Burden of Dreams

If you're ever under a lot of pressure to achieve a difficult goal, which seems beyond accomplishing too impossible to ever attain, perhaps watch Les Blank's Burden of Dreams as it films the making of Fitzcarraldo, and Werner Herzog's Herculean labours trying to finish the chaotic anti-epic.

Then watch Fitzcarraldo itself and consider that he actually did finish it. With setbacks that would have sent Olympic athletes home in exasperation. No matter what he got 'er done.

I don't know if these films are part of a master class in improvisational independent filmmaking, where the students study Herzog's endeavours and reach conclusions as to his methods.

Or arduously research grand ambition as applied to making international films, where extremely complicated and delicate agreements must be reached with critical Natives.

Or practically study the provision of supplies to an isolated camp deep in the jungle, where hundreds of extras and film personnel had to be well-fed to fend off the boredom.

With the deep pockets of a Hollywood studio it would have perhaps been a different story, although I imagine they would have backed out after the setbacks became too outrageous (punitive raids etc.).

Credit to Herzog for never backing down and to every cast and crew member who stuck it out till the end. 

Hyperintense ominous immersion. 

Ineffable formidable frustration. 

Heart of Darkness comes to mind and Apocalypse Now as well no doubt, as if Herzog was somewhat like Kurtz madly delegating lost in the jungle.

Interviews capture distinct moments alternative viewpoints his different moods, many of them courageous and vigorously defiant while some give way to augmented misery. 

The diaries of Les Blank and Maureen Gosling excerpts of which come with the Criterion Edition of Burden of Dreams (they used to anyway, I bought my copy 20 years ago), offer disenchanting insights into the chaos and some of the decisions that had to be made.

Still to make them to be so artistically obsessed the bona-fide-mad-genius expediently concocting, reflexively adjusting to constant insane pressure, with everyone confused seeking guidance and instruction.

While Kinski erupts in fury (Blank doesn't focus much on Kinski but you can see it in Herzog's My Best Fiend) and the threat of mutiny ubiquitously languishes. 

The absolute pursuit of compulsive artistry. 

People actually risking their lives.

I don't know if there ever was what could be considered a plan.

If there was and it was written down it should be in a museum.

Copies available for study.

With mind-bogglingly resilient discipline. 

*Cool shots of jungle animals at times. 

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God)

As colonialism expands in the jungles of South America, the Indigenous inhabitants engage in trickery, wholeheartedly convincing several of the invaders that a vast city of gold exists deep within, the tale too tantalizing to ignore, soon a diverse outfit departs in pursuit.

Unaccustomed to the haunting jungle with its sweltering heat and bugs and mud, the ensemble makes slow progress initially until confronting a hostile river.

Here the group splits up with many of the party remaining behind, as a courageous group virtuously led bravely sets out alone down its course.

Virtuous ideals clashing with blunt pragmatism such strained relations when people don't value life, ironically tormenting the high-minded colonialists who had already instigated so much Native carnage.

Conflict abounds as the lethal Aguirre soon disagrees with his captain, and plans a much less sympathetic voyage weak on heart and strong on ambition.

He's able to persuade most of the company to boldly adhere to his brutal methods, as they drift deeper into the jungle on their adventurous own without knowledge or know-how.

Their rafts are detected by Natives hoping not to suffer like their enslaved brethren. 

Arrows picking the Spanish off one by one.

As Aguirre's madness irascibly intensifies.

A remarkable feat of filmmaking which took considerable risks to accomplish its goals, hats off to the daring cast and crew (plus Herzog) who set out on the river expedition.

It mustn't be as dangerous as it looks or else I doubt anyone would have agreed to do it, and how did the camera crew get all those shots as the wild river raged with absolutist fervour?

A former prince even travels amongst them and bitterly complains about his newfound bearing, not much is made of the dynamic character but he does show up from time to time.

Adorable animals occasionally adorn the blood-soaked verse with contradictory tender, but at times they aren't treated humanely most notably the awkward rebellious horse scene.

Music also interrupts the flow of augmented acidic despondent mutiny, as mellifluous sounds generously erupt from an endemic pipe playfully attuned.

When you stare into Kinski's eyes it really is like you're sailing through an abyss, it's like he spent so much time furiously exclaiming when they weren't filming that he forgot to radicalize his lines on set.

A marvel of cinematic industry that likely never would have been made if the mechanics had been scrutinized, I can sincerely applaud its visceral fortitude assuming the cast and crew knew what they were getting into. 

📽🎞

Fata Morgana

Fascinating to hear so many myths imaginatively delineating nimble creation, so many cultures effectively emphasizing dynastic difference enigmatically sewn.

The age of storytelling enduring for millennia it must have been entertaining to listen to such tales, as they transformed and mutated and diversified throughout the casually passing centuries.

At times it seems as if the divergent narratives were inspired by different beings, and that it was potentially several alternative alien visitors who taught different customs around the world.

Or perhaps not different alien groups but the same group over long periods of time, who changed remarkably on their homeworld amongst intermittent visitations.

I've never understood why different cultures are so fussy about creation myths, and why with the advent of international communication it doesn't seem somewhat silly to insist they're true.

To insist they're incredible stories elaborately crafted to be heard again, even more captivating when compared with one another, makes much more sense in my opinion.

Fata Morgana evocatively presents eclectic images from Algerian deserts, and showcases them stitched together while a narrator recites a creation myth.

The myth isn't overflowing with pizazz and didn't generate that much interest, but the random collection of images and entertaining soundtrack made for cool old school accompaniment (Leonard Cohen).

I remember an old working arrangement where I was tasked with encouraging young ones to read, and I showed up one day with a book of myths which we read together for a short period.

The memory stands out because the child was so dismissive at the time, not just of the myths we were reading but of the existence of creation myths themselves.

He was so scientific, I started laughing, I wasn't expecting to hear so much criticism from someone that young.

But you can't count out the feisty Québecois.

Even when they're Anglo like in this instance! 

Mein liebster Fiend - Klaus Kinski (My Best Fiend)

Imagine you're deep in the South American jungle working on a film as demanding as Fitzcarraldo, and your lead actor keeps erupting in fits of rage as you fight with the rain and the heat and the bugs.

It wasn't the first film they'd work on under such circumstances they'd already completed Aguirre, the Wrath of God, like two powerful inconsolable filmmaking forces could only lament that they worked so well together.

Kinski live in front of an audience just being himself inspired by the crowd, introduces wild indefatigable levels of supreme individualistic animosity.

Epically convinced of his unrivalled unique ingenious multivariability, he rants and raves with intense proclamations defying anything other than his genius.

Herzog threatens him with death local Natives inform the director that they could kill him, his egocentric chaotic tantrums so unhinged they encouraged murder.

What was it like out in the jungle with that crew the environment challenging to live in without conflict, festering manic clashing wills capable of volcanically exploding at any time?!

They met when Herzog was 13 they briefly lived in the same boarding house together, where Werner took note of his animated routine and was remarkably impressed by his latent fury.

Which was unfairly unleashed at his expense so many so many times. 

As he efficiently crafted his tales.

Gluttons gormandizing.

I was impressed with Herzog's English it's pretty solid for a non-Native speaker, it's rare that someone comes so close to perfecting the accent and chooses so many clever words precisely.

Strange artists, creating through conflict rather than romance or adorability, tuned into the world's stately danger while insanely narrativizing its carnal threats. 

It's like Herzog was a creative Agamemnon and the furious Kinski his invincible Achilles, the two battling Priam and Hector while bellicosely diversifying German arthouse cinema. 

Mein liebster Fiend - Klaus Kinski (My Best Fiend) is fun to watch if you're looking for insights into their working relationship, not without examinations of Kinski's tender side, still certainly absorbed by his insensitive locus.

I wish this had been made before Kinski passed it would have been exciting to see him discuss his work with Herzog, it's no doubt a chilling account from Mr. Herzog's point of view, but it would have been so much more thrilling with more recourse to the alternative.

I'll have to do more research into his life I don't know much about his works besides these stunning Herzog adventures (plus more Herzog films too).

And that he was able to steal scenes and leave a lasting impression.

As the bitter anarchist. 

In Doctor Zhivago.

Herz aus Glas (Heart of Glass)

I suppose that for tens of thousands of years the possession of esoteric knowledge proved rather fruitful, and could generate unique industry which in turn supplied steady work for brave inhabitants. 

It still does in many instances your ideas can generate bountiful incomes, although if they create planet saving envirotechnologies it's also cool to eventually share them with your community for free.

In Herz aus Glas (Heart of Glass), a medieval town is resonantly known for its ruby glass, which it manufactures with artistic grace and reliable marketable old school intensity.

But the only one who definitively knows how to authentically and genuinely produce it, passes without having shared the code, or indeed transmitted it to another.

Panic doesn't immediately set in although tensions slowly start to run high, the factory owner finding mad solutions which the agile workforce swiftly deems barking. 

The factory burns there's no other industry the local clairvoyant's sent to jail for predicting it.

A grim look at the distraught middle ages.

Indirectly championing scientific culture.

Environmental progress and industry finding ingenious ways to boldly progress hand in hand, I've recently joined some online groups which consistently share new green technologies.

Steady employment - something to do - still remains of paramount cultural importance, jobs gained mathematically balanced with those lost to nimbly cultivate immersive interactivity. 

It always amazes me how hard people work and routinely commit to standards of excellence, and I've lived and worked in almost every province and territory, the Canadian and Québecois work ethic internationally outstanding.

New ideas - innovative strategies - reflexively emerging each and every day, to outwit debilitating fatigue and intuitively enable freedom and longevity.

We're lucky to have such a colossal country so much of which remains largely unexplored, such a shame we can't grow food in winter, but the cold temperatures do keep the ideas a' flowing.

I imagine if given the time the resolute workers in Herz aus Glas, would have figured out how to make the Ruby and diligently proceeded to keep the doors open.

By constantly experimenting till they precisely found the missing ingredient like none other.

Likely making other marketable discoveries along the way.

Strongly investing in research & development.

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World

Baffling how seriously the internet has changed the world (feel odd using such terms) in a short period of time, revolutionizing global communications and culture and commerce in a relatively unobserved historical 100m dash, considering, like the invention of the plane or the automobile, the telephone or the television, hyperreactively interconnected, immediate inter/national accessibility, enticingly coaxing debate.

You don't even have to leave the house anymore really if you can find a job online and have your groceries delivered, even if nature still remains the internet's greatest competitor, there being no cybersubstitute for hiking around in unknown wilds.

Even if you can surf the net while doing so.

I suppose generations are now maturing in a world where they've never known what it's like to exist without the internet, growing up in a remarkably different social environment (I'll be that guy in 40 years if I quit smoking).

Could humans stop actually playing sports and replace athletic endeavour with virtual surrogates or robots slowly over the course of the next 500 years?

Could real world shops be completely replaced by online überboutiques wherein you can acquire whatever product you thematically desire?

Could shut-in-ism become as natural as strolling through the neighbourhood or visiting a local cinema or heading out for Indian food or browsing new selections provocatively presented at a local bookstore?

Schools function as a challenge to such possibilities because you actually have to leave the house to attend school and schools themselves provide opportunities to play sports and tactically engage with physical objects, thereby inculcating the love of travelling about searching for this or that, meeting new people (not always pleasant as an old friend hilariously mentioned the other day), physically experiencing the world at large.

But you could create online schools where teachers teach hundreds of students from home simultaneously while removing the intricate travelling to and fro from the curious lifestyles of postmodern children.

Is some internet term going to challenge postmodernism? Has that happened already? With a focus on Neuromancer?

Such an idea seems quite strange but the internet itself seemed like first rate science-fiction in the early 90s, and now I'm online almost every day, for extended periods, investigating, relaxing, reading, even when I happen to be on vacation.

My cellphone has even replaced my watch, alarm clock, calculator, dictionary (still have a giant Oxford), flashlight, compass (I don't use a compass), map, dictaphone, camera (still have a physical camera), stopwatch, and timer, to name just a few items available upon as free bonuses.

I can also communicate with people around the world face to face practically anywhere I happen to be even if the costs are sometimes prohibitive.

Nutso but natural for today's youth.

STNG's "The Game."

Perhaps things are moving too quickly, the Snowden factor having introduced legitimate cause for alarm, perhaps social interactions will become harsher if physical gatherings disappear and knowing someone only consists of virtually conversing, like characters in a video game, but people be chillin' partout in Montréal throughout the year, and I can't imagine all its energizing real world activities ever being usurped by electronic knickknacks, convivial though they may be, but I grew up before the internet went mainstream, and enjoy seeing people out and about even if I'm the worst at meeting them (this doesn't bother me).

Werner Herzog's Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World presents a mixed bag of more thoughtful commentaries on the internet's impact on civilization (again, such a term is appropriate), accompanied by his endearing obnoxious cheek, like the kid who was always being disciplined in class picked up a camera to observe the people who graduated.

Definitely worth checking out.

There really is no substitute for nature you know.

You just need some time to sit there for days and listen to the sounds or the silence.

Such suggestions may seem futile on day 1 when you're still immersed in urban psychologies, but as the days pass and you slowly integrate, nature's humble orchestrations symphonically resound, like the motivational cheetah, or a glass of red wine.

So true.

*It helps if you're sitting there one day in the woods and a raccoon comes wandering up but doesn't notice you, and then, upon suddenly realizing you're there, bolts straight up the nearest tree. And you're like, whatevs raccoon, I'm just chillin', relax.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Never thought I'd see Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant reworked and revitalized but that is what Werner Herzog has done in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. Opening on an heroic note, Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) quickly proves that he is on par with Harvey Keitel's degenerate masterpiece, as he travels the streets of New Orleans using his badge to procure as much prurient activity as he possibly can. Things are complicated: a camera has been placed in the police department's evidence room, making it more difficult for him to obtain free narcotics; when a costumer assaults McDonagh's prostitute partner (Eva Mendes), he threatens him even though his political contacts are severe; he is suffering from chronic back pain, the result of his aforementioned heroic act; his gambling debts mount as he can't catch a break and his bookie (Brad Dourif) comes calling; a protected witness escapes under his watch and after ruthlessly interrogating his politically connected grandmother to discover his whereabouts, he is temporarily removed from duty; his relationship with his recovering alcoholic father (Tom Bower) remains estranged; and he can't find the means to put the cocaine dealing murderer Big Fate (Xzibit) behind bars. Certainly not the most family friendly film, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans offers a pristinely nocturnal portrait of a successful substance abusing professional scumbag, shot through the discarded lens of an alcoholic looking glass. Deconstructing the traditional hard-working-by-the-book-master-narrative, it brazenly points out that corruption often finds its own rewards, while highlighting the nefarious steps that must occasionally be taken in order for justice to be virtuously upheld.

Stroszek

In Stroszek, Werner Herzog once again examines an impoverished individual's descent into madness. Stroszek is the tale of Bruno S. who also appeared in Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and almost took the lead role in Woyzeck. Bruno S. was reportedly so disappointed at having not received the role of Woyzeck that Herzog wrote Stroszek specifically for him, and many of Stroszek's stories and locations are taken directly from Bruno S.'s experience.

I love the ways in which Herzog's films often focus upon the disenfranchised amongst us. His heroes are neither rich nor well dressed nor clean cut nor opportunistically swift but their humanity is rich in ethical substance and their suffering packed with disenfranchised grittiness. Stroszek has spent most of his life in and out of institutions where things have been miserable at best. Upon being released from jail, he is presented with an opportunity to leave Germany (where two pimps harass him daily) and start a new life in America (to which he departs with his prostitute girlfriend).

Of the numerous images and allegories that Herzog presents throughout, there are three of which I took note. First off, while still in Germany Stroszek visits a hospital to discuss the problems he is having reintroducing himself to society with a benevolent doctor. During the scene, the doctor laments the inadequate ways in which he is able to respond to Stroszek's inquiries and decides to illustrate how everyone experiences such hardships. In order to do this, he shows Stroszek a baby, born prematurely, who suffers from a particularly troublesome ailment. Herzog holds his camera on this shrieking newborn for an extended period of time, allowing us to soak up the image. While viewing this image, I was struck with the ancient idea how can there be so much suffering in a world as beautiful as this?, and how can something as innocent as this helpless baby grow up to be tormented in a fashion similar to that of Stroszek? That's only one way of examining the scene of course, and as the film progresses and Stroszek's torment evolves we're left wondering if he'll accept the doctor's advice, recommending patience and goodwill, or finally snap.

Second, Stroszek is introduced wrapped beneath a sanitary, institutional robe. The image subtly introduces us to his character and challenges us to consider whether or not someone who has experienced so much state sponsored care will ever be able to transcend their history. And third, there is an interesting scene that takes place after Stroszek arrives in Wisconsin, where two farmers are fighting over a piece of land, shotgun at the ready, to ensure that no one cultivates the land dividing their properties. The middle ground over which the farmer's are fighting can be thought of as representing Stroszek or the modest individual, those who are too damned nice and don't know how to stand up for themselves, silently waiting to be caught in the cross fire.

Stroszek is a powerful film and an insightful study of the detrimental effects of rehabilitation. Experience can be difficult to overcome once it becomes an inveterate, immutable, reality.

Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo is one of the best films I've seen and most of my initial reactions have likely already been observed, so here I'd like to focus simply on the ways in which Herzog films the oncoming night sky. Herzog's films generally have a relaxing bucolic feel to them as he patiently holds the camera upon a quiet countryside, a mountain or a pasture, accompanied by a light, swaying, pastoral soundtrack, gently allowing the viewer time to take in the scene and analyze it pensively and leisurely. This Herzogian feature abounds in Fitzcarraldo, and the ways in which he uses it to film various manifestations of dusk caught my attention, first, for the sheer beauty of the scenes themselves, second, by discovering the ways in which they symbolically depict Fitzcarraldo's dream of bringing the apex of opera to his jungle town of Iquitos. His dream is eccentric and grand, as sublime and gallant as it is foolhardy and questionable, and any predictions that could be made about his endeavours are etched upon the uncertainty of the night sky (after having been created during the preceding, transient, radiant evening). Whether they are the predictions of the seasoned, cynical rubber barons, or dreamy, idyllic Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald himself, they are both framed by ambition and cast courageously in the darkness.