Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy, Miguel Ángel Fuentes

SYNOPSIS

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (known as Fitzcarraldo by the locals) is an entrepreneur licking his wounds after a failed attempt to build a railway in Peru. The small village where he still lives is poor, but his newest venture of selling ice seems to be going nowhere, partly due to the local resources being monopolised by rubber barons who own most of the land.

Fitzgerald also has one overriding obsession - opera. After the famous tenor Enrico Caruso visits Peru, he decides that he needs to build an opera house in the jungle. To do this, he manages to lease a dangerously inaccessible tract of land with the intent of exploiting the rubber available there. This will involve, among other things, carrying a giant three storey steamer across the patch of land separating two rivers...

REVIEW

Fitzcarraldo is one of several legendary collaborations between director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski. Kinski was simultaneously Herzog's muse and his worst enemy, and there's a documentary named Burden Of Dreams that documents their stormy relationship on the set of this movie (I'll have to catch up with that sometime!). Apparently, Jason Robards was originally laying the part of Fitzcarraldo, but he was taken ill and the movie re-shot completely with Kinski.

Like many of Herzog's early German productions, Fitzcarraldo is a slow-paced human drama that hinges on a dynamic central performance. Kinski is the centre of attention throughout, and his bug-eyed reactions to his fate are what holds the movie together. While the steamer sequence is the most commented and most famous part of the movie, it really only consists of about 10 minutes toward the back end of the film. However, when it's on screen, it's very impressive.

Overall, this is a great movie for those with patience, though it takes some time to get going. It's well worth the effort, however, and it's a great reminder that Kinski was able to give a great performance, as he was rarely allowed to do outside of Herzog's direction.

8 / 10