(2 of 3)
Nothing worked out. As is shown in Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo, everything went wrong. Herzog was caught in the crossfire of a border dispute between Ecuador and Peru, and in a war of neighboring Indian tribes. The German branch of Amnesty International published charges that Herzog had conspired in the imprisonment of four Indians. Jason Robards, who succeeded Nicholson as the movie's star, was struck with amoebic dysentery six weeks into shooting; and because his scenes would have to be reshot with another actor, Co-Star Mick Jagger had to bow out to prepare for the Rolling Stones' U.S. tour. The longest drought in the region's recorded history prevented Herzog's ship from navigating its prescribed course. The film was shut down twice. Said the besieged writer-producer-director: "I shouldn't make movies any more. I should go to a lunatic asylum. This is not what a man should do with his life."
Typically, Herzog connived to make his life more difficult. He could have shot Fitzcarraldo within a day's travel of Iquitos, a port city with sufficient amenities; instead he took his crew hundreds of miles into the jungle. The historical Fitzcarrald's riverboat weighed 30 tons and was transported overland in 14 or 15 pieces; the steamboat used in the movie weighed 320 tons and would have to be dragged in one piece. Herzog's engineer demanded that the boat's inclination up the hill be no more than 20°; when Herzog insisted it be 40°, the engineer quit, predicting a 70% chance of catastrophe. Replied the film maker: "If I abandoned this project I would be a man without dreams. I live my life or I end my life with this project." Like his heroes, Herzog tempts fate as much as fate tempts him.
Herzomania is traced carefully enough in Burden of Dreams, now released in its complete 94-minute version after being shown truncated in June on PBS. The company must import food, bottled water, spare parts that often do not fit and, for the idle crew, prostitutes. In a precious outtake, Mick Jagger, as Robards' half-wit nephew, declaims the opening speech from Richard III with berserk authority. Herzog, suffering his own winter of discontent, displays the tip of an arrow that almost killed one of his extras. "Maybe I will give it to my little son," he muses. "He will be excited to know this went through the neck of a man."
But there is also a film called Fitzcarraldo, and if it lacks the magnetic obsessiveness of Herzog's three great films, it is likely to be all the more accessible to a general audience. By force of will, Herzog has managed to create a helium-light adventure movie in which Fitz, the crazy white man, charms the jungle's savage inhabitants, only to be flummoxed by the "bare-asses," to his own final ironic amusement. The imagery is spectacular: lush, stark and delicate. A sky at dusk blends the colors of Munch and Rousseau; Fitzcarraldo's boat skims noiselessly over water as soft and mysterious as silk. Jungle melodies come virginal to the ear: an unseen bird's distant wolf whistle or, when Fitzcarraldo's axes fell a tree, an ecstatic Wheeee! from the Indians that sounds like Munchkins celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch.