“An extraordinary document of the filmmaking process and a unique look into the single-minded mission of one of cinema’s most fearless directors.”—Santa Fe New Mexican
For nearly five years, Herzog desperately tried to complete one of the most ambitious and difficult films of his career, Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank captured the unfolding of this production, made more perilous by Herzog’s determination to shoot the most daunting scenes without models or special effects, including a sequence requiring hundreds of indigenous Peruvians to pull a full-size, 320-ton steamship over a small mountain.
Although Blank only visited Herzog’s remote shoot twice—for several weeks at a time—he and his editor/sound technician Maureen Gosling capture the full range of Herzog’s tribulations. The result is an extraordinary document of the filmmaking process and a unique look into the single-minded mission of one of cinema’s most fearless directors. 1982/2024, U.S., 4K DCP, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and German with English subtitles, 95 minutes. Recommended for 16+.