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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2005)
■ Forgotten film Herzog parallels film content, story creation in 'Fitzcarraldo' Herzog displays striking images and creative plotting in his 1982 film BY RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR The opening scenes of Werner Her zog’s 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo" tells you everything you need to know about its main character and, in a way, about Her zog himself. We first meet Brian Sweeny Fitzgerald, known as Fitzcarraldo (played by the wonderful Klaus Kinski in one of his best roles) as he rafts madly upriver tc the docks of a city. He has been on the water for days, trying to make it to a per formance by opera great Enrico Caruso. His hands are bloody and his eyes are manic, but when he makes it into the opera house, a look of near transcen dence overtakes him. This is a man of great passions. Fitzcarraldo loves opera as much as he loves life. That he lives in Peru in the early years of the twentieth century - not exactly a hub for the sort of culture * opera thrives in - hardly dampens his passion. His biggest dream is to bring an opera house to the large but isolated town of Iquitos, a city where colonialists have made it rich in the rubber trade while the natives live in rotting squalor. Fitzcarraldo lives between these two worlds. He is European, but a failure as a businessman. He spends his days en tertaining local children with recordings of great operas or using a chemical process to make ice — a novelty many of the natives have never seen. Herzog is a smart enough director to take colonialism as a fact of life rather than to make some grand statement about it. He takes the environment that such exploitation breeds as his setting for the story of a man who not only fails at all of his projects, but fails spectacu larly. His previous project involved build ing a railroad through the Amazon jun gle, a project which left only two hundred yards of track and a locomotive with nowhere to go. His latest project is the most ambitious yet. Borrowing money from his devoted fianc6 Molly, the owner of the local 492 E. 13th 686-2458 hor the week of January 7th! Sign-up for our weekly WebPage Update! www.bijou-cinema s. c 0 m 3 Golden Globe Nominations Best Motion Picture (Drama) Liam Neeson—Best Actor Laura Linney—Best Supporting Actress ■KINSEY is a stupandously moving film Neason nails Kinsey's rock-hard decency and fragile ego. and Linney abets him beautifully "-Dinuemiswr sutf Though it has its share ol carnality. Bill Condon's wise and witly biography ol the sex researcher Allred C Kinsey is. above all, an intellectual turn-on “ -A C Scctl. NEW YORK TIMES KINSEY u*r» About SOX. _ 5:00, 7:25 & 9:45 ni Sat & Sun Mat 2 7 Golden Globe Nominations Including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Picture (Comedy) SIDEWAYS Paul Giamatti Thomas Haden Church 4:45, 7:15 & 9:40 nightly Sat & Sun Mat 2:15 E3 Courtesy Director Werner Herzog went to great lengths to create the images in "Fitzcarraldo," going so far as to actually haul a steamship up the side of a mountain. bordello, he buys a tract of rubber trees in a patch of land none of the local rubber barons have been able to exploit. The rea son no one else has touched the land is that the only means of transporting the rubber is by the river, which is inaccessi ble in that region due to an inconveniently placed waterfall. Fitzcarraldo comes up with a plan to take a steamboat, take it up river and then drag it over a mountain to the isolated area. What makes the project even more amazing is that, in order to create the se quence for the film, the filmmakers actu ally dragged a steamboat up a mountain and slid it down the other side. So rarely does the content of a film and the story behind its creation connect with such odd parallel. Herzog is a director of large vi sions and ambitious projects. That he has often used his talents to direct opera should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen his films. In “Fitzcarraldo," Herzog has created some of the most striking images ever filmed, period, no questions. The foggy trip upriver is sharpened by the threat of attack from hostile natives in the area. In order to win their friendship, Fitzcar raldo plays records of Caruso on a gramophone placed on top of the ship. The unseen natives are silent as the mu sic plays, but they soon begin drumming along with the music in an enchanting piece of cross-cultural synchronization. When the first lever system used to drag the ship uphill snaps under the pres sure, the ship’s cook comes up with the idea of using the ship’s anchor to pull it self. We are then treated to the image of this gigantic machine doing something no one ever intended it to do as it pulls it self inch by inch to the top of the hill. I would not be giving anything away by saying that the project fails miser ably, though I will leave out the details. Nearly all of Herzog's films concern dreamers whose dreams collapse be fore their eyes. That this film was made at all might be considered a refutation of this, but in the final scenes when Fitz carraldo finds some form of redemption it is easy to see that Herzog knows ex actly what he is trying to do. ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com poetry night monday 8pm - 10:45pm tango night Wednesday 8pm - 10pm open mic night friday 8pm - 10:45pm emu lower level 021085 Warm, friendly and cheap Darts, Cribbage, Big Screen TV $2.25 WELLS, $5 SPECIALS all day, every day LIVE MUSIC: Tuesday & Friday Patrick & Giri Saturday Open Micjam 8pm-1 am Tuesday: Steak and Brew Thursday: Enchiladas and Mary Saturday: Burger and Brew Don t forget to book tbe party bus! mm pool TIL 10PM TIL CLOSE SDN & MON LONG ISLANDS $2.25 PABST Wednesday 1/2 Price Nachos 99 WEST BBOADWAY • 683-3154 Rememberbein^ freshman? - getting lost in the library - meeting new people " finding your classrooms First'year students need your insight. Apply to become a FIG TA or FA For information or to access the application, go to http://firstyear.uoregon.edu or call Amy Hughes Giard at 346'1079
