CONQUEST OF
THE USELESS
An Entry from the Production
Diary of Fitzcarraldo
BY WERNER HERZOG
PHOTOS BY BEAT PRESSER/ WWW.BEATPRESSER.COM
In 1979, Werner Herzog approached 20th Century Fox to fund a movie, based on a true story, about an overzealous rubber baron who wishes to stage an opera in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon. The producers loved the idea and were about to sign off when the discussion turned to a scene that involved pulling a steamship over a mountainous isthmus, from one river to another. “So you’re going to use a plastic model boat, right?” the backers asked Herzog. The director replied that the camera had to capture “a real steamship being hauled over a real mountain, though not for the sake of realism but for the stylization characteristic of grand opera.” He was met with icy stares, whereupon he realized that he alone would have to raise the money for the film. Over the course of the next two years, through perhaps the most difficult shoot in the history of cinema, he kept a production diary. After he penned the final entry, it sat unread for 20 years. Now, finally, it’s about to be published in book form. Here we present an excerpt from this diary, which will be released on June 30 as Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo . It’s one of the best books we’ve read so far this year, but that’s no surprise because it’s Herzog and everything he does is perfect because he’s perfect. Perfect perfect perfect.
CAMISEA, 22 APRIL 1981
We spent a cold, unpleasant night on the Huallaga in the Pongo, and got to work first thing in the morning setting up the cameras. From my vantage point, the ship’s pilotless trip through the rapids did not look particularly exciting, but after the ship had crashed four times into the cliffs on either side, I saw Raimund and Vignati on a promontory below me pounding each other on the back. Right near where they were standing the ship had ridden up on the cliff a bit, and I saw rocks splitting and dust rising from the friction. They must have filmed that special moment from close up, but there were too many other dead intervals, so we all had the same feeling, and it soon became apparent that we would have to repeat the whole thing, but with the cameras on board. Five volunteers offered to go on board, and I was of the opinion that it would be good to have Kinski and Paul there, too, provided they were willing to cooperate. I promptly went to get Tomislav, the pilot, and we took off below the Pongo from a cow pasture, while those who stayed behind began to move the Huallaga back up through the rapids.
Kinski and Paul came along without much hesitation. Kinski took me aside, and in one of our rare moments where we revealed ourselves, he told me that if I went down with the ship he would go with me. I replied simply that he knew how the ship was built, with steel reinforcement beams inside and separate buoyancy chambers; I had no desire to drown, and had taken technical measures against such an eventuality. We hastily shook hands. I grabbed the phonograph and asked Gisela for some sewing needles, because the record player had no needle. But then our departure was delayed considerably. I had learned from the pilot, who had radioed up to the Huallaga from the Indians’ camp, that people seriously wounded by arrows had just arrived from the upper reaches of the Camisea, and that emergency operations were already under way. I hurried to the first-aid station and saw a native man and a woman, both of whom had been struck with enormous arrows. They had been fishing for the camp three hours upstream by speedboat, and had spent the night on a sandbank. During the night they had been ambushed and shot at close range by Amehuacas. The woman had been hit by three arrows and almost bled to death. The wounds were close together. One arrow had gone all the way through her body just above her kidney, one had bounced off her hip bone, and the most life-threatening one was still sticking in her abdomen, broken off on the inner side of her pelvis. I spent several hours helping out while she was operated on, shining a powerful flashlight into her abdominal cavity and with the other hand spraying insect repellent to try to drive away the clouds of mosquitoes the blood had attracted. The man still had an arrow made of razor-sharp bamboo and almost thirty centimeters long sticking through his throat. He had broken off the two-meter-long shaft himself, and was gripping it in his hand. In his state of shock he refused to let go of it. The arrow’s tip, which looked more like the point of a lance, had spliced open one of his shoulders along the collarbone and was sticking crossways through his neck, with the tip lodged in his shoulder on the other side. He seemed to be in less immediate danger and was operated on only after the woman. Here is what had happened: the man, his wife, and a younger man, all three of them Machiguengas from Shivankoreni, who provide us with yucca, had gone up the Camisea to hunt. They were sleeping on a sandbank, and during the night the woman woke up because the man next to her was gasping strangely. Thinking a jaguar had got him by the throat, she grabbed a still glowing branch from the fire and jumped up. At that moment she was struck by three arrows. The younger man woke up; he had a shotgun with him, and, grasping the situation, fired two shots blindly into the night, since everything was happening in pitch darkness and complete silence. None of the three saw any trace of the attacking Amehuacas; they disappeared, leaving only a few footprints in the sand. Not until the next morning toward eleven did the wounded reach us in their peke-peke, which the younger man, uninjured, was steering; they came just as I was about to set out with Kinski and Paul.
Since in the meantime assistants more competent than I had shown up, I did not stick around when they laid the man with the arrow through his neck on a makeshift kitchen table and administered anesthesia. I could not in good conscience leave the others on board too long in the rapids, where the water level had begun to rise crazily just as I was departing. We landed by the Pongo, with mud flying, and had zero visibility as we taxied, because the dirty water had splashed all over the windshield. Added to that, we had a slight tailwind all the way to the end of the cabbage field.
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Jul 7, 2009 wrote:
There is a movie! it’s the burden of dreams | | Anonymous, on Jul 7, 2009 wrote:
I’d like to see a movie just about hte production | | Anonymous, on Jul 2, 2009 wrote:
scumnation says ’ it was one of the best movies i have ever seen ’ | | Anonymous, on Jul 2, 2009 wrote:
I made a similar film with the plastic model boat. Perfect, perfect perfect. | | Anonymous, on Jul 1, 2009 wrote:
no wonder 20th Century Fox turned them down...this seems was a really big bitch to produce and film | | Anonymous, on Jul 1, 2009 wrote:
this is crazy! i didnt realize it was "the making of Fitzcarraldo"...i thought it was authentic stories from the time | |
| gnarwhal, on Jun 30, 2009 wrote:
what? you haven’t seen this? of course the final product was worth it. it’s a fucking cinematic classic. | |
| TheDon, on Jun 26, 2009 wrote:
Sounds like the cast/crew had a miserable experience; hope the final product was worth it. | | Anonymous, on Jun 26, 2009 wrote:
Just how many people were seriously hurt while filming this movie? | | Anonymous, on Jun 26, 2009 wrote:
the cook was putting in the sutures? No anesthesia? I would have been off this set in no time. | | Anonymous, on Jun 26, 2009 wrote:
If I was one of those producers I’d probably react in the same exact way. | |
| bogart the can, on Jun 25, 2009 wrote:
watched fitzcarraldo the other day (available on netflix watch it now btw!) and it was amazing. some of the scenes were just unbelieveable. definitely recommend this one! | | Anonymous, on Jun 25, 2009 wrote:
sounds like the craziest movie production ever, the end result must be absurd. | |
| el guapo, on Jun 23, 2009 wrote:
i loved in fitzcarraldo when the crew wanted to have a mutiny and he was all "fuck no you aren’t having a mutiny, get your asses back to work" even to the huge guy. you would have obeyed too if you saw klaus kinski’s eyes that wide. | | Anonymous, on Jun 19, 2009 wrote:
Damn... film crew so big they had prostitutes on location | | Anonymous, on Jun 19, 2009 wrote:
It’s no bad lieutenant | | Anonymous, on Jun 18, 2009 wrote:
I read somewhere once that Herzog almost strangled Kinski to death on the set of Aguree because he wanted to quit at some point towards the end. Any one know if that’s true? | | Anonymous, on Jun 16, 2009 wrote:
and yes it’s not ’life changing’ or ’deep’ but it is fucking incredible. | | Anonymous, on Jun 16, 2009 wrote:
holy fucking shit how did i not know about this? one of the greatest films ever made by one of the greatest guys ever. Can’t wait to get my hands on this. | | Anonymous, on Jun 15, 2009 wrote:
"oh man! i wanna see a picture of the steamship being hauled over the mountain. I bet that was crazy"
you’re in luck. there’s a moving picture of it. it’s called fitzcarraldo. | | Anonymous, on Jun 15, 2009 wrote:
Yeah, you actually see those arrows in Burden of Dreams. They’re fucking MASSIVE. It’s crazy to think anyone even survived after getting one of those things through yer neck. Herzog says something good about wanting to give his son them as souvenirs because he’d be excited at the fact they were stuck in a man. | | Anonymous, on Jun 15, 2009 wrote:
oh thanks, aguirre always comes up on my netflix recommendations but the cover has thrown me off. i’ll check it out. | | Anonymous, on Jun 15, 2009 wrote:
oh man! i wanna see a picture of the steamship being hauled over the mountain. I bet that was crazy | | Anonymous, on Jun 12, 2009 wrote:
for those who aren’t so familiar with herzog’s work, I recommend Aguirre: the wrath of god before you start watching The Grizzly Man Diaries | |
| electricboogaloo, on Jun 12, 2009 wrote:
handsdown one of my favorite film makers..his body of work is amazing | | Anonymous, on Jun 12, 2009 wrote:
summer reading list?
i say, yes yes! | | Anonymous, on Jun 11, 2009 wrote:
WOOoOooOoOOoO. HARPERS TO ECHO PARK> WOooOWOWOWOWOowoOoOOo | |
| Jesus Crust, on Jun 11, 2009 wrote:
I don’t typically like to idolize anyone but Herzog is a fucking God! | |
| | | Anonymous, on Jun 11, 2009 wrote:
This just proves that Werner Herzog is insane. INSANE! | | | Next 30 comments > |
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