|
|
BURDEN OF DREAMS |
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Documentarian Les Blank trains his cameras on German filmmaker Werner Herzog as he struggles to complete the most ambitious and difficult film of his career—Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. With 40 percent of the film shot, Jason Robards playing the title role is forced to drop out of the production after falling ill and
Mick Jagger, playing another major character, soon follows because of prior touring commitments. Herzog eventually casts his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski as Fitzcarraldo and begins shooting once again. But problems continue to arise as Herzog insists on shooting the most daunting scenes without models or special effects, including a sequence requiring hundreds of natives to
pull a full-sized, 320-ton steamship over a small mountain. Les Blank interviews members of the cast and crew, including the impoverished Indian extras, and captures the troubles of the seemingly cursed production, but his interviews with Herzog are the focal point of the film. "If I abandon this project," Herzog explains, "I would be a man without dreams, and I never want to live like that.
I live my life or I end my life with this project."
|
||||
