Only one madman can play another madman well

Keith 2022-01-11 08:02:48

This is a movie made by a madman for a madman.

Fitzcarraldo does have its own people, a rubber king in the 19th century, who towed a boat over the mountains in order to transport rubber is also a real thing. But in history, the Indian workers hired by Fitzcarardo loosened the ropes at the last moment, and the big ship crashed into the river.

In the movie, Fitzcarardo was a paranoid dreamer as soon as he appeared: In order to listen to the opera performance of the tenor Caruso he admired, he rowed the boat for two days. Then, in order to allow Caruso to perform in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, he made a whimsical decision: to build an opera house in the depths of the rainforest. In order to raise funds, he took aim at the most profitable rubber industry at the time and bought a ship for transportation.

However, the waterway could not directly reach the rubber forest. He could only let the boat drive along another parallel river, over a large mountain, and then into the river on this side. "Ship by Land" is about the story of letting this ship overturn the mountain.


Originally, this is not a particularly difficult thing, after all, in 1981 when this film was filmed, Hollywood's special effects technology was already quite impressive. But Herzog refused to use plastic models or any special effects techniques, and also refused to go to San Diego's banana plantation to shoot on location. He just wanted to take a real shot of a ship being dragged over a ridge by manpower.

So, he hired thousands of Indians, taught them how to use pulley blocks and erected high platforms. It took him nearly a year to pull the 340-ton steamboat with ropes little by little along a 40-degree slope. Arrived on the mountain.

The film was shot for more than four years, and the actor changed four times, because the first three were exhausted, until Klaus Kinsky jumped out and said that I would play it.

Anyone who knows him knows that this is a man even crazier than Herzog. It is said that when Jinsky makes a film, as long as he thinks the script is good, he doesn't care about the pay or the role of the movie, and he is not afraid of the distance. He has acted in British, Spanish, and Italian films, and he has acted in more than two hundred films in his life. But this Kinsky is extremely persistent and obsessed with art. During a stage play, an audience fell asleep in the audience. He grabbed the candlestick and threw it at the audience. During the filming of "The Scourge", he suspected that the crew members were playing cards too loudly, and fired three shots in a row, interrupting an extra's finger.

Kinsky's bad temper is no exception this time. During the filming process, the native actors who participated in the performance couldn't stand him for a while and asked Herzog to kill him.

But in any case, Kinsky is the most appropriate starring role in this film. Only one madman can play another madman well. Only a crazy Kinsky can do a ridiculous thing with a crazy Herzog. At the peak of this absurdity, they really made the movie.

Is it necessary to spend four years making a movie? Is it necessary to reject special effects? Is it necessary to really rely on manpower to tow a boat over the mountain? It is difficult to have convincing answers to these questions. Some people say that real-time shooting is naturally more shocking and magnificent than the special effects produced by the computer. I don’t think so. In Herzog and Kinsky's mind, there may be more practical reasons for not having to attach to such empty words as artistic pursuit or film quality. There is no need to say this reason, because people who watched the movie naturally had their own speculations.

We live, we move around or choose a place to settle, we get a habit or we quit it, running in the heavy rain or hiding under the eaves to watch the birds throw, not necessarily all have reasons for "it must be so".


(Fitzcarraldo means in Peruvian dialect: obsessed with meaningless things.)

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Extended Reading
  • Josue 2022-03-26 09:01:10

    Although the old film has lost some paragraphs, it still can't stop this exciting power

  • Christelle 2022-01-11 08:02:48

    An almost crazy film that reflects cultural conflicts and ideological differences. It is not so much a hypothetical film with a documentary style as it is a social experimental film. The lines are very black and humorous, and every independent detail is thought-provoking. This is a masterpiece. It is a lunatic shooting a whimsical genius, and the genius is often mad: Herzog is not only a dwarf, a werewolf, a fool or a vampire, but he should be paid attention to.

Fitzcarraldo quotes

  • Opera Manager: For five years now, we've been the richest town in the whole world. It's like gold fever. Please. Soon, this opera house could be too small. Prices are ten times higher than in New York. There are palaces begin built with tiles from Delft and Florentine marble.

    Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': But Iquitos is catching up. It's still a filthy little town, but the rubber business is growing by leaps and bounds.

    Opera Manager: The better-off citizens in Manaus, if I may put it this way, they send their laundry to Lisbon because the water of the Amazon River is felt to be impure.

  • Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': What's he saying?

    Don Aquilino: We must be quiet. He says whoever talks will be swallowed up the evil spirits of the whirlpool. Shh.