In the Greek myth of Sisyphus, a man is punished by being forced to roll a boulder up a hill only for the boulder to always roll back down whenever he would near the top, thus illustrating futility. In Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) the main character shows the Greeks have nothing on him as he attempts to roll not a boulder but an entire steamer up a hill. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, the hill is located in the Amazon jungle, meaning it is covered with plenty of firmly rooted trees. This movie made me think I lack ambition.
This was my second viewing of a Werner Herzog movie in the past few weeks, the previous one being The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. That one focused on one man assimilating into society after growing up in isolation, whereas Fitzcarraldo tells the incredible tale of a man who practically wages war against a jungle. You can’t say Werner Herzog is afraid to scale up, and I was certainly impressed by the effort he put into making this movie. I was also intrigued to see a story set in the Peruvian city of Iquitos, located in the Amazon basin, which I was fortunate to visit during a school trip in the 7th grade.
Two obvious things struck while spending a week in the jungle. First, it is one of the most humid places on Earth. Seriously, you walk for 30 minutes and your socks are done for the day. Second, there are so many trees it is like entering a living organism. There are also many living things in those trees, such as red ants that bite. At no point did I think it would be a good idea to either build an opera house in the jungle or that it would be feasible to pull a ship over the hills.
Yet those are the goals of one Brian Sweeney “Fitzcarraldo” Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), an Irish immigrant living in Peru in the early 20th century. This is a man who loves opera so much he travels by rowboat for days in order to see a famous singer perform at an opera house so fancy they feed champagne to the horses. Fitzcarraldo’s desire to build an opera house in Iquitos is so strong that he climbs a church tower and literally screams it from the rooftop. Passion is one thing, but he is a bit of a joke in the local business community since his last project was a failed railway project in the Andes mountains.
Fortunately for Fitzcarraldo, his wife Molly (Claudia Cardinale) has got to be one of the most patient women in the history of womankind. She is also generous to the point of giving him a large sum of money from her own business (which I believe is selling other women) so he can purchase a large steamship. With this ship he intends to navigate the jungle rivers, reach an unclaimed land to harvest valuable rubber from the trees, and eventually accumulate enough money for his opera house.
Easier said than done. For an impossible mission what you want is a team of experienced professionals who laugh at the face of danger. What Fitzcarraldo gets is a crew of drunkards, cowards, and trigger-happy (sometimes dynamite happy) hotheads. The biggest obstacle is Fitzcarraldo’s own plan, which involves arriving at a certain point in a river, carrying the boat over a hill, and lowering it on the other side in order to reach a parallel river that will give him access to precious rubber trees.
Any other reasonable person would say there must be an easier to do this, and Wikipedia informed the real-life Fitzcarraldo was indeed smart enough to use a smaller boat and dismantle it first. This is what makes this movie so astounding to watch. It is a real boat that is being hauled up a hill, thanks to a native tribe using an intricate system of pulleys. What is crazier? The story of Fitzcarraldo convincing the tribe to haul the boat for his rubber tree project, or the story of Werner Herzog the filmmaker who travelled to Peru to film a tribe hauling a ship for his film project?
There are zero special effects in this movie, it is all practical, and people were severely injured during the filming. If the behind-the-scenes footage of Fitzcarraldo was released as a movie, the world would have two movies delivering the same message about the folly of man starring the same characters. It is also somewhat ironic that the film depicts rich men exploiting the jungle and its native inhabitants given that to shoot the movie the production crew blew up real trees, and that indigenous extras were injured during production.
From an ethical standpoint I am conflicted about Fitzcarraldo, but there is no denying it is unlike any other movie and there probably won’t ever be one like it again. Kinski, with his white suit and wild hair, is fascinating to watch as a man obsessed with bringing art to the jungle. For better or for worse this is a unique example of human ingenuity and perseverance. I just wish less humans had been injured while making it.
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