The Other Side of Madness - Werner Herzog Part II

When I debuted with this feature through investigating the enigmatic German filmmaker Werner Herzog and his rather unusual act of eating a shoe; I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be drawn to write about him again. After all the words 'Herzog' and €˜madness€™ seem to blend in together as naturally as the names €˜Laurel€™ and €˜Hardy€™ and it is indeed hard to imagine a film by the German filmmaker that could ever be described as being conventionally sound. Today we are looking at his most critically acclaimed picture Fitzcarraldo which featured all the hallmarks of a vintage Herzog production; a script just screaming out for problems with location, shooting and casting, a lead character chasing an impossible dream, the conflict between man and nature and gravity defying sequences which seemed destined to eat into the film€™s budget and time. We are going to be analysing the chaotic approach that Herzog took to making the film possible and exploring the method behind the madness that helped to make the movie such a resounding success. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING: THE STORY OF WERNER HERZOG'S FITZCARRALDO It is quite something to watch Burden of Dreams, a documentary by Les Blanks which documents the making of the film Fitzcarraldo in which you realise just how thin the line is between what is going on in front of and behind the cameras. What emerges is that the cast and crew are practically living through the content of the script€™s journey which is what makes the final product one of the most authentic films you€™ll perhaps ever witness. As a result the suspension of disbelief that most films strive for is not necessary for this production. Much like wrestling fans of the mid-nineties didn't have to pretend that Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels despised one another during their on screen rivalry, the same truth applies to the experience of watching Fitzcarraldo where the plethora of crazed on screen emotions - stress, paranoia and hysteria which coupled with the death-defying stunts and sequences are about as close to reality as you can get. In that sense Fitzcarraldo might be described as a "method film" with everyone on set (not all through their own wishes) becoming caught up in the hectic nature of the story themselves. The most memorably crafted sequence which highlighted the extent to which Herzog was prepared to retain authenticity involved shifting a 340 tonne steam ship all the way up a monstrously steep Peruvian mountain. To understand what on earth possessed him to do this (albeit with literally no assistance from special effects) it is perhaps necessary to first of all offer some background on the film itself. Werner Herzog€™s script for Fitzcarraldo was inspired by the life and times of Irish born explorer Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald, a ruthless rubber baron who was keen to exploit the exportation of rubber through Peruvian villages and who combated resistance from indigenous people by threatening to kill them if they did not offer to assist him within his gruesome working conditions. Probably not then the first man you€™d want to encounter whilst out hiking in a foreign country. In discovering the area known today as the Manu Bliosphere Reserve, Carlos faced a major challenge in transporting his ship over a mountain in order to seek the land where he could lay his hands on the lucrative promise of rubber. Although a major feat of endurance the task was made possible by carefully structuring the assigment so that the boat was carefully dissasembled and taken up the incline piece by piece. Herzog however requested no such structure (surprise, surprise) and demanded that the enormous ship be taken up the mountain fully intact. What followed was one of the most challenging sequences ever captured on celluloid where in documentary like style you find yourself quite literally watching the real life struggle of the cast hauling this great bloody object up a cruel and unrelenting natural force. In the end the scene appears in the film, not as an edited product of creativity but very much an edited version of reality. You might be shocked to discover that the struggle in trying to shift the boat caused great stress amongst the cast and crew. The Native extras, who were hired in the film through pretty much the same circumstances as they were in real life; toiled away in pulling the ship through use of a cable mechanism which repeatedly gave way to slip back down the mountain. One of the Brazilian engineers, no doubt under the impression that Herzog had completely lost his mind tried to reason with the director that there was a seventy percent chance of the cables snapping and that he was risking several lives in the process. Never a man to back down on anything, especially when it concerned making his own films - Herzog stood his ground and the engineer resigned and no doubt breathed a sigh of relief as he looked for future work in more health and safety conscious environments. In the end Herzog€™s hard work paid off though and his naturalistic approach was rewarded as the boat eventually found its way up over the mountain. Some fascinating insight offered by the man himself however reveals some enlightening thoughts as to why he decided to handle the task with such insane bravado. Speaking in the captivating book Herzog on Herzog, the director discusses how the authenticity of the boat sequence was very much connected to the philosophy of the lead protagonist:

€œAn image like the ship moving across a mountain seems to give us all courage for our own dreams. This is a film that challenges the most basic laws of nature. Boats are just not meant to fly over mountains. Fitzcarraldo€™s story is about the victory of the weightlessness of dreams over the heaviness of reality.€

This compelling theory gives rise to the idea that Fitzcarraldo, despite suffering setback after setback during the course of the film, is a man who will never have his spirit broken and thus never truly be beaten and in this lies true inspiration. It also gives us a greater appreciation as to why the director wanted the filming to be so authentic in order to effectively reflect the spirit of his lead character. It wasn€™t enough to just act like getting the boat over the mountain was a huge ordeal, it had to genuinely be a huge and stressful ordeal (both emotionally and physically) so that the cast and crew could fully relate to the theme of the film about never losing hope in yourself or your dreams. It might not be as structuted a method as say Robert De Niro making Jodie Foster go through their lines a hundred times over on the set of Taxi Driver so that the dialogue became so natural that they managed to disguised the effort of acting; however it is a method all the same and no doubt one which helped to make Fitzcarraldo so visually capivating. Herzog€™s ambition for the cast and crew to truly live through the madness of the script was perhaps helped by the real life mad personality of his larger than life lead actor Klaus Kinski. For the first four months of shooting Herzog had initially cast the pairing of Jason Robards and Mick Jagger but illness for the former and concert dedications for the Rolling Stones frontman forced them both to leave the set. It was perhaps for the best. After all can you really imagine a pampered rock star caught up in the heat and sweat of an Amazon jungle busy leading a ship through deadly rapids whilst on set crew members are being bitten by snakes and trying to dodge a boat collapsing down a mountain (although, having said that the experience could have inspired some interesting Rolling Stones records €“ how about €“ €œTHE LAST TIME€. I EVER WORK FOR WERNER HERZOG.€) But in all seriousness, it seemed that the project called for a lead performance from an actor as mad as the director himself and if anything Kinski was even more off the wall because at least with Herzog there was a method. It may have been subtle and long winded but Herzog always had a reason for what he was doing; Kinski on the other hand just appeared to be plain crazy. On set the actor would berate Herzog endlessly insisting that he had no right to direct him and causing tantrums at the slightest inconvenience such as a mosquito appearing on shoot. He also wound up the Native extras to such an extent that one of them eventually asked Herzog if they could have his permission to murder him. In a brilliant, darkly humorous response Werner told the extra that it would be unnecessary to go through with such a transaction, not because he was particularly against the idea but because he needed Kinski to finish his scenes in the film. Ironically, however Herzog did end up threatening to shoot Kinski when the actor made plans to leave the set. Kinski was well known for simply walking out on productions when things weren't going his way but this was no ordinary director he was planning to walk out on and Herzog let him know it; detailing the tense exchange with the actor in his book:

€œFor Kinski to have left the set meant he would have violated a duty I felt was way beyond and more important than each of us. I only told him very quietly that I would shoot him, but I had no rifle in my hand. He had enough instinct to understand this was no joke or hollow threat, and screamed for the police, even though the next outpost was 300 miles away.€

Although Herzog ended up causing no bodily harm to Kinski (as much as he may have wanted to) his dangerous quest for authenticity paid a heavy price for the Indian extras who most likely had no idea what to expect of Herzog when they agreed to help him film. In essence the treatment of the Indians who are forced to help Fitzcarraldo within the film was very similar to their real life treatment on set: in both instances they ended up working for twice as long and hard as they were first promised and they too were paid a pittance as they put their livelihood on the line for the sake of authentic achievement. Whilst Herzog has defended his insane production by claiming that he always had a doctor present, he was perhaps a little naïve to think that carting around and relocating diverse tribal groups through alien territory wouldn't create some form of inter-ethnic friction. Or perhaps more likely he knew exactly what he was doing but welcomed the incoming chaos anyway. Such chaos came in the form of increasingly low medical supplies and food, airplane accidents and one extra being shot through the neck by a five foot arrow by one of the local tribes called the Amahuacas. Probably not the same kind of experience as working with someone like Michael Mann is it? Through sheer, bloody minded determination Herzog eventually finished his film and was able to feel the same elation as that of his lead protagonist. He had after all enacted all of the mind-numbingly dangerous scenes for real. As far as I am concerned, it doesn€™t sound like it was worth it, but then Herzog is that rare beast of a filmmaker who places film on a pedestal ahead of his own regards for safety and indeed sanity. The film won Werner the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival and is indeed a work of high magnitude and grandeur that is definitely worth watching and indeed rewatching just to remind yourself that what you are witnessing is probably closer to the truth than the truth itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITx7txr-7M

Thanks for reading and please return soon for a special look at the method acting madness of two time lead Oscar winning actor Daniel Day Lewis.