Fitzcarraldo
International Arthouse
•
2h 37m
Directed by Werner Herzog | 157 mins | 1982
The making of Herzog’s epic film about the endeavors of Irish entrepreneur Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) to build an opera house in the Amazon jungle is perhaps as fascinating as "Fitzcarraldo" itself, as was stunningly documented in Les Blank’s "Burden of Dreams"—the story of a director’s five-year obsessions to match those of his antihero. In their fourth pairing, Herzog gave Kinski another seemingly tailor-made role (although in this case he was a replacement for Jason Robards, who had to drop out well along in the production), and there may be no more iconic image in all of Herzog’s dreamy-looking cinematic output than that of dozens of Peruvian natives hauling a 320-ton steamboat up over a steep hill—an unbelievable “special effect” that Herzog actually accomplished.
Up Next in International Arthouse
-
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 82 mins | 2003
Like the Royal Theater in The Last Picture Show and the title movie house in Cinema Paradiso, the Fu-Ho is shutting down for good. A palace with seemingly mile-wide rows of red velvet seats, the likes of which you’ve seen only in your... -
Goodbye to Language
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard | 70 mins | 2014
An innovator to the end, Godard’s penultimate feature finds him experimenting with the possibilities of digital 3D, using the technology to plot the disintegration of both a couple’s relationship and the images of the relationship. A film of unpreceden... -
Kalkitos
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 19 mins | 2002
A short as puckish as the kids it depicts, in which a soccer game is rendered absurd by the fact that these self-proclaimed ten-year-olds are played by adults. In place of speech, they just mash their mouths together, with the translation supplied by sile...
