Fitzcarraldo's Eccentric Audacity

A few weeks back I watched the Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo, starring Klaus Kinski.

At its core, Fitzcarraldo is a story about obsession, ambition, and the pursuit of one's dreams against all odds. Based on a true story, it's about a man so mesmerized by opera that he wants to build an opera house in the jungles of Peru, with the hope of having Enrico Caruso perform there.

Fitzcarraldo is the crazy but true story of Brian Feeney Fitzgerald, and Irishman rubber baron who is determined to bring a steamship 1200 miles up the Amazon into the Peruvian rainforest. This event took place over one hundred years ago while there may have still been cannibalism, a time when native peoples produced shrunken heads to trade to museum collectors.

Herzog's making of this film proved to be as audacious as Fitzcarraldo's efforts, which included transporting their riverboat over a mountain at one point. The film itself became controversial due to the multiple deaths that occured while in the making, as well as two plane crashes and more. (You can find all the behind-the-scenes drama here.)

The real life Fitzcarraldo--Carlos Fitzcarrald--was indeed a rubber baron, but the steamship he transported up the river and over a mountain was 32 tons, and not the 320 ton behemoth in the film.

The movie begins with several minutes of an Enrico Caruso opera which Klaus Kinski and his wife (?) Molly (played by Claudia Cardinale) have travelled 1200 miles to see. During the performance, Caruso points in Fitz's direction, which he takes as a sign to pursue the dream in his head.

The film's breathtaking cinematography stood out to critics, earning praise for Werner Herzog's exceptional skill behind the camera. Herzog's mastery doesn't just capture stunning landscapes, it transports the audience into Fitzcarraldo's world, conveying the immense scale and daring of his ambitious endeavor.

One of the film's themes was the clash between civilization and the wilderness. As Fitzcarraldo ventures deeper into the heart of the jungle, he grapples with the moral and ethical implications of his actions and the impact of his ambition on the indigenous people and the environment, issues that remain unresolved even today.

Just as opera was a central feature of Fitzcarraldo's ambition so, too, it is a thread woven through the film from beginning to end. You don't like opera? I myself found it fascinating the manner in which this music formed a bridge between the "civilized" world and these isolated peoples almost untouched by the world we've created and known.

By contemporary standards the pace of this film is too slow. The glorious vistas are also lost on the small screen. Nevertheless, as a metaphor for audacity, it excels. 

Post Script: For younger theater-goers who do not know Herzog, you might recognize him from his appearance as The Zec in the film Jack Reacher. If you saw the film with Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall (among others), then you will recall the extremes to which the Zec had gone to obtain his freedom.

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