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.
| Werner Herzog | |
| Klaus Kinski | |
| Claudia Cardinale | |
| Jason Robards | |
| Mick Jagger |
| 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 |
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 in the annals of filmmaking. And though this tireless artist is still regularly creating vital...
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 mood of Burden...
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