Dir. Werner Herzog
1982, Germany, 158 min
English, German, Italian & Spanish w/ English subtitles
Rated 18A
Werner Herzog is the reigning champ of impossible real-life adventures undertaken in the name of cinema. And this masterpiece is the romantic flipside to Aguirre: The Wrath of God – a backbreaking epic that ecstatically treads the line between a portrait of madness and a genuine expression of obsession. Fitzcarraldo fictionalizes the mad, true-life mission of South American rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald to establish an opera house in the Peruvian jungle – which can only be accomplished by hauling a gigantic river boat over a mountain. No special effects here — this is the real deal, with the impossible results executed before your eyes.
“One of the great visions of the cinema, and one of the great follies. One would not have been possible without the other.” – Roger Ebert
