Fitzcarraldo
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List Price: $14.98
Features
• Color
• Dolby
• Letterboxed
• Special Edition
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 10 October, 1982
Video Release : 19 October, 1999 |
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Fitzcarraldo Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Werner Herzog's Quixotic quest in making Fitzcarraldo.
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Fitzcarraldo is more than a spectacular, awe-inspiring film. It is the end result of Werner Herzog's own Quixotic quest to bring the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos FermA n Fitzcarrald's dream of pulling a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory to the screen. Herzog's film revises the 1890s incident to tell the slightly different story of Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald's dream of building an opera house in the city of Iquitos, Peru. To make his dream a reality, Fitcarraldo decides to raise money in the rubber business by leasing an inaccessible parcel of rainforest from the Peruvian government. He then buys a steamer (which he christens the "Molly Aida"), hires a crew, and then departs up the dangerous Pachitea River, which flows through an area in the Amazon inhabited by hostile tribes. Upon reaching the river's junction with the Ucayali River, using native Peruvian manpower together with cables and pulleys, Fitzcarraldo intends to pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy hillside to the other river. Production of the infamous film was plagued by problems (which is the subject of Les Blank's compelling documentary [[ASIN:B0007WFYB6 Burden of Dreams - Criterion Collection]]). Jason Robards was originally cast in the role of Fitzcarraldo, but after forty-percent of the film was shot, he became ill and left the set. The film was then reshot after Klaus Kinski assumed the role. Meanwhile, Mick Jagger (cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant) left the set to tour with the Rolling Stones, forcing Herzog to omit Jagger's character from the script. Then, during filming, a nasty rift developed between Kinski and Herzog. (In his documentary [[ASIN:B000JD8BLS My Best Friend-Klaus Kinski]]], Herzog says that one of the native chiefs on the set even offered to murder Kinski to resolve the dispute between the two men.) Fitcarraldo is not only a great film about one man's dream of building an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. It is also the fascinating story of Herzog's own obsession in making a seemingly impossible film a reality. Fitzcarraldo is a highly-recommended, one-of-a-kind experience in film.
G. Merritt |
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