This two and a half hour German film released in 1982 is one of Werner Herzog's best movies. It reads mostly as a homage to crazy visionaries, people whom Herzog clearly identifies with. Based on a true story, but taking considerable liberties with the truth, this film tells the story of one Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski, who is terrific), an opera mad Irish entrepreneur living in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon in the late 19th century. Fitzgerald was called Fitzcarraldo by the locals, who found his original name difficult to pronounce. A plan by him to build a railway crossing the Andes had failed, and his next project of making ice wasn't going anywhere. After a talk with a rubber baron, he came up with a new plan: to exploit rubber in a very remote part of the Amazon rain forest and with the profits made from the venture build an opera house in Iquitos. For that purpose, he buys a river boat with money from the madam of a brothel (played by Claudia Cardinale) who sympathizes with him. He hires a rowdy crew to accompany him in his boat to his jungle tract, including a nearsighted captain, a drunken cook and a giant Indian called Cholo. Now, the area where he had the concession to exploit rubber trees could only be accessed through a river with impossible rapids to cross. But a navigable river ran nearby, and he came up with the idea of carrying the whole boat between the rivers with the help of nearby Indians. Only problem, those Indians were hostile head hunters, known to kill previous trespassers in the area. And to make things worse, the terrain where the portage of the boat took place was not plain but was rather a steep hill (apparently, the real Fitzcarraldo did carry a boat through a hill, only he disassemble first into pieces, and later assemble it back in the nearby river).
In a superb extender scene, Fitzcarraldo manages to get the Indians to carry the boat to the other river, but after wards, things start unraveling badly. But just when the film looks like is going to have a downbeat ending, Herzog pulls out a surprisingly heartwarming finale, which I won't reveal here but in which Fitzcarraldo partly fulfills his dreams - though some reviewers find it anticlimactic compared with the scene of the boat going up the hill.
Originally Jason Robards was going to play Fitzcarraldo, with Mick Jagger playing his sidekick. Eventually, Robards got a tropical disease during the filming and had to bow out on medical advice, and Jagger also abandoned the shooting due to his musical commitments with the Rolling Stones (by the way, there is some footage around the Internet showing Robards and Jagger playing their characters and is clear that they would have been dreadful in the movie). Herzog decided to call Kinski, who doesn't look Irish at all, but had the right crazy intensity for the character, while writing off Jagger's role. By casting Kisnki, the movie turn into a German speaking film, which looks incongruous in a film set in the Peruvian Amazon, though you will eventually suspend your disbelief.
In a superb extender scene, Fitzcarraldo manages to get the Indians to carry the boat to the other river, but after wards, things start unraveling badly. But just when the film looks like is going to have a downbeat ending, Herzog pulls out a surprisingly heartwarming finale, which I won't reveal here but in which Fitzcarraldo partly fulfills his dreams - though some reviewers find it anticlimactic compared with the scene of the boat going up the hill.
Originally Jason Robards was going to play Fitzcarraldo, with Mick Jagger playing his sidekick. Eventually, Robards got a tropical disease during the filming and had to bow out on medical advice, and Jagger also abandoned the shooting due to his musical commitments with the Rolling Stones (by the way, there is some footage around the Internet showing Robards and Jagger playing their characters and is clear that they would have been dreadful in the movie). Herzog decided to call Kinski, who doesn't look Irish at all, but had the right crazy intensity for the character, while writing off Jagger's role. By casting Kisnki, the movie turn into a German speaking film, which looks incongruous in a film set in the Peruvian Amazon, though you will eventually suspend your disbelief.