1982, 158 minutes
English language version
"One of the great visions of the cinema, and one of the great follies. One would not have been possible without the other.” -- Roger Ebert
Werner Herzog is the reigning champ of impossible real-life adventures undertaken in the name of cinema. And this masterpiece is the romantic flipside to AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD — a backbreaking epic that ecstatically treads the line between a portrait of madness and a genuine expression of obsession. FITZCARRALDO fictionalizes the mad, true-life mission of South American rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald to establish an opera house in the Peruvian jungle -- which can only be accomplished by hauling a gigantic river boat over a mountain. No special effects here -- this is the real deal, with the impossible results executed before your eyes.
Also showing this week: BURDEN OF DREAMS, the epic documentary about the making of FITZCARRALDO.