Burden of Dreams [Criterion Collection]

Les Blank

Overview

Documentarian Les Blank, who filmed Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, trained his cameras on Herzog again, as the eccentric German filmmaker made his epic, Fitzcarraldo, in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. Herzog's production is in trouble right from the start. He begins filming with Jason Robards playing the title role, and Mick Jagger playing Fitzcarraldo's sidekick, Wilbur. With 40 percent of the film shot, Robards becomes ill and goes back to the states, where his doctor will not let him return. Because of the delay, Jagger, with album and tour commitments, is forced to quit the production. Thinking no one can fill the rock star's shoes, Herzog jettisons Jagger's role. He eventually casts his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski as Fitzcarraldo and begins shooting again. Violent tribal disputes and unpredictable weather hinder the shoot, but the biggest obstacle is Herzog's own quixotic and dangerous determination to film one antique boat smashing down the Amazonian rapids, and the dragging of an identical boat over a mountain from one river to another. Blank interviews members of the cast and crew, including the impoverished Indian extras, and captures the troubles of the seemingly cursed production, but his interviews with Herzog are the focal point of the film. "If I abandon this project," Herzog explains at one point, "I would be a man without dreams, and I never want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project." Herzog later made his own documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend, which adds to the lore of this infamously difficult shoot.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/15/2016
UPC:	0715515172219
Original Release:	1982
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:35:00
Sales rank:	13,167

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer; Audio Commentary by Director Les Blank, Editor and Sound Recordist Maureen Gosling, and Fitzcarraldo Director Werner Herzog; Dreams and Burdens, A new thirty-eight minute interview with Herzog; Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), a twenty-minute film by Blank featuring Herzog fulfilling a bet; Deleted Scenes; Photo Gallery of images taken by Gosling; Trailer; New English subtitle translation; Plus: An essay by film scholar Paul Arthur

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

David Espinosa	Actor
Miguel Fuentes	Actor
Paul Hittscher	Actor
José Lewgoy	Actor
Thomas Mauch	Actor
Walter Saxer	Actor

Technical Credits

Mike Goodwin

Les Blank	Director,Producer
David Loxton	Executive Producer
Mike Goodwin	Screenwriter
Maureen Gosling	Sound/Sound Designer

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Burden of Dreams
1. The Story of Fitzcarraldo [4:46]
2. The Aguaruna Struggle [6:38]
3. Robards and Jagger Leave [3:32]
4. Kinski Arrives/Iquitos [5:17]
5. The Boats [3:31]
6. The Second Camp [3:17]
7. Jose Lewgoy/Hardship [4:44]
8. The Ship Runs Aground [3:44]
9. Employing the Indigenous Population [6:54]
10. Raid Party [5:01]
11. Separate Worlds [6:32]
12. Masato [2:32]
13. Compensation [4:58]
14. "The Jungle is Winning" [4:35]
15. Tending to Boredom [4:48]
16. The Boat and the Hill [8:33]
17. Challenging Nature [4:27]
18. Herzog Presses On [4:17]
19. The Film Is Stuck [2:08]
20. Four Years Later [1:34]
21. Credits [2:59]
1. Project Beginnings [4:46]
2. The First Film Camp [6:38]
3. Casting Changes [3:32]
4. Approaching Subjects/Burdens [5:17]
5. Various Populations at Work [3:31]
6. The Second Camp [3:17]
7. The Actors/Herzog's Approach [4:44]
8. Dangers [3:44]
9. Medical and Filming Concerns [6:54]
10. The Raid Party [5:01]
11. An Unnatural Setting/Structure [6:32]
12. Music/Editing Sensibility [2:32]
13. Land Title [4:58]
14. Herzog's Unwavering Vision [4:35]
15. Problems [4:48]
16. No Precedent/Waning Support [8:33]
17. Not a Romantic [4:27]
18. Shooting the Rapids [4:17]
19. The Aftermath [2:08]
20. Dream Fulfilled [1:34]
21. Artists Doing Art [2:59]
1. Color Bars
1. Chapter 1 [20:14]
1. Casting [10:04]
2. Dreams [5:35]
3. Danger [7:10]
4. Parallel Films [15:09]
1. Fight [3:51]
2. Butterfiles [2:01]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Burden of Dreams
   Play The Movie
   Chapters
      Color Bars
   Commentary
      Commentary: On
      Commentary: Off
      Index
   Supplements
      Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
         Play
      Dreams and Burdens
         Chapters
      Deleted Scenes
      Trailer
      Stills Gallery
         Werner Herzog
         Les Blank
         Maureen Gosling
         Klaus Kinski
         Fitzcarraldo Additional Cast Photographs
         Fitzcarraldo Crew
         Burden Of Dreams Crew
         The Two Film Camps
         The Locations
         The Peruvian Indians
         Building The Ships
         Other Photos From The Amazon And Beyond
   Subtitles
      German
      Spanish
      Indigenous Peruvian
      English Translations
         SDH
         Off

Editorial Reviews

Les Blank's film about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo is a fascinating portrait of a filmmaker pushed to the outer edge of sanity by a difficult film shoot, and by his obsession with seeing his vision captured on the screen. Just as the film Herzog is making shows a man (Fitzcarraldo, played by Klaus Kinski) whose passion for opera drives him to a mad and self-destructive act of incredible hubris, the film Blank has made shows a man (Herzog) whose passion for his own art drives him to a similar mad and self-destructive act. Like Hearts of Darkness (Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper's invaluable document of the making of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now), Burden of Dreams paints a somewhat troubling picture of a fiercely intelligent and supremely talented, but megalomaniacal filmmaker, who will stop at nothing to see his brilliant vision realized. The profound respect that Herzog professes to have for the tribal culture Amazonian Indians stands in sharp contrast to the way they are treated on his set, and Blank effectively captures this disparity. He also captures the degradation of Herzog's keen mind, as the jungle apparently begins to drive him mad. "Nature here is vile and base," he explains, as the elements threaten to derail his film, "The trees are in misery. The birds here are in misery. I don't think they sing -- they just screech in pain." Late in the shoot, as the filming hits snag after snag, Herzog laments, with a rueful smile, "I shouldn't make movies anymore. I should go to a lunatic asylum right away." Burden of Dreams is a tale of obsession as compelling and disturbing as the film it documents.

All Movie Guide - Josh Ralske