming, or literally feeding it to the fishes. Fitz is sympathetic because he at least is determined to succeed, if only by the sweat of his brow--and Molly's financial backing; he did name the ship after her, at least. As Fitz desperately tries to put all the the cards in place to bring his mad dream to fruition, he gambles big, taking out a lease to exploit the land, getting assistance in procuring the boat from Don Aquilino--who insists his mechanic comes along to spy...er, help the endeavor--and he cannibalizes resources from his last venture, ripping out the tracks from his railroad business, because he thinks he might need them later. When he is attempting to purchase the lease, the broker asks him point blank if he even knows what he's doing; Fitz's response tells us all we need to know. Fitz is counting on his raw ambition and determination to carry him to the finish line; but is determination enough to realize your dreams? There is a kind of arrogance in the idea that we can do anything we want if we "set our mind to it", that wanting it enough is enough, when the truth is otherwise, a lesson Fitz learns in his adventure. As Fitz glides down the Pachitea, at one point he and his remaining crew are haunted by the tribal percussion of the natives lurking in the jungle; Fitz's response is to unleash a recording of Caruso, a competing voice to announce his arrival and perhaps his superiority. The result of the two divergent selections of music creates a discordant melody of the sounds, which also represents the foreignness of Fitz in the jungle, but also recalls his total lack of a head for business, that he believes himself the master of his realm, when he couldn't be farther from the truth. When he does parlay with the natives--via his translator and drunken cook, Huerequeque--he discovers that the natives actually want to help him in his herculean effort to pull his ship across the mountain to the other river. The process involves more than just a bunch of people breaking their backs pulling the ship by rope, but a complex system of winches and pulleys, which is frankly an engineering marvel for the primitive material used. In fact, pulling the ship over a mountain is even more insane, considering that this is actually being done by the cast and crew at the behest of Herzog, a process which has become as infamous as it is dazzling. The idea that man can overcome the very forces of nature is frequently a theme in much of Herzog's work; it usually results in the hubris of man being revealed, because nature always triumphs. But if this would simply be the only lesson life has to teach us, does it mean that we should not try? Quite the contrary; Fitz is much wiser and much better grounded in the aftermath, and he is richer spiritually as a result of the quest--so it is for us in all of our impossible dreams.
Recommended for: Fans of a South American adventure period piece, about a mad quest through the Amazon, culminating with a set piece which has to be seen to be believed. In all honesty, even after having seen it, I still barely believe it.