After watching the natives pulling the Molly-Aida up the mountain and down again, I really wanted to take another look at Les Blank's documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo, Burden of Dreams. If any film deserved its own documentary when it came out, Fitzcarraldo certainly did. It was quite an undertaking.Burden of Dreams is the source for a number of illuminating YouTube videos. The first contains footage from the original Fitzcarraldo with Jason Robards and Mick Jagger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTgDXu_Nhys
And, of course, it is the source of Herzog's remarks on the jungle, which I won't link to here.
But here is the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PAsYkrEwjM&feature=channel_page
Below are links to reviews of Burden of Dreams. One appears to be from 1982, when the film first appeared in theaters (and, in a shorter version, on PBS).
http://www.lesblank.com/art/BurdenDreams.html
The other is from 2000, so it has a little more perspective:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/jan/13/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm
The last is a 2003 article on Herzog. It predates the revival of critical interest in his work--and the rise of the documentary!
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/18/1042520819124.html
2 comments:
I was just going to ask a couple of questions that came up on my way out of class. Is there any chance that, at some stage of making the story of Fitzcarraldo, that "Opera" is an anagram for "Europe?" That would be somewhat extreme, but could you also discern whether the flag on the "Molly" was the flag of Austria?
Hmmm...these details may be worth pursuing!
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