Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski worked together many times, but rarely - if ever - to better effect than in this tale of a South American opera fan. The enigmatic actor carries the story of one man's determination to bring opera to the jungles of South America almost single-handedly; his only real co-star is the perilously beautiful scenery.
The arduous nature of the shoot, and the recreation of some of Fitzcarraldo's more extreme ambitions, means that the shooting of the film mirrored its subject more closely than many documentaries. The grand scale of Fitzcarraldo's tenacious obsession clearly parallels the director's own...