Fitzcarraldo

Ou beloved Herzog's 1982 movie draws immediate comparisons with 'Aguirre, Wrath Of God', and there are great similarities, but also differences.
First a few quick technical notes; Herzog has a sensational sense of timing, mixing excitement of the quick cut with the 'just-right' respect for the image that the long shot affords. He, as the film goes, distances us further from Fitzcarraldo, underlying the sense of a man who becomes smaller (contrast to 'Aguirre', where the title character comes from the side to dominate). Kinski ergo does not eat everything in sight, as in 'Aguirre', but can often look tired, manic but not comically so. How can we say it? Kinski is almost restrained, but that madness underneath still make the eyes and back hubs of th electric. The focus on animals is really a thematic thing, but again is nicely timed.
Fitzcarraldo himself is much more sympathetic that Aguirre, a man we get to know rather than are imposed upon. His almost jarring early changes of mood effectively show a conflicted man. Unlike Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo would turn back, and would possibly accept second best. His kind of mania is rather naivety than the almost Kurtz-like drive of an Aguirre.
Fitzcarraldo also differs in that he is at the whim of events, rather than controlling them (even in a deranged way) a la Aguirre. Thus the camera moves out.
The use of the natives is interesting, Herzog does not try to understand them but rather lets our relation to them, of unknowable blankness, shine through. Our voyeuristic look at the stares of them is well evoked.
Is we know from the shooting, the almost documentary feel to some of the scenes is, well, because it's almost a documentary. Herzog is a director who mixes shots, the still and the jerky handheld, but the two do not come into conflict, a miracle of editing and, once again, timing.
Fitzcarraldo, like his film, does not have the shining purpose and purity of Aguirre and his piece. Fitzcarraldo perhaps does not shine as brightly, bite as hard, as the other, but it is still a magnificent work from someone who we belive is one of the great directors.