Based on a true story! The boldest most ambitious project launched by Werner Herzog has become his worst nightmare! It was literally Herzog's "Apocalypse Now". Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong! It's as if the film was cursed right from the get go! Like Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog dives into the deep end of a mind numbing obsession!

Behind the scenes Klaus Kinski goes on one of his legendary rampages and irks the natives to the point one of the chiefs goes out of his way to tell Herzog he would kill Kinski for him! There is no doubt about it Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog were both out of their ever lovin minds and the camera captured this…

Those of you who are unfamiliar or only recently acquainted with director Werner Herzog, you may only know him for his later work as one of the most interesting documentary filmmakers working today or for his eccentric and endlessly fascinating, well publicized personality. However, Herzog was made famous back in the day for being a frontrunner of the German New Wave film movement, making non-traditional narrative films that pushed the envelope of the cinema language. He has made a wide variety of films over the years and is often noted for the recurring theme of man’s relationship with nature and an intense reverence and respect for it, some might even say a fear of it. Fitzcarraldo is one of Herzog’s…

"The arrogance of man is thinking that nature is in our control, and not the other way around." -Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, Godzilla (2014)

Werner Herzog's exacting precision regarding the realism and scale of his films makes them truly enduring beauties. The old saying "the more fun something was to make, the less fun it is to watch" finds its ultimate inverse proof here in Fitzcarraldo: production was a disaster, but the result is a treasure. Klaus Kinski fought so often over such trivial matters that members of the crew offered to have him killed, and the dangerous nature of Herzog's audacious stunts and set pieces left at least two cast members dead. But from these hardships grew unprecedented cinematic art.…

As blood is spilled in Fitz's quest to do something no one has ever done (nor would ever do again), it became clearer than it ever has been before. There are no manmade wonders not built with blood. Perhaps this is why the Grand Canyon is said to be so magnificent--no one suffered to make it. It simply is, a vast stretch of land ripped out of the landscape by God, nature, or both. But manmade wonders have all been crafted by slave or serf labor, exploitation or oppression, blood money, or other ruthless contracts. Fitz's quest is predicated on blatant exploitation (of the religion of his workers, no less) and dangerous obsession. I don't know what wage Herzog paid…

Werner Herzog's Masterclass on Obsession

Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo may be remembered as the film wherein he lifted a steamboat over a mountain while fighting off bugs, disease, famine, and Klaus Kinski trying to kill everyone, but it is precisely because of his obsessive persistence in completing the film that Fitzcarraldo is remarkable. It is a parallel on film of Herzog's struggles in finishing the filming of Fitzcarraldo much like Klaus Kinski's character's obsession with opera that leads him to undertake his Amazonian expedition for rubber to fund his opera house.

Herzog appears to have perfected his artistic film-making style from the years doing Aguirre: The Wrath of God & Nosferatu the Vampyre, for Fitzcarraldo is immaculately filmed. Gorgeous scenery, shots of…