Firefox/A Week's Vacation/Burden of Dreams/Author! Author!

a hybrid documentary of an incredible, relentlessly reckless story of film-making, and of a little anthropology too

Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

Klaus Kinski in Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Gerald Gaxiola in The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists (1995)

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Francis Ford Coppola in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

Werner Herzog and Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man (2005)

Kinski always says it's full of erotic elements. I don't see it so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It's just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and... growing and... just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they - they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is - is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever... goes too deep into this has his share of this curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here. It's a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It's the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what's around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban... novel... a cheap novel. We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication... overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the - the stars up here in the - in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. 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. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.

Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski in Burden of Dreams (1982)

Mick Jagger, Klaus Kinski, and Jason Robards in Burden of Dreams (1982)

Werner Herzog

Klaus Kinski

Claudia Cardinale

Michael Goodwin

A documentary following German auteur Werner Herzog as he deals with difficult actors, bad weather and getting a boat over a mountain, all in an effort to make his film Fitzcarraldo (1982).

Les Blank

Burden of Dreams

Worth seeing, but shallow

I saw this enjoyable documentary film in 1983 and have recently seen it again (2001) at the National Film Theatre in London, together with &quot;Fitzcarraldo&quot; and &quot;Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe&quot; - sore bum!

In 1983 I thought it was brilliant and it was immensely valuable to get an insight into the tortured making of the film &quot;Fitzcarraldo&quot;. Seeing it again, almost two decades later, I feel the film skims the surface as Les Blank seems to have little interest in drawing out what went on. He just observes and accepts the events at face value. Only Herzog is interviewed at any length and the burden of his dream(s) does become apparent as the film progresses, however there is virtually no comment from Kinski or the other actors. Les Blank might argue that the film is about Herzog&apos;s state of mind and his attitude to the production of Fitzcarraldo. In this, I think it is largely a success. To look for more from the film is perhaps to unfairly employ the benefit of hindsight.

I suspect my disappointment (relative) at seeing this again is the release of &quot;My Best Fiend&quot; in the interim. I find my memory conflating the two films, the piece about Kinski&apos;s &quot;hate hate&quot; relationship with the jungle (and almost everything else!) would seem more appropriate to &quot;Burdens&quot; but is in &quot;Fiend&quot;.

&quot;Burden of Dreams&quot; and &quot;My Best Fiend&quot; would make a good double bill, giving a much more rounded impression of the context of the production of Fitzcarraldo and the relationship between Herzog and Kinski. If you are interested, try to see them both.

I saw this enjoyable documentary film in 1983 and have recently seen it again (2001) at the National Film Theatre in London, together with "Fitzcarraldo" and "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" - sore bum!

In 1983 I thought it was brilliant and it was immensely valuable to get an insight into the tortured making of the film "Fitzcarraldo". Seeing it again, almost two decades later, I feel the film skims the surface as Les Blank seems to have little interest in drawing out what went on. He just observes and accepts the events at face value. Only Herzog is interviewed at any length and the burden of his dream(s) does become apparent as the film progresses, however there is virtually no comment from Kinski or the other actors. Les Blank might argue that the film is about Herzog's state of mind and his attitude to the production of Fitzcarraldo. In this, I think it is largely a success. To look for more from the film is perhaps to unfairly employ the benefit of hindsight.

I suspect my disappointment (relative) at seeing this again is the release of "My Best Fiend" in the interim. I find my memory conflating the two films, the piece about Kinski's "hate hate" relationship with the jungle (and almost everything else!) would seem more appropriate to "Burdens" but is in "Fiend".

"Burden of Dreams" and "My Best Fiend" would make a good double bill, giving a much more rounded impression of the context of the production of Fitzcarraldo and the relationship between Herzog and Kinski. If you are interested, try to see them both.

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