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.
Story
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, however, a dreamer who has one major failure already behind him - the bankrupt Trans-Andean Railway company. A great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso, he now 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.[1]
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.[2] Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.
The 1982 book Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story from Fjord Press (ISBN 0-940242-04-4) reproduces Herzog's first version of the story before the screenplay was written.
Cast
- Klaus Kinski - Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo'
- Claudia Cardinale - Molly
- José Lewgoy - Don Aquilino
- Miguel Ángel Fuentes - Cholo
- Paul Hittscher - Captain (Orinoco Paul)
- Huerequeque Enrique Bohorquez - Huerequeque (The Cook) (as Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez)
- Grande Otelo - Station master (as Grande Othelo)
- Peter Berling - Opera Manager
- David Pérez Espinosa - Chief of Campa Indians
- Milton Nascimento - Blackman At Opera House
- Ruy Polanah - Rubber Baron
- Salvador Godínez - Old Missionary
- Dieter Milz - Young Missionary
- William Rose - Notary (as Bill Rose)
- Leoncio Bueno
Production
Herzog watches his own scene
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.[2][3]
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 believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".[4] Scenes were also shot onboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.
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.
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.
Brazilian actor Grande Otelo and singer Milton Nascimento play minor parts.
Locations used for the film include: Manaus, Brazil; Iquitos, Peru; Pongo de Mainique, Peru; Puerto Maldonado, Peru
Related works
Les Blank's 1982 documentary Burden of Dreams, about the production of the film, documents the many hardships of the production. Blank's footage, some of 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.
Herzog's personal diaries from the production were published in 2009 as the book Conquest of the Useless, published by Ecco Press. The book includes an epilogue with Herzog's views on the Peruvian jungle 20 years later.[5]
Awards
Herzog won the award for Best Director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.[6]
References
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Blank, Les (1982). ""English captions of documentary Burden of Dreams from 1:11:25 to 1:12:40"". Burden of Dreams. Archived from the original on 2006-11-01. http://web.archive.org/web/20061101001108/http://www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/en/25fps/a/01_11. "[—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."
- ^ Blank, Les (1982). ""English captions of documentary Burden of Dreams from 0:02:09 to 0:02:36"". Burden of Dreams. Archived from the original on 2006-10-31. http://web.archive.org/web/20061031232330/www.cswap.com/1982/Burden_of_Dreams/cap/Burden. "[—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."
- ^ Herzog, Werner (2001). Herzog on Herzog. Faber and Faber. pp. 179. ISBN 0-571-20708-1.
- ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/02/DDRN18VMJB.DTL
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Fitzcarraldo". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/1560/year/1982.html. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
External links
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