Fitzcarraldo

Infobox Film
name = Fitzcarraldo


caption = "Fitzcarraldo" DVD cover
director = Werner Herzog
producer = Werner Herzog
Renzo Rossellini
Walter Saxer
Willi Segler
Lucki Stipetic
writer = Werner Herzog
narrator =
starring = Klaus Kinski
Claudia Cardinale
music = Popol Vuh
cinematography = Thomas Mauch
editing = Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
distributor =
released = 4 March 1982 (West Germany)
runtime = 158 min.
country = FRG
language = English
German (alternate version)
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:17649
imdb_id = 0083946

"Fitzcarraldo" is a 1982 film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald , an Irishman called Fitzcarraldo in Peru, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. The film is derived from the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.

tory

Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald, a European living in a small city in Peru in the early part of the 20th century, has a great love of opera and an indomitable spirit. He is a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso and he dreams of building an opera house in his city of Iquitos. This will require a lot of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and can be leased for exploitation.

Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel. [In reality, however, the Pachitea is a tributary of the Ucayali, not a third river, and they meet nearly 500 kilometers south of Iquitos. The real map looks nothing like the one Fitzcarraldo draws for Orinoco Paul.]

To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour and brothel owner, Molly (Claudia Cardinale), he buys a steamer (which he christens the "Molly Aida") from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the further one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320 -ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across an isthmus, from one river to the next.Cite web
author = Blank, Les
date = 1982
title = "English captions of documentary "Burden of Dreams" from 1:11:25 to 1:12:40"
work = Burden of Dreams
url = http://www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/en/25fps/a/01_11
archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20061101001108/http://www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/en/25fps/a/01_11
archivedate = 2006-11-01
quote = [—Werner Herzog:] Well, the boat that [Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald] actually pulled across was only 30 tons. [...] Besides, they, uh, disassembled it in about 14 or 15 parts [...] The central metaphor of my film is that they haul a ship over what's essentially an impossibly steep hill. [...] [—Les Blank:] a complicated system to pull Herzog's ship over the hill [...] But the system is designed for a 20-degree slope. Herzog insists on 40 degrees. Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.

The story was inspired by the real life Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald; in the 1890s, Fitzcarrald did bring a steamship across an isthmus from one river into another, but it weighed only 30 tons and he had it dismantled before doing so.Cite web
author = Blank, Les
date = 1982
title = "English captions of documentary "Burden of Dreams" from 0:02:09 to 0:02:36"
work = Burden of Dreams
url = http://www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/en/25fps/a/00_01
archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20061031232330/www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/Burden
archivedate = 2006-10-31
quote = [—Werner Herzog:] There was a historical figure whose name was Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald, a caucho baron. I must say the story of this caucho baron did not interest me so much. What interested me more was one single detail. That was, uh, that he crossed an isthmus, from one river system into another, uh, with a boat. They disassembled the boat and - and put it together again on the other river.

Production

In his autobiographical film "Portrait Werner Herzog", Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320 -ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believes that no one has ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".Cite book
last = Herzog
first = Werner
title = Herzog on Herzog
publisher = Faber and Faber
date = 2001
pages = p. 179
isbn = 0-571-20708-1] Scenes were also shot onboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming. Two full-size ships were created for the making of the film.Fact|date=April 2008

The casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill and was forced to leave. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting was complete and Herzog insisted on a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones. Herzog dropped Jagger's character from the script and reshot the film from the beginning. Though none of the major cast members spoke English natively, the original soundtrack was recorded in English, as it was the only language common to the lead actors.Fact|date=April 2008

Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought with Herzog and other members of the crew and greatly upset the native extras. In his documentary "My Best Fiend", Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming.

Les Blank's documentary "Burden of Dreams", about the production of the film, documents these many hardships. Blank's footage, which also appears in Herzog's "Portrait Werner Herzog" and "My Best Fiend" contains some of the only surviving footage of Robards and Jagger in "Fitzcarraldo" and many scenes documenting the ship's journey over the mountain, along with several episodes of Kinski's raving.

Filming locations

Locations used for the movie include:

* Manaus, Brazil
* Iquitos, Peru
* Pongo de Mainique, Peru – rapids
* Puerto Maldonado, Peru

Related artworks

* "Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo", a short story by Garry Kilworth, speculates about a camera crew following the camera crew of "Burden of Dreams" as they make a film about the making of "Fitzcarraldo". It was published in 1989 in "Omni" magazine, and has been republished in "In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave", a collection of the author's fiction; as well as in the collection "Of Shrew-Mice and Tattoo'd Men", to be published by the publisher Humdrumming in 2009.

* The song "Oh Funny Man," by the Sex Gang Children makes several references to the film, including the line "have you ever seen a shrunken head?"

* The song "Fitzcarraldo" was written by The Frames frontman, Glen Hansard, after watching the film.

*The Song "Virgin With a Memory", by the band Destroyer, references the making of "Fitzcarraldo" with the lyric "Was it the movie or the making of, "Fitzcarraldo"?"

* The plot of "Fitzcarraldo" was parodied in the Adult Swim show "Metalocalypse" in the, appropriately titled, episode "Dethcarraldo".

* British artist M.I.A. likened the creation of her album "Kala" to the making of the film, saying "I felt like I was trying to drag a big boat over the mountain."Cite web
author =Lawrence, Eddy
date = August 21, 2007
title = "M.I.A.: interview"
work = Time Out
url = http://www.timeout.com/london/music/features/3361/MIA-interview.html
archiveurl =
archivedate =
quote = [—M.I.A.:] I felt like I was trying to drag a big boat over the mountain, like a Werner Herzog film or something. You have to have this belief in following a thought process or demonstrate some sort of willpower...

References

External links

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* Fitzcarraldo at http://stockpunkt.com/2007/11/22/fotokiste-jason-robards/
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75ADI9p2wHY Klaus Kinski - Wutausbruch beim Dreh zu Fitzcarraldo (Rage at the shooting of Fitzcarraldo, German)]