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| Klaus Kinski in Fitzcarraldo |
Molly: Claudia Cardinale
Don Aqulino: José Lewgoy
Cholo: Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Captain: Paul Hittscher
Huerequeque: Huerequeque Enrique Bohorquez
Station Master: Grande Otelo
Opera Manager: Peter Berling
Chief of Campa Indians: David Pérez Espinosa
Man at Opera House: Milton Nascimento
Enrico Caruso: Costante Moret
Sarah Bernhardt: Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenplay: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Production design: Ulrich Bergfelder, Henning von Gierke
Film editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Why does Werner Herzog's infamously extravagant Fitzcarraldo begin with Fitzgerald/Fitzcarraldo and his brothel-owner mistress Molly attending a performance of Verdi's Ernani that stars not only Enrico Caruso but also, in the role of Elvira, Sarah Bernhardt (played by a man in drag), who mimes while a soprano sings from the pit? Probably to add several more layers of myth to the story, since there is some doubt that Caruso ever sang at the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus and he almost certainly never appeared in a production of Ernani with a lip-synching Bernhardt. If Fitzcarraldo is about anything, it's about obsessions, the more extravagant and, yes, operatic the better. Which is why Herzog's own obsession with actually hauling a steamship over a hill through the jungle, instead of using special effects, models, and montage, is so ironic. If we can believe that Klaus Kinski is an Irishman, we can believe almost anything. Why resort to reality? Fitzcarraldo is also about the power of illusions, of misguided and conflicting belief systems. Fitzgerald believes, against all evidence to the contrary, in himself. The Indians who labor for him do so because they believe he is some kind of god. So it's entirely appropriate that the central metaphor for a film about extravagantly obsessive belief in illusions should be opera, that most extravagant and illusion-filled of artistic media. (If, that is, you exclude movies.) Is Fitzcarraldo a great film? As fascinating as Kinski's eye-popping is to watch, he never transcends his persona as an actor to create a credible character. And I don't understand what Fitzgerald hopes to achieve by hauling the ship across the isthmus to the rubber plantation. Wouldn't he have to haul it back over again, this time with cargo, to benefit? But such considerations tend to fall by the wayside when viewers encounter the audacity of what's on the screen, and even more so when they learn the behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film. Fitzcarraldo falls into that category of cinematic overreaching occupied by movies like Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) and Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980). If it isn't a great movie, it's certainly a unique one. And maybe we should be thankful for that.
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