"That's a nice-a donut."
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Great German director Werner Herzog has done some crazy stuff over the years. Other than eating his own shoe or proclaiming "it was not a significant bullet" after being shot, he has also taken us inside the mind of a crazy grizzly bear lover and taken us on an unforgettable "Hearts of Darkness"-like journey down a river. But perhaps the wackiest thing he ever did was to shoot Fitzcarraldo, a film that features men moving a big boat over a mountain and actually doing it without any special effects.
"It's only the dreamers who move mountains," Molly (Claudia Cardinale), Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald’s (Klaus Kinski) lover, says early on in the story set near the beginning of the 20th century. Fitzcarraldo is a man with a big dream and even bigger plans to achieve that dream. For his ultimate goal in life is to build an opera house by his home in the middle of the Peruvian jungles. There are a number of obstacles in his way though, with the first one being a lack of money. After a series of miscalculated and unsuccessful business ventures in order to raise revenue for his dream - such as an Andean train line through the mountains, and an ice company - he finally realizes that the big money seems to be in rubber. With financial assistance from Molly he buys a claim of a large area of forest, reputed to be filled with rubber trees, though also said to be near-impossible due to the geography of the land. With a relatively small, and perhaps unreliable crew of men, Fitzcarraldo sets sail.
Soon they are in hostile Indian ("bare-ass") territory. The natives turn out to be very friendly though and are amazed by the ship. With the help of the cook Huerequeque who speaks their language, Fitz suddenly has hundreds of men helping him, as they try to literally drag the boat over a mountain. It is an amazing story and, yet, you have to stop and remember: even if they accomplish this feat and start succeeding in the rubber business, they are still only a small part of the way there to bringing the opera to town.
Herzog paints a movie filled with stunning scenes and some beautifully composed shots. One of my favorites is when the ship is cruising up river into Indian land - loud noises and intimidating drumbeats can be heard throughout the dense forest, and as his crew is scared witless and armed with guns, Fitz calmly goes to the roof of the moving boat and sets up his phonograph player (which he always seems to have with him) and puts on his favorite: the voice of tenor Enrico Caruso. The sounds soon stop.
Herzog also wrote the script which provides some very sharp, relevant, witty dialogue such as "to Fitzcarraldo, the conquistador of the useless" one man proclaims after Fitz acknowledges several opera greats in a toast. Kinski, who had a famous love-hate relationship with Herzog, gives a fine performance. He manages to create a figure that is the eternal optimist, of which underneath lurks a mental state that may not be completely cool. We feel sorry for him when times go bad, and root for him all the way to the end. It is a story so simple and, ultimately, so audience-friendly (for the most part) that I can easily envision it being updated and remade as a Disney family film starring Dennis Quaid or Denzel Washington or possibly both. It is a real triumph, and easily the best film ever made about pulling a boat over a mountain.
The Verdict: A-.
Michael Bentley 12:39 PM
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