Opening Statement

Somehow, out of all the Herzog movies I’ve seen, Fitzcarraldo, a nearly three-hour epic about a man trying to pull a steamboat over a mountain in the Amazonian rainforest, feels the most relatable, the most accessible. And for a movie that accomplished incredible things while telling the story of man desperate to do incredible things, this accessibility feels like the greatest achievement of all — by Sarah Gorr, August 28, 2017

Herzog, the Jungle, and Me: Notes on Iquitos and the "Conquest of the Useless"

It’s September 16, 2013 and I’m flying from Arequipa to Iquitos, but it isn’t until I look out the window of the plane that I begin to realize exactly what I’ve done. Down below, I see for the first time the muddy brown waters of the Amazon snaking its way through an utterly endless expanse of green — by Sarah Gorr, August 29, 2017

First Viewing: Narrative/Documentary

I came to Fitzcarraldo with only a little experience with Werner Herzog’s narrative films. I’d seen the completely bizarre The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and the solidly mediocre Rescue Dawn, but not much in between. My real love for Herzog came from his documentaries — by Marcus Emanuel, August 30, 2017

Irony in Denial

Director Werner Herzog has claimed on multiple occasions in the past that he does not understand irony. Watching a film like Fitzcarraldo, that is hard to believe. In fact, you might say that Werner Herzog is not simply familiar with irony, but is a master of it — by Patrick Brown, August 31, 2017

Related Review: Burden of Dreams

For years my go-to stance on these two films [which I both like a lot] has been that Burden of Dreams is actually a far better cinematic execution of Fitzcarraldo’s plot and central themes that Fitzcarraldo itself. That’s what I was planning on arguing in this article, anyways. But upon re-watching both films, I’m not sure I believe that any more — by Matt Warren, September 1, 2017

The Cinessential Podcast, Ep. 20

The regular crew of John Gilpatrick, Sarah Gorr, and Aaron Pinkston journey through Werner Herzog's epic Fitzcarraldo. Topics include: Sarah's experience in Iquitos, Herzog's strange career, Klaus Kinski's insanity, and more — September 1, 2017