Fitzcarraldo

"Dare to dream the impossible."

1982 2h 37m DE

🙌

7.6

BANGER

🍅

78%

FRESH

⭐

7.9

IMDB

★7.6TMDB · 930🍅78%Rotten Tomatoes★7.9IMDB · 42,549

DramaAdventure

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

“Dare to dream the impossible.”

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Cast

Klaus Kinski
Fitzcarraldo
Claudia Cardinale
Molly
José Lewgoy
Don Aquilino
Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Cholo
Paul Hittscher
Orinoco Paul
Huerequeque Enrique Bohórquez
Huerequeque
Grande Otelo
Station Master
Peter Berling
Opera Manager

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Werner Herzog
Writers: Werner Herzog
Languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish
Countries: Germany, Peru

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 157 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

44 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 4 languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: Germany, Peru.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Werner Herzog, shot by Thomas Mauch. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Popol Vuh. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale and José Lewgoy carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Werner Herzog directs. Thomas Mauch behind the camera. Popol Vuh scores. Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus cuts. Produced in Germany, Peru. Dialogue in English, German, Italian, Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 157 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
244 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Dialogue crosses 4 languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish.
4International production across 2 countries: Germany, Peru.
5Directed by Werner Herzog, shot by Thomas Mauch. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Popol Vuh. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale and José Lewgoy carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Dare to dream the impossible.".
10IMDB entry: tt0083946 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 19 themes, including "peru", "plantation", "ambition", "amazon rainforest".
12Released under 16 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Original score: Popol Vuh
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Production design: Ulrich Bergfelder
Makeup / hair: Gloria Fava
Runtime: 157 min · 2h 37m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $7,362,000
Original language: DE
Certification (US): PG
IMDB: Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Rotten Tomatoes: 78% 🍅 Fresh
IMDB rating: 7.9/10 · 42,549 votes
MPAA: PG

Awards

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award4 wins & 4 nominations total

Also by

Werner Herzog

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Wuchak2020-09-13
★ 8/10
Apocalypse Now in the Amazon headwaters Called Fitzcarraldo by the Indians, an Irishman (Klaus Kinski) living in Iquitos, Peru, dreams of bringing Grand Opera to the jungle city in the Amazon Basin. It’s the early 1900s and there’s a rubber boom. To fund his dream he decides to exploit a considerable area of rubber trees growing beyond the impassable Ucayali Falls. To get to this remote area he incredibly has his steamboat lifted over a hill from another branch of the Amazon with the assistance of notorious headhunters. Claudia Cardinale plays his girlfriend, a successful brothel owner. Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) is superior to his “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972), which was shot in the same general area, the Amazon basin east of the Andes Mountains. It’s longer by just over an hour, but it has a more compelling story. “Aguirre” influenced Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979) but “Apocalypse Now” likely influenced “Fitzcarraldo.” The difference is that “Apocalypse Now” took advantage of its infamous setting, the Vietnam War, whereas few people know of the rubber boom of the early 20th century in the Iquitos area. There’s also less thrills in “Fitzcarraldo.” It’s more impenetrable and all-around curious, a cinematic oddity. Yet it has its highlights, including the core cast, e.g. the burly captain, the impressively hulking indigenous engineer and the drunkard cook. What’s it all about? The beauty of art, great dreams, indomitable will, mysterious cultures, devastating failure and… winning anyway. The film runs 2 hours, 37 minutes, and was shot in the Iquitos area, Peru, and Amazonas, Brazil, including a couple Tribal Regions. GRADE: B+/A-
CinemaSerf2024-01-26
★ 7/10
Klaus Kinski is great as the eponymous, slightly maniacal, opera lover who decides that his love of Verdi, Bellini and Puccini needs to be shared with his mid-jungle community. He realises that to do that, he must have cash - and that's only to be found if he can manage to tap into the rubber trees deep into the Amazon. To that end, he and local hostess "Molly" (the sparingly featured Claudia Cardinale) manage to scrape together enough cash to buy a dilapidated old steamer from local grandee "Don Aquilino" (José Lewgoy) and he sets off into uncharted waters with a skeleton collection of untrustworthies into the realm of rapids, insects and hostiles. There's a snag to his cunning plan, though. The area he wishes to exploit is all but inaccessible and he is going to have to figure out some considerable engineering legerdemain if he is to achieve his goal. Fortunately, along the way, they encounter some locals who have a legend that a yellow-haired man would come from their gods and - well anyway, he fits that bill and they agree to help him get the boat uphill - literally - from one river to another. Can they keep their superstitious new allies and their fairly fickle crew on side long enough to succeed and then make it back to what passes for civilisation? Now it does have to be said that some of the continuity here puts John Wayne's watch to shame, but given it was filmed in Peru and on the Amazon itself, this is an astonishingly accomplished piece of film making that really does immerse us in not just the struggle itself but in the character of a man who treads the paths between lucidly, ingenuity and insanity adeptly. It is a little too long, there are too many scenes that add little to the pace of the film, but Kinski and Herzog thrive in this hot and humid climate to deliver an entertaining and exciting travelogue the likes of which you'll never see anywhere else!