Last night, another excellent Herzog/Kinski film, Fitzcarraldo. Wow. Another dreamlike movie set on a river in South America, this time going upstream and a couple centuries later. There are so many beautiful moments in this movie. Kinski’s character has a steamship that he carries over a mountain. Herzog is insane. He really dragged this steamship over this mountain to shoot this movie. It’s a beautiful, beautiful sight. And Kinski’s character is doing this to hopefully profit by tapping the rubber market on an area of the river above the rapids, unreachable by boat. And he is doing all of this crazy scheming with the boat to realize another crazy scheme, to build an opera house in the jungle. His obsession with opera is so beautiful

There is a moment in the film when his crew abandons him in the middle of the night and the captain is one of three people left, and Kinski, a bit depressed sighs and says as if it is the only sensible thing to do in a situation like this, “Now, we really need some Italian opera. Don’t you agree?” And he starts blaring an opera record from his phonograph set up on the top of the steamboat. Amazing. This movie is a dream, so beautiful.

I might watch Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams which is a documentary about the filming of this movie tonight. But I really want to watch another Herzog/Kinski movie. This is why I try not to ever go to the video store, because if I decide to watch a movie one night, then the whole following week (if not weeks) I am watching movies, so tempted to rent another movie each time I return one.