Fitzcarraldo + Burden of Dreams 2xDVD 1981- 1982 Die Last der Träume / Directed by Werner Herzog, Les Blank / Starring: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy, Mick Jagger / 2DVD

UPC 4006680029443

REGION 2 PAL DVD

MADE IN GERMANY

AUDIO: English mono, German 5.1, German mono

SUBTITLES: -

Total Runtime: 151+95 minutes (2 discs)

English Summary:

Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 West German adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald and his real-life feat of transporting a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.

Brian Sweeney "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald is an Irishman living in Iquitos, a small city east of the Andes in the Amazon Basin in Peru in the early part of the 20th century, when the city grew exponentially during the rubber boom. He has an indomitable spirit, but is little more than a dreamer with one major failure already behind him – the bankrupted and incomplete Trans-Andean railways. A lover of opera and a great fan of the internationally known Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, he dreams of building an opera house in Iquitos. Numerous Europeans and North African Sephardic Jewish immigrants have settled in the city at this time, bringing their cultures with them. The opera house will require considerable amounts of money, which the booming rubber industry in Peru should yield in profits. The areas in the Amazon Basin known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and are leased to private companies for exploitation.

Burden of Dreams is a 1982 "making-of" documentary film directed by Les Blank, shot during and about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, and filmed on location in the jungles of Peru. 

Throughout production, director Les Blank and his small crew became exhausted and exasperated from the stress of the work. Blank said that he felt “unconnected to the people around me”.^[2] Keeping up with the antics of Herzog and Klaus Kinski (the film’s star) proved difficult for the reserved, introverted Blank. By the last week of production, he was so burnt out that he feared coming out of production "like some Viet Nam veterans, horribly calloused".

German Summary:

Der exzentrische Abenteurer und Opernliebhaber Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald – von den spanischsprechenden Peruanern Fitzcarraldo genannt – träumt wie besessen davon, in Iquitos im peruanischen Dschungel ein Opernhaus nach dem Vorbild des Teatro Amazonas in Manaus zu errichten und den Sänger Enrico Caruso zu engagieren. Um den Bau finanzieren zu können, kauft er mit dem Geld seiner Geliebten Molly – einer erfolgreichen Bordellbesitzerin – ein Erschließungsrecht für Kautschuk-Gewinnung in einem auf dem Flussweg unerreichbaren Urwaldabschnitt sowie einen alten Flussdampfer, mit dem er den Kautschuk transportieren will.

Da der Fluss zwischen den gewinnversprechenden Kautschuk-Feldern und dem Amazonas durch Stromschnellen unpassierbar ist, kommt Fitzgerald auf die Idee, über den benachbarten Fluss eine Stelle anzusteuern, an der nur ein kleiner, bewaldeter Bergrücken die Flüsse trennt. Hier will er das Schiff über den Berg ziehen, um es auf dem anderen Fluss oberhalb der Stromschnellen als Transportschiff zu benutzen. Dabei helfen ihm unerwartet als feindselig gefürchtete peruanische Ureinwohner, die in dem Schiff ein Gefährt aus göttlicher Verheißung zu erkennen glauben.

Cast / Besetzung:

• Klaus Kinski as Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Fitzcarraldo)
• Claudia Cardinale as Molly
• José Lewgoy as Don Aquilino
• Miguel Ángel Fuentes as Cholo
• Paul Hittscher as Captain (Orinoco Paul)
• Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez as Huerequeque (The Cook)
• Grande Otelo as Station master (as Grande Othelo)
• Peter Berling as Opera Manager
• David Pérez Espinosa as Chief of Campa Indians
• Milton Nascimento as Black Man at Opera House
• Ruy Polanah as Rubber Baron
• Salvador Godínez as Old Missionary
• Dieter Milz as Young Missionary
• William "Bill" Rose as Notary
• Leôncio Bueno
• Jean-Claude Dreyfus as one of the Opera Singers (uncredited)