Fitzcarraldo
Encyclopedia
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982
film written and directed by Werner Herzog
and starring Klaus Kinski
as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron
Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru
, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. The film is derived from the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald
.
) is a European living in Iquitos
, a small city in Peru
in the early part of the 20th century. He has an indomitable spirit, but in essence is little more than a dreamer with one major failure already behind him — the bankrupted and incomplete Trans-Andean railways. A lover of opera and a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso, he now dreams of building an opera house
in Iquitos
. This will require considerable amounts of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber
. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and are leased for exploitation.
Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel.
To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour, Molly (Claudia Cardinale
), a successful brothel owner, he buys a steamer (which he christens
the Molly Aida) from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the further one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across a portage
, from one river to the next.
Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.
The majority of the ship's crew, at first unaware of Fitzcarraldo's plan, abandon the expedition soon after entering the territory of the natives, leaving him with only the captain, engineer, and cook. However, the natives are impressed by him and his ship, becoming his labor force without really understanding his intentions. After a devastating first attempt, the ship is successfully pulled over the mountain with a complex system of pulleys, worked by the natives and aided by the ship's engine. However, when the crew falls asleep after a drunken celebration, the chief of the natives severs the rope securing the ship to the shore, sending it floating down the river and crashing through the rapids. His reasoning for this is to appease the river gods, who would otherwise be angered that Fitzcarraldo defied nature by circumventing them.
Though the ship manages to traverse the rapids without major damage, they find themselves back in Iquitos with nothing to show for it. A despondent Fitzcarraldo sells the ship back to the rubber baron, but first sends the captain on one last voyage. He returns with the entire cast of the opera house, including Caruso. The entire city comes to the shore as Fitzcarraldo, standing atop the ship, proudly displays the cast.
The 1982 book Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story from Fjord Press (ISBN 0-940242-04-4) reproduces Herzog's first version of the story before the screenplay was written.
In his autobiographical film Portrait Werner Herzog
, Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".
Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.
Casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards
was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill with dysentery during early filming and, after leaving for treatment, was forbidden by his doctors to return. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson
, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski
accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting with Robards was complete, and for continuity Herzog was forced to begin a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger
was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but due to the delays his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones
. Herzog, out of respect, dropped Jagger's character from the script altogether and reshot the film from the beginning.
Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the crew; a scene from the documentary My Best Fiend
depicts Kinski raging at production manager Walter Saxer over trivial matters, such as the quality of the food. Herzog notes that the native extras, contrary to Kinski's feeling of closeness to them, were greatly upset by his shows of anger. In My Best Fiend
, Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming. In one scene, when the crew is eating dinner while surrounded by the natives, the clamor the chief incites over Fitzcarraldo was, according to Herzog, his exploiting their hate of Kinski.
Brazilian actor Grande Otelo
and singer Milton Nascimento
play minor parts.
Locations used for the film include: Manaus
, Brazil; Iquitos
, Peru; Pongo de Mainique
, Peru; an isthmus
between the Urubamba
and the Camisea Rivers, Peru at 11.739° S, 72.937° W.
, taken from the albums Die Nacht der Seele
(1979) and Sei still, wisse ich bin
(1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from Verdi's Ernani
, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
("Ridi, Pagliaccio
"), Puccini's La bohème
, Bellini's I puritani
, and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work Death and Transfiguration.
's 1982 documentary
Burden of Dreams
, about the production of the film, documents the many hardships of the production. Blank's footage, some of which also appears in Herzog's Portrait Werner Herzog and My Best Fiend
contains some of the only surviving footage of Robards and Jagger in Fitzcarraldo and many scenes documenting the ship's journey over the mountain.
Herzog's personal diaries from the production were published in 2009 as the book Conquest of the Useless, published by Ecco Press
. The book includes an epilogue with Herzog's views on the Peruvian jungle 20 years later.
award of the Cannes Film Festival
, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
. Herzog won the award for Best Director
at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival
.
1982 in film
-Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...
film written and directed by Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
and starring Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski , was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best-remembered as a leading role actor in Werner Herzog films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Nosferatu the Vampyre , Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .-Early...
as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron
Rubber boom
The rubber boom was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related with the extraction and commercialization of rubber...
Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. The film is derived from the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald
Carlos Fitzcarrald
Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald was a Peruvian rubber baron from the city of Iquitos. He was of mixed Irish-American and Peruvian descent and he served as an inspiration for Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo. Today the Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald Province is named after him.-References:...
.
Story
Brian Sweeney "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald (Klaus KinskiKlaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski , was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best-remembered as a leading role actor in Werner Herzog films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Nosferatu the Vampyre , Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .-Early...
) is a European living in Iquitos
Iquitos
Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
, a small city in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
in the early part of the 20th century. He has an indomitable spirit, but in essence is little more than a dreamer with one major failure already behind him — the bankrupted and incomplete Trans-Andean railways. A lover of opera and a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso, he now dreams of building an opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
in Iquitos
Iquitos
Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
. This will require considerable amounts of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and are leased for exploitation.
Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel.
To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour, Molly (Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
), a successful brothel owner, he buys a steamer (which he christens
Ship naming and launching
The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...
the Molly Aida) from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the further one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across a portage
Portage
Portage or portaging refers to the practice of carrying watercraft or cargo over land to avoid river obstacles, or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage; a person doing the carrying is called a porter.The English word portage is derived from the...
, from one river to the next.
Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.
The majority of the ship's crew, at first unaware of Fitzcarraldo's plan, abandon the expedition soon after entering the territory of the natives, leaving him with only the captain, engineer, and cook. However, the natives are impressed by him and his ship, becoming his labor force without really understanding his intentions. After a devastating first attempt, the ship is successfully pulled over the mountain with a complex system of pulleys, worked by the natives and aided by the ship's engine. However, when the crew falls asleep after a drunken celebration, the chief of the natives severs the rope securing the ship to the shore, sending it floating down the river and crashing through the rapids. His reasoning for this is to appease the river gods, who would otherwise be angered that Fitzcarraldo defied nature by circumventing them.
Though the ship manages to traverse the rapids without major damage, they find themselves back in Iquitos with nothing to show for it. A despondent Fitzcarraldo sells the ship back to the rubber baron, but first sends the captain on one last voyage. He returns with the entire cast of the opera house, including Caruso. The entire city comes to the shore as Fitzcarraldo, standing atop the ship, proudly displays the cast.
The 1982 book Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story from Fjord Press (ISBN 0-940242-04-4) reproduces Herzog's first version of the story before the screenplay was written.
Cast
- Klaus KinskiKlaus KinskiKlaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski , was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best-remembered as a leading role actor in Werner Herzog films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Nosferatu the Vampyre , Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .-Early...
as Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Fitzcarraldo) - Claudia CardinaleClaudia CardinaleClaudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
as Molly - José LewgoyJosé LewgoyJosé Lewgoy was an American-Brazilian television, film and theatre actor.He was born in Veranópolis, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, to a Russian father and an American mother, who met in New York. He died in Rio de Janeiro. He was considered one of the best actors in Brazil, and was usually typecast...
as Don Aquilino - Miguel Ángel Fuentes as Cholo
- Paul Hittscher as Captain (Orinoco Paul)
- Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez as Huerequeque (The Cook)
- Grande OteloGrande OteloGrande Otelo is the stage name of Brazilian actor, comedian, singer, and composer Sebastião Bernardes de Souza Prata...
as Station master (as Grande Othelo) - Peter BerlingPeter BerlingPeter Berling is a German actor and writer. He has worked on several occasions with director Werner Herzog, in his collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski....
as Opera Manager - David Pérez Espinosa as Chief of Campa Indians
- Milton NascimentoMilton Nascimento-Biography:Nascimento's mother was the maid Maria Nascimento. As a baby, Milton Nascimento was adopted by his mother's former employers: the couple Josino Brito Campos, a banker employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician; and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer...
as Blackman At Opera House - Ruy Polanah as Rubber Baron
- Salvador Godínez as Old Missionary
- Dieter Milz as Young Missionary
- William Rose as Notary (as Bill Rose)
- Leoncio Bueno
Production
The story was inspired by the real life Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald; in the 1890s, Fitzcarrald did bring a steamship across an isthmus from one river into another, but it weighed only 30 tons (rather than over 300), and was carried over in pieces to be reassembled at its destination.In his autobiographical film Portrait Werner Herzog
Portrait Werner Herzog
Portrait Werner Herzog is an autobiographical short film by Werner Herzog made in 1986. Herzog tells stories about his life and career.The film contains excerpts and commentary on several Herzog films, including Signs of Life, Heart of Glass, Fata Morgana, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Great...
, Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".
Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.
Casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill with dysentery during early filming and, after leaving for treatment, was forbidden by his doctors to return. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski , was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best-remembered as a leading role actor in Werner Herzog films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Nosferatu the Vampyre , Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .-Early...
accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting with Robards was complete, and for continuity Herzog was forced to begin a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but due to the delays his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
. Herzog, out of respect, dropped Jagger's character from the script altogether and reshot the film from the beginning.
Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the crew; a scene from the documentary My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend is a 1999 documentary film by Werner Herzog about his tumultuous yet productive relationship with German actor Klaus Kinski. It was released on DVD in 2000 by Anchor Bay.-Summary:...
depicts Kinski raging at production manager Walter Saxer over trivial matters, such as the quality of the food. Herzog notes that the native extras, contrary to Kinski's feeling of closeness to them, were greatly upset by his shows of anger. In My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend is a 1999 documentary film by Werner Herzog about his tumultuous yet productive relationship with German actor Klaus Kinski. It was released on DVD in 2000 by Anchor Bay.-Summary:...
, Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming. In one scene, when the crew is eating dinner while surrounded by the natives, the clamor the chief incites over Fitzcarraldo was, according to Herzog, his exploiting their hate of Kinski.
Brazilian actor Grande Otelo
Grande Otelo
Grande Otelo is the stage name of Brazilian actor, comedian, singer, and composer Sebastião Bernardes de Souza Prata...
and singer Milton Nascimento
Milton Nascimento
-Biography:Nascimento's mother was the maid Maria Nascimento. As a baby, Milton Nascimento was adopted by his mother's former employers: the couple Josino Brito Campos, a banker employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician; and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer...
play minor parts.
Locations used for the film include: Manaus
Manaus
Manaus is a city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. It is the most populous city of Amazonas, according to the statistics of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and is a popular ecotourist destination....
, Brazil; Iquitos
Iquitos
Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
, Peru; Pongo de Mainique
Pongo de Mainique
The Pongo de Mainique is a pongo in Peru, being wide and long, with to high cliffs. It is considered the most dangerous whitewater pass on the Urubamba River, which it divides between Upper and Lower Urubamba. It is a global biodiversity hotspot...
, Peru; an isthmus
Isthmus
An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas usually with waterforms on either side.Canals are often built through isthmuses where they may be particularly advantageous to create a shortcut for marine transportation...
between the Urubamba
Urubamba River
The Urubamba River is a river in Peru. A partially navigable headwater of the Amazon River, it rises in the Andes to the south-east of Cuzco near the Puno Region border, where it is called the Vilcanota River . In the Sacred Valley, between Písac and Ollantaytambo, it is also called the Wilcamayu...
and the Camisea Rivers, Peru at 11.739° S, 72.937° W.
Music
The soundtrack album (released in 1982) contains music by Popol VuhPopol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
, taken from the albums Die Nacht der Seele
Die Nacht der Seele
Die Nacht der Seele is the twelfth album by Popol Vuh. It was originally released in 1979 on Brain Records. In 2005 SPV re-released the album with four bonus tracks...
(1979) and Sei still, wisse ich bin
Sei still, wisse ICH BIN
Sei still, wisse ICH BIN is the thirteenth album by Popol Vuh. It was originally released in 1981 on Klaus Schulze's record label Innovative Communication. In 2006 SPV re-released the album with one bonus track. "Wehe Khorazin", "Garten der Gemeinschaft", an extract of "Laß los" and ".....
(1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from Verdi's Ernani
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
("Ridi, Pagliaccio
Vesti la giubba
"Vesti la giubba" is a famous tenor aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera Pagliacci. "Vesti la giubba" is the conclusion of the first act, when Canio discovers his wife's infidelity, but must nevertheless prepare for his performance as Pagliaccio the clown because "the show must go on".The...
"), Puccini's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Bellini's I puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
, and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work Death and Transfiguration.
Related works
Les BlankLes Blank
Les Blank is an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians....
's 1982 documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Burden of Dreams
Burden of Dreams
Burden of Dreams is a feature-length documentary and making-of directed by Les Blank, shot during and about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, filmed in the jungles of South America....
, about the production of the film, documents the many hardships of the production. Blank's footage, some of which also appears in Herzog's Portrait Werner Herzog and My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend is a 1999 documentary film by Werner Herzog about his tumultuous yet productive relationship with German actor Klaus Kinski. It was released on DVD in 2000 by Anchor Bay.-Summary:...
contains some of the only surviving footage of Robards and Jagger in Fitzcarraldo and many scenes documenting the ship's journey over the mountain.
Herzog's personal diaries from the production were published in 2009 as the book Conquest of the Useless, published by Ecco Press
Ecco Press
Ecco Press is a publishing imprint of HarperCollins, who acquired it in 1999. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company. Until 1994 the press was the publisher of the literary magazine Antaeus.- External links :**...
. The book includes an epilogue with Herzog's views on the Peruvian jungle 20 years later.
Awards
The film won a "silver category" German Film Award for Best Feature Film. The film was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d'OrPalme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
award of the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured...
. Herzog won the award for Best Director
Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946....
at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival
1982 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Giorgio Strehler *Jean-Jacques Annaud *Suso Cecchi d'Amico *Geraldine Chaplin *Gabriel García Márquez *Florian Hopf *Sidney Lumet *Mrinal Sen...
.