Fitzcarraldo

Herzog’s grandest folly was almost his undoing, but became his greatest triumph. One of cinema’s least convincing Irishmen, Klaus Kinski plays Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, who has a dream to bring opera to the Amazon. Not content to bring in a phonograph, he means to ship in an entire opera house, and invite Caruso down in person. But first he’ll need to portage a 350 ton steamship over a mountain…

None of this should work—and if you watch Les Blank’s legendary documentary about the film, Burden of Dreams (also at VIFF Centre this week) you’ll see how close it came to disaster on multiple occasions—but Herzog has the gift of stealing fire from the gods and pulling off impossible movies like this. Today, of course, they would use CGI and the film would be nothing.

Does the movie “excuse” colonialism? It’s complicated. This is a subject Herzog has returned to many times over the course of his long career. Fitzcarraldo is a more benevolent madman than Aguirre, and here there appears to be little distinction between the obsessive filmmaker and his hero—but only if we decide that visionary artists are truly insane. Irish or not, Kinski has no trouble selling that idea.

One of the great visions of the cinema, and one of the great follies. One would not have been possible without the other.

Roger Ebert

Stunning spectacle.

New York Times

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