Death, disease and amputation: The disastrous production of Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’
If you’re familiar with Werner Herzog’s work, you might know he’s a filmmaker who enjoys a challenge. Making movies in a studio with producers trying to control his creative decisions is simply not on the cards. Herzog likes to completely immerse himself in his movies, even if that means putting himself and others in danger.
His most disastrous – but simultaneously successful – production came with 1982’s Fitzcarraldo. The film is known for enduring a strenuous production, becoming notorious among film lovers. The film resulted in many casualties and the atmosphere on set seemed absolutely heinous. There is so much that happened during the filming of Fitzcarraldo – everything that could’ve gone wrong certainly did – but the result was instant critical acclaim for Herzog, whose reputation as a visionary filmmaker was cemented.
Where do we even begin with the tale of Fitzcarraldo’s seemingly cursed production? To start with, Herzog’s decision to shoot in the Peruvian rainforests, hundreds of miles from shops and other necessary facilities, caused a lot of issues. To get to the location, the cast and crew had to use a plane or a boat, thus, the amount of food and easy access they had to vital supplies was limited. As a result, many medical emergencies were unable to be properly treated, leading to some pretty shocking stories.
For example, one crew member was bitten by a snake, forcing him to amputate his foot with a saw. There were various injuries and illnesses that affected the cast and crew, and when a nearby tribe decided to invade with arrows, someone was given surgery in a kitchen to mend their wounds. At least Herzog was there to spray bug repellent into the room so that mosquitoes didn’t get in.
Let’s not skip past the fact that the crew’s camp was invaded by neighbouring tribes who wanted them gone. The relationship between the crew and native tribes was rocky due to the extreme cultural differences, even between those indigenous people who were working on the film as extras. When the extras tried to fight back at the opposing tribe, Herzog had to talk them down from their action plans—which would’ve delayed production even further.
Many of the indigenous extras hated the lead actor, Klaus Kinski, who was a nightmare to work with. He complained constantly and annoyed everyone, and his continual arguing with Herzog was so extreme that the leader of the tribe offered to kill Kinski. Herzog was in such a frenzied, obsessive state that his reservations seemed to be related to not being able to finish the film. Still, Kinski wasn’t the original lead for the movie, Jason Robards had actually completed almost half of filming in the part of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, but he was stricken with dysentery and forced to quit.
Herzog and Kinski’s bizarre relationship really wasn’t healthy for anyone to be around, and the team couldn’t stand it. Everyone was stressed or injured, it seemed, and several people even died. A tribe member working on the film drowned, and another was stricken by a disease that killed him. A crew member was left paralysed after a plane crashed, and the cinematographer, Thomas Mauch, injured his hand so badly that he was left to stitch it up without any form of pain relief.
Then, there was the issue of the 320-tonne ship, which Herzog made a crew manoeuvre over a mountain without any special effects. To make the film as spellbindingly impressive and true-to-life as possible, Herzog insisted that the feat actually be carried out, just as they would’ve done many centuries before. The director succeeded, but several people who helped to move the ship were, unsurprisingly, injured. The finished film is certainly impressive, but it is hard to separate the final product from the three-year production that saw serious injuries, illnesses, plane crashes, death threats, and several actual deaths take place.
