Flick of The Day: Fitzcarraldo

In 1982, film-maker Werner Herzog set out into the Peruvian jungle to tell his story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, the Fitzcarraldo of the title, based on the true life tale of rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald. It was to be a mammoth shoot, the likes of which have never been seen and will probably never be seen again in terms of sheer spectacle.

Fitzcarraldo

Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald was a man with a dream, to bring an Opera House to the Amazonian jungle and to have Enrico Caruso sing at its opening. To pay for such a grand dream, he decides to set off up the river to the uncharted jungles rich in rubber trees to make his fortune in an old riverboat. To get to this, he must drag his ship over the mountains to the other side. An obsessive, Fitzcarraldo goes beyond all reason to achieve his dreams.

Some films are famed for the travails of their production, Fitzcarraldo is just such a film. Essentially a true life tale of the hubris of blind ambition without reason, its production became such a tale. Choosing to work without Studios and with no special effects, this film was a personal odyssey for Herzog. With Jason Robards originally cast as Fitzgerald and Mick Jagger as his assistant, the film was 40% complete when Robards fell ill with dysentery and had to leave the production. Jagger's role was written out of the film and filming started again from the beginning with the notoriously erratic Klaus Kinski in the title role. The troubles of the production are documented in Les Blanks "Burden Of Dreams" who followed the production from begging to end.

Burden of Dreams - Criterion Collection

The really epic thing about this film is that there are no special effects. They really do drag that ship over the mountain. Those Indians did toil on the mountainside for days on end. Even more amazing is that in the real life story upon which the film is based, the boat weighed only 30 tons not the 300 ton behemoth of the film and it was never dragged over the mountain, merely taken apart and reassembled on the other side. By Herzog's own admission, this is unlikely to be attempted again. You may wonder while watching it, what possessed him to attempt it. Was it hubris? Regardless, it makes for gripping viewing and that along with the magnificent imagery of the Amazon make an epic film. Perhaps the answer for Herzog's vision lies in a line from the film spoken by Claudia Cardinale:

"Its only the dreamers who move mountains"

Flick of The Day: Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans

Abel Ferrara's 1992 original take on the Bad Lieutenant was a controversial and flawed tale of a drugged out, corrupt and abusive cop brilliantly played by Harvey Keitel. A dark and disturbing film, it is a tale of redemption but remains unremittingly bleak. This film, which according to director Werner Herzog is neither a remake or a sequel, shares very little with the original. It is a drug fuelled epic journey through the back-streets and bayous of Louisiana as a darkly comic Nicholas Cage, the bad lieutenant of the title tries to solve the drug related homicide of a family of African immigrants.

Where Keitel's Lieutenant was menacing, Cage is more prosaic. Both are corrupt and deeply flawed characters but Cage's portrayal is the more sympathetic. The story is a simple one. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Terrence McDonagh (Cage) of the New Orleans PD finds a prisoner has been left behind in one of the City's jails and in attempt to rescue him injures his back permanently. Fast forward 6 months and a painkiller addicted McDonagh is investigating the aforementioned homicide. Of course, the painkillers are no longer enough and Terrence begins using Cocaine and Heroin to ease his pain. An increasingly addled and addicted Mcdonagh must try and solve the murders while staying one step ahead of his gambling debts, the Mafia, his fellow cops, his various addictions and his troubled prostitute girlfriend played by the wonderful Eva Mendes. 

So far so bleak but the brilliance of this is the dark humour which Herzog finds in all of this, which keeps this a roller coaster ride. Cage is epic, giving his best performance in at least a decade as the degenerate cop who ultimately pulls everything together while swaggering across the screen with a .44 Magnum in his belt. Epic film-making.

One of my favourite films of the last year, this is an excellent and adult look at addiction and how it can change people. Ultimately, McDonagh never overcomes his addiction but seems to succeed in spit of it. 

Any review of this film would not be complete without a comparison to the original. This is a very different beast. Abel Ferrara and Werner Herzog are as different as it is possible for directors to be. Ferrara specialises in dark thrashy cult tales of the underbelly of his home town, New York City. Herzog is the darling of independent cinema, the man who Francois Truffaut called, "the most important film director alive". While they are both excellent explorations of the same themes, Herzog's is the more watchable and enjoyable as it keeps its mind on the plot and characters and as far out as Cage gets, he pulls it back in the end. Give it a chance, its worth it.