Burden of Dreams

Werner Herzog. If you've seen one of his films, you're probably wondering "Okay, what's with this guy?" If you haven't seen one of his films, you probably have absolutely no interest in this film, so I suggest you go see one of his films then return to this page and see this film after you see his film and think, "What's with this guy?" This movie follows a movie of his called Fitzcarraldo which is a mix of the true-life account of an Irish man who founded a city in the Amazon jungle and the tale of Sysiphus, the Greek myth about the guy in Hades who had to carry the heavy rock to the top of the mountain, only to have it roll back down again at the end of the day.

In typical Herzog fashion, his movie begins almost to reflect it's very subject, as Herzog finds himself in the Amazon dealing with hundreds of natives, a dangerous political climate, unaccommodating weather, and having to take a three-story thousand ton ship over the same journey Fitzcarraldo would have to (all in the name of realism). In the meantime he discussing the importance of movies, his own fascination/love/hatred of the jungle, and we see a film nearly self-implode many times over.

It's actually pretty grueling work to watch (as is pretty much most of Herzog's films), and Les Blank definitely shows himself to have an intimate understanding of the situation so that he isn't judgmental of Herzog but still able to reveal some of his more, let's say, quirky traits. Some more interesting subject matter is Klaus Kinski, who as you watch you can never tell if he's acting in a scene or just being himself.

--PolarisDiB

Altough it has been years since I have seen Burden of Dreams, this movie has always remained etched in my memory as one of the greatest documentaries about the making of a film ( Fitzcarraldo). Although it is moving at a snail's pace, just like Fitz. it never ends to fascinate. It is almost as if the director wants the progression of time to happen in real time. The film depicts the insanity of Herzog's obsessive film making with passion and understanding. An absolute must see. As is Fitzcarraldo. On as scale of 1-10, this one ranks 11 (see "This is Spinal Tap")

I originally wondered why the Criterion Collection would choose to release this documentary. I knew that Herzog was a cinematic titan, and that the filming of Fitzcarraldo was supposedly a journey of it's own, and I even believed that the filming of a 30 ton ship being hoisted over a mountain deserved a documentary, but why would a prestigious DVD house choose to release this among the likes of Rashomon, The 400 Blows, Band of Outsiders, etc. After watching this film, it becomes very evident as to why Burden of Dreams deserves the criterion treatment. Les Blank's film does a better job of portraying the insanity and spirit of Fitzcarraldo than the film itself. The similarities between the character Fitzcarraldo and Herzog himself are endless. Despite Blank's poetic filming of the amazon jungle, despite all of the conflicts the cast and natives encounter, and despite the brilliant documentary footage displayed, the heart of this film is the the essence of cinema. This movie is about film-making and the art of it; it's passion, it's plight, it's entirety. When Herzog closes the film by stating, "It's not only my dreams, it's my belief that they are your's as well, and the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate. and that is what poetry or literature or film-making is all about. it's as simple as that. I make films because I have not learned anything else. and I know I can do it to a certain degree. and it is my duty, because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are, and we have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field." You truly begin to understand this man, and this film, and cinema itself. Strongly recommended!

Such interest in Fitzcarraldo was sparked in my mind that I was compulsively forced to purchase the DVD version of it. It was fascinating, a near-masterpiece, I would say. And I desperately wished to see the documentary about its making, Burden of Dreams. Well, probably a year after I first saw Fitzcarraldo, I came home one night to find Burden of Dreams on the Sundance Channel (praise god for this station!). I had missed about 8 minutes, but, oh well, I sat down to watch the rest.

Unfortunately, it did not reveal much about Fitzcarraldo. I had read about the problems Herzog had during the filming, and this is basically what Burden's focus is. The documentary does not go deep enough, though. I would say about a quarter of it (its running length is just over 90 minutes) is made up of actual scenes from Fitzcarraldo with maybe a short paragraph to describe the setting and maybe some small bit of behind-the-scene narrative.

Another section of the film is made up of interviews with the cast and crew. This should have been the lifeblood of this documentary, but it was not. Herzog's own interviews were interesting, but it is more or less him complaining because things are not going his way (which he has a right to complain about, but it isn't all that interesting to watch). He has this very silly monologue where he complains about how the jungle symbolizes the death of the world, when really the only thing symbolizing death is his dying film. Very disappointing is the documentarians' inability to get interviews with the cast. I was seriously hoping for some of Klaus Kinski's patented insanity and also at least one interview with the great Claudia Cardinale. There was one tiny interview with Kinski where he complained about having cabin fever for being stuck in the cast camps for weeks at a time, completely justifiable, I would say, and there are no interviews with Cardinale (although she may have been interviewed before I started watching). It made me feel a little disappointed that no documentarians had been there to film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, where Kinski absolutely flipped out!

Never fear, though. There is one very good part of this film: it serves as an ethnographic document for the Indians of South America. Herzog rightly claims that their parts in Fitzcarraldo itself were not sufficiently ethnographic, since they were just doing what he was asking of them. But in the documentary, we see the Indians making masato, an alcoholic drink made of yucca and saliva, we see them playing games such as arrow catching, we even see an attack from a different tribe that believes that the Indians who are working on the film have come to attack them. All of this is extremely interesting. 7/10

Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo was one of the most daunting tasks to put on in cinema history. This documentary follows the making of that film and all of the troubles Herzog went through. Fitzcarraldo is a sight to behold and going back now I would probably have much more of an appreciation for it. This film follows Herzog through his passion to tell this story and the incredible almost unfathomable lengths he had to go through. I thought the film could have been a little more well rounded covering more parts of the production more closely, but it still shows the grand scale of the film, and that is what I wanted to see.