Burden of Dreams: Don't take Klaus Kinski into the jungle with you. Just don't.

Werner Herzog made a film called Fitzcarraldo about a deranged man who moves an entire boat over a mountain in the middle of the jungle by using indigenous people. In order to achieve this effect Herzog moved a boat over a mountain in the middle of the Amazon by hiring Indians. Burden of Dreams documents this remarkable event.

Herzog spends a lot of time on the commentary track for Fitzcarraldo trying to convince the listeners that he's not actually insane. After seeing this, I can see why he felt that was necessary. This film has scenes where Herzog delivers creepy monologues about the jungle, like this:

Nature here is vile and base . . . The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country . . . It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape . . . It's a land that God, if he exists has created in anger . . . Taking a close look at what's around us there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder . . . But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it . . . But I love it against my better judgment.

Yikes,! When you start channeling Colonel Kurtz, it's time to get out of the jungle.

Also, this doc gives intriguing lines but doesn't always put them in context. For instance at one point when Herzog is talking about how important this project is to him he mentions that people have been killed while working on the film. Herzog is careful to point out in the commentaries for Fitzcarraldo and this documentary that the deaths were through no fault of his own (a couple of the extras attempted to steal a canoe in the middle of the night and drowned and there was also a crash involving a private plane). These claims come off as credible but they also sound a lot like someone who's trying to convince future investors that he actually is responsible.

Of course, we all know that the real lunatic in the jungle is temperamental actor Klaus Kinski. Kinski's outbursts were so upsetting to the indigenous actors that their chief approached Herzog and offered to have the actor killed. I've heard that Kinski also plotted to have Herzog murdered but I don't remember if that was in the documentary, one of the commentaries or just something I read online. Oddly, the only Kinski tantrum caught on film wasn't used it the final project. However, Herzog did use the footage when he made his own documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend (no, that's not a typo).

Fitzcarraldo is a good film but it is a movie that's backstory is more interesting than the final film. Fortunately, Les Blank was there to film the behind-the-scenes drama and Herzog is still around to defend himself. Kinski died in '91, so there's nobody around to stick-up for him but that's probably just as well. He'd only make himself look worse.


A documentary about Werner Herzog? That's so Meta.