Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo
German release poster
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Written by	Werner Herzog
Produced by	Werner Herzog Walter Saxer Lucki Stipetić Jorge Vignatti
Starring	Klaus Kinski Claudia Cardinale José Lewgoy Miguel Ángel Fuentes Paul Hittscher Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez Grande Otelo Peter Berling
Cinematography	Thomas Mauch
Edited by	Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Music by	Popol Vuh
Production companies	Werner Herzog Filmproduktion Pro-ject Filmproduktion Filmverlag der Autoren ZDF Wildlife Films Peru S.A., Iquitos
Distributed by	Filmverlag der Autoren (West Germany)
Release date	5 March 1982 (1982-03-05) (West Germany)
Running time	157 minutes
Countries	West Germany Peru
Languages	German Spanish Asháninka (Shot in English)
Budget	DM 14 million[1]

Fitzcarraldo (/fɪtskə'raldo/) is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over the Andes mountains to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon basin. The character was inspired by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who once transported a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.

The film had a troubled production, chronicled in the documentary Burden of Dreams (1982). Herzog had his crew attempt to manually haul the 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, leading to three injuries. The film's original star Jason Robards became sick halfway through filming, so Herzog hired Kinski, with whom he had previously clashed violently during production of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), and Woyzeck (1979). Their fourth collaboration fared no better. When shooting was nearly complete, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe, whose members were used extensively as extras, asked Herzog if they should kill Kinski for him. Herzog declined.^[2]