Burden of Dreams: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
By May 09, 2005
A shot of a street sign near the beginning of Always for Pleasure, Les Blank’s 1978 paean to New Orleans music, cooking, and dance, offers a telling contrast with the Read more »
SYNOPSIS: For nearly five years, acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog desperately tried to complete one of the most ambitious and difficult films of his career, Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank captured the unfolding of this production, made more perilous by Herzog’s determination to shoot the most daunting scenes without models or special effects, including a sequence requiring hundreds of native Indians to pull a full-size, 320-ton steamship over a small mountain. The result is an extraordinary document of the filmmaking process and a unique look into the single-minded mission of one of cinema’s most fearless directors.
| Director | Les Blank |
| Sound | Maureen Gosling |
| Editing | Maureen Gosling |
| Producer | Les Blank |
| Cinematography | Les Blank |
| Interpreting, interviewing, and camera assisstance | Bruce "Pacho" Lane |
| Interviewing and camera and sound assistance | Michael Goodwin |
| Narration written by | Michael Goodwin |
| Narration spoken by | Candace Laughlin |
| Editing assistance and office management | Chris Simon |
| Research | Chris Simon and John Lumsdaine |
| Translations | Francisca Wentworth, Inez Reider and Richard Becker |
By May 09, 2005
A shot of a street sign near the beginning of Always for Pleasure, Les Blank’s 1978 paean to New Orleans music, cooking, and dance, offers a telling contrast with the Read more »
April 19, 2010
Post-Avatar, it seems some of our favorite filmmakers have caught 3-D fever. Just in the past week, it’s been confirmed that Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, and Werner Herzog will soon be getting us to wear Read more »
June 30, 2009
Quick, how many directors can you name who have pulled a 320-ton steamship over a mountain? Yes, that megalomaniacal masterpiece Fitzcarraldo is just further proof that Werner Herzog stands alone Read more »
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