Burden Of Dreams

1982 documentary from Les Blank about the shooting and production of Fitzcarraldo.
This documentary is massively entertaining. It is narrated and shot in a blank, minimalist, almost offhand stlye (lack of footage) which makes all the wild revelations rather deapdpanned and frequently hillarious, rather than the portentous the could be. And what a story.
We won't go into the details of what happened, but the film manages to cover all the angles admirably, concentrating on at once the Indians and then the early footage (Mick Jagger on screen is marvellous).
Perhaps the one avenue this documentary does not explore (or 'explore' is the wrong word, it gives a five minute evaluation that leaves one hungry for more, a sign that it is doing it's job by piquing the interest) is the character of Kinski, much. This is done elsewhere. The star here is Herzog, we have a portrait of a man who is at once cool, angry, off his rocker, touchingly connected and empathetic. He is the real star here, a self-aware white man in the jungle who clearly knows he has his own issues. He has his vision, it is magnificent. The scenes where he rhapsodies, with a strange kind of blood in his eyes, about the 'obscenity' of nature are at once strikingly powerful and also completely hillarious in his teutonic eschatology.
The man is a hero, and a nuts one. We think we know where his characters come from.
A fine documentary on a more than fascinating subject, the time zipped by.