Les Blank's Burden of Dreams is an in-depth look at the filming of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, an incredibly challenging production which found Herzog filming on location in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. While there have been many films and forays into capturing the filmmaking process, Les Blank's Burden of Dreams does so in a profound way, studying the eccentric Herzog as he fights tooth and nail for his vision, as everything around him seems to be crumbling apart. While Burden of Dreams does document the intricate details and many moving parts that go into making a major film production, the film's greatest strength is the way it captures Herzog as an artist, being borderline obsessive in nature - a perfectionist who has a very clear vision of exactly what he wants. As disaster after disaster plagues the set of Fitzcarraldo, Blank captures the toll it begins to take on Herzog the filmmaker, a man who would rather perish than give up his dream project. Dancing the line between art and megalomania, Burden of Dreams also captures the cultural pressures felt by Herzog, as he begins to become fearful that his filmset will infect the native culture of those people who are helping on the set. Herzog values the importance of leaving the land and its people exactly how he left it, which becomes increasingly difficult, the more the film spirals out of control under the weight of a host of troubling setbacks. Another interesting aspect is how Burden of Dreams has something to say about man's struggle with nature, capturing how the film productions' endless technology and resources were routinely thwarted by nature itself. It is a reminder of just how small and insignificant we all can be against the primal aspects of nature, with Herzog's cranes and labor struggling to succeed against the challenges of the jungle themselves. Certainly the gold standard when it comes to documentaries about the filmmaking process, Les Blank's Burden of Dreams captures the difficulty, abundance of moving parts,eye for detail, and toll on its creators a film like Fitzcarraldo can have.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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