.....

Les Blank and Maureen Gosling both kept Journals during the approximately fourteen weeks they spent in the Amazon while making Burden of Dreams. The following excerpts from these accounts include Maureen's entries from their two weeks in 1979 on the way to the first production camp, near Santa Maria de Nieva-which the crew ultimately abandoned because of irresolvable issues with the Aguaruna Indians. Les's entries pick up in 1981, after Klaus Kinski had replaced Jason Robards as Fitzcarraldo and a new production camp had been established on the Rio Camisea.

These journals were originally edited by James Bogan and published in 1984 by North Atlantic Books in Berkeley, California. Les's journals are excerpted from letters home to Chris Simon.

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Ittf: r~ ~'P: Odvkr< Iq1~ g~ Mal-1(eeN Gvs))~

October 3, 1979 Everything was different. The way the air felt, the billboards

in Spanish, wooden and plaster buildings of all colors, simple

modest thatched huts, people on motor scooters, a road that

degenerated as we drove along, bumpy and full of potholes.

"Estan las Amazonas," said Gustavo, when a glimpse of the

grand and mighty river came into view. I expected to hear

an orchestral swell. Instead, I heard the putter of our funky

Volkswagen and the murmur of people in the darkness. This

was Les's and my first night in Iquitos, the beginning of our

Peruvian adventure filming Werner Herzog making his film

Fitzcarraldo in the Amazonian jungle.

Herzog wasn't expected for several days. Walter Saxer, the producer, was around overseeing the building and

reconstruction of the ships that would be used in the film.

Gisela, the costume designer, was involved in the Herculean

task of amassing or sewing authentic turn-of-the-century

costumes for three thousand extras, all by January, when

the filming was supposed to begin. German set designer

Uli had been sent back the day before with hepatitis. And

we were anxious to find out details and the basis for all the

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THE FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

rumors that had filtered back to us about the film company's confrontations with the Aguaruna Indians, in whose territory and with whose assistance Herzog hoped to shoot the most significant segments of the film.

I was excited to be working around Herzog, who had already inspired us with his crazy stories and unexpected moves. But I was also apprehensive about him, especially in relation to the difficulties he was having with the natives and the escalating campaign against him from all sides. I felt like the experience would be a real test of my philosophies, a direct confrontation with gut-level issues of human relations, art and reality, civilization and the natural world. It felt as if our film would have a built-in significance and depth of purpose. I hoped I could muster all my strength for it.

Luciano, a Peruvian who seemed to be in charge of the house, yard, and running of errands, took us in the little aluminum speedboat downriver so we could film the ship, the Huallaga, that had been remodeled. It was indeed a beauty. It was built around 1900, was something of a riverboat, was three-tiered, with room for some passengers and more cargo. A couple dozen Peruvians were working very industriously on all details-sanding, stripping, painting, welding, pipefitting.

Then Luciano took us to the abandoned Nariiio, a ship similar to the two others but beyond repair, rusted and full of holes, sitting onshore a few bends downriver amidst a group of thatched houses on stilts. Herzog would film the ship as it was-it would play the part of the ship Fitzcarraldo buys and fixes up. We suddenly realized that this was Luciano's current

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MAUREEN GOSLING

home! On the main dock, we met his wife bathing their baby in a washtub. Several hammocks hung there, and clothing was slowly drying in the sultry air. Little daughter Elsa was freshly dressed in uniform, ready for school.

October 5 Today five new Johnson outboard motors arrived in cardboard boxes. They sat on stands in the living room. Two words of great importance were motor and gasolina.

Transportation and communication ate very difficult, telephones rare. Shortwave radios are used a lot. Planes came and went when they were able. Walter paid a lot of money to have a starter for the ship sent down, accompanied in person by a German crew member. Although the plane was scheduled to land on a certain day and time, the pilot decided to continue on to Lima without stopping in Iquitos at all. It took several more days to arrive and doubled the customs problems.

October 7

Juana, the cook, was off for the day, so we went over to Huerequeque's humble bar for lunch. Walter had told us that Huerequeque was one of the local characters in Bella Vista, the little barrio near the film company's houses. (Later on, Huere would play the ship's cook in Fitzcarraldo.) We ate ceviche, which was delicious, and drank Peruvian beer out of large chilled bottles. Huerequeque put in an appearance before taking off on a tiger-hunting venture in the jungle. He threw a large dried paiche (a huge freshwater fish) skin on

5

TH E FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

the floor for us to see. Gloria told me the scales made perfect

nail files. I saved one.

As the sky slowly darkened, Les and Walter began

talking intensely about the problems of the film. Les decided

to shoot. Walter admitted to having a basic philosophical

difference with Werner over the script, which was still

undergoing changes. He felt that Werner was coming into

Peru with preconceived ideas about how he felt the natives

should be, about how the jungle should be, and so on, that it

was keeping him from exploring the stories and details that

existed in this country. Walter had spent a lot more time than

Werner getting involved in the country, and he was excited

about its rich and untapped potential. He felt Werner was

making a big mistake in not being open to it.

Later on in the evening, we all went to a restaurant

not too far from the airport that was regarded as the best

in town. The proprietor, Paul Hittscher, was a stout, good­

natured German, with a beard peppered with gray (he would

eventually play the captain in Fitzcarraldo). The highlight of the evening was fish with garlic sauce.

Les got a personal tour of the kitchen and discussed the

garlic sauce and house orange drink with Paul, who treated

him to his own whole plate of salsa.

October 9 That evening at dinner, Walter mentioned the Pongo for

the first time. The Pongo de Manseriche was a series of

rapids through which Fitzcarraldo's boat had to pass and be

damaged. The rapids were very real. Walter said we'd have to

6

MAUREEN GOSLI G

pass through them to get to see the film camp. The Pongo was

passable at twelve to sixteen feet but much higher than that

it would become a furious series of whirlpools, which small

boats could often not survive. Les started getting nervous

about risking his life tomorrow, especially when Walter told

how he and Werner had once narrowly escaped drowning.

October 10 We ate a hasty breakfast at dawn so we could arrive early at

the airplane to leave for the film camp. When we reached the

malecon (the boardwalk) instead of the airport, I suddenly

realized we'd be taking one of the orange military seaplanes

docked on the river. What fun! Several men helped carry our

many cases of film equipment and the seventy-horsepower

motor down to the water's edge, while Walter wheeled and

dealed with this and that official. We waited and waited. The sun grew hotter and hotter.

There was no breeze. Les sat on a log, reading a book on food.

One by one, planes took off without us. Stories filtered down

that such and such a plane couldn't fly because it had too

much water in its pontoons, that we had too much weight, that

the air force wanted more money from Walter, that we would

leave soon, that we wouldn't leave today at all, that something

was wrong with one plane so we would have to wait for a

replacement, and finally, that it was too late to go now because

the pilot had to be back for a meeting with the general. If we left

now, he would have to stay overnight. We reluctantly stored the

equipment in a watch station, took taxis back to Villa Mercedes,

and were already exhausted and disheartened by noon.

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THE FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

One good bit of news shed new light on everything:

Walter received news thatJack Nicholson had agreed to take the role of Fitzcarraldo.

October 11 Another early morning. This time we got aboard a plane.

Every bit of space was taken by cargo. With us came members of an orchestra, who would play for fiesta activities in Santa Maria, the village hours away by

speedboat from the film camp, where we'd land. There

was a bit of rain, and the sky was overcast. Below us lay two hours of green jungle, interrupted only by serpentine rivers. Walter and Gloria excitedly pointed out the dreaded Pongo, which lay between a gentle rise of mountains. Santa Maria was further upriver.

The first moment of landing felt like being in the third reel of Apocalypse Now. The plane softly circled in the

water of the Nieva River. On both shores, barefoot people

in colorful dress stared speechless and unmoving, as if watching a spaceship landing. The air felt different. The

atmosphere had a tropical gentleness. Life was not so harsh here as the city life we'd left behind. The sun came out. The

trees, the people, the thatched houses were luminous. And we were the center of attention.

The town officials gave us a small welcoming reception at the covered dining area of the local boarding house with

speeches and many toasts of the local San Juan beer. The "governor" of the area, a small, balding man with crossed eyes, had only good things to say about the film company

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MAUREEN GOSLING

and said the town would cooperate and help in any way they could. Walter had been courting them, in hopes of tipping the

scales on the delicate political balance that now existed in the area. The film company would provide jobs and encourage the local economy. We filmed the discussions that developed

over lunch regarding all the problems the film company was

having locally and internationally. The film company paid for the orchestra that played for

the dance that night at the community center, a rare treat for

a village that was used to only a scratchy phonograph.

October 12 Firecrackers went off in the soccer field, which doubled as the town's square, ushering in the festivities of the day.

Various soccer teams were assembling for the day's games. We learned that the film camp had a team. Suddenly Gloria

grabbed me by the hand and said we had to find some flowers. I couldn't believe what was happening. We plucked

some beautiful yellow blossoms and led the Huachinista team onto the playing field. Gloria and I were "queens for a day" of the film company's team in Santa Maria de Nieva, Peru!

Tonight we showed our film Always for Pleasure on the

army's 16mm projector that ran a little fast. People didn't understand the English, but with all the music and the color

it seemed as if people loved the film.

October 13 Today Werner arrived with Walter from Pinglo, a military station downriver. Here came Werner, German-pale in a

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ThE FIRST TRlP: O CTOBER 1979

white T-shirt, army pants, and hiking boots. He told us of his recent trip to LA and asked us what our impressions were of everything.

After a lunch given by the film company's cook at his own little house, we all walked to a waterfall to swim. I felt adventuresome and delighted to at last be on a wild, narrow path in wild, thick jungle. All I could think of was paradise when I saw the falls and the little pool below. There must be few pleasures in life that can surpass the benediction of a waterfall at the end of a hot, sweaty jungle walk. On two sides lush green-covered rock cliffs went straight up. To stand beneath the falls was like getting beaten by a wild natural massage. I braved it along with the guys but had to hold onto rocks so I wouldn't get swept away, and I could stand the prickling, beating sensation only briefly. Of course, Werner stayed under it for a long time.

That night, before the dance, we showed Cinderella and The African Queen dubbed in Spanish in Super-B.

October 14 Set up in the shade of the buildings at the end of the soccer field opposite the pension, two still photographers were taking photographs of the townspeople during these fiesta days. Their cameras were the most basic box cameras, with little light-tight developing boxes hooked on the sides. Besides just taking straight photos, they made recuerdos. They each had a set of hand-printed, hand-drawn designs and verses (usually sentimental or romantic), which could be positioned around a portrait and reshot, as a "remembrance." It was fascinating to

10

M AUREEN G OSLING

watch them. Les had already had his done. I couldn't resist and had mine done, too. I came out looking healthy and tanned, with birds and a verse next to me.

Ni el tiempo Ni la distancia Hard que de ti Me olvide.

Then Les and I filmed one of the photographers taking

Werner's photo. Two image makers. That last night of the fiesta was one last dance, featuring

a guest singer, the helicopter pilot. Still in uniform, he sang with the band. Tomorrow the village would reluctantly have

to return to normal routine.

October 15 At last we were on our way to Huachintsa. We set out and immediately were forced to return to Santa Maria for a different motor that worked properly, although more slowly. It was a hot day, with fat white clouds. The boat was packed with all of our gear and the broken motor, to be repaired later.

Just as we left for the second time, an Aguaruna woman with blue tattoos, spots and lines on her face, anxiously bantered to us in her language. She wanted to come with us. She wanted to go just anywhere to get away. Someone translated to us that her husband had run off with their daughter! She sat next to Les and continued chattering in Aguaruna. A few minutes later, she noticed another Indian woman onshore with a child and a dugout canoe. She

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THE FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

motioned that she wanted to be let out there. So we left her. Hitchhiker of the Maranon.

The river was wide, brown, swift. Occasionally, we had to skirt logs that poked out of the water. It was hot On either side were silent green thickets of palms, banana trees, hanging moss, and rich foliage. Once in a while we passed bamboo huts or a canoe onshore. People, who would be bathing, washing clothes, or floating gently by in their boats, would always stare. We returned their stares with equal curiosity.

We approached Naparuca, a village known as "Aguaruna CIA headquarters." Werner insisted on stopping there to have an important confrontation/meeting alone with the local leaders to hear from their own mouths the complaints they had against the film company. By dealing with them face-to­face, he hoped to dispel rumors and come to a reasonable agreement with them. There had been death threats against members of the film company, so we were very concerned as Werner disappeared up the steep, narrow path to the village with only an interpreter and clean of the hunting knife he usually wore on his belt. Les was reading The World According to Garp. Our equipment lay hidden under tarps on the boat. We didn't want to reveal the least hint of aggression.

As we waited, two dugout canoes with about five young Indian women, dressed simply in cotton dresses, pulled up to the shore, where the women proceeded to wash all the goods that were piled in their canoes: papayas, yucca, palm leaves, plantains, and meat, which they strung on thin vines and dunked in the water. They chattered and giggled, paying

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MAUREEN GOSLING

little attention to us. They each took a quick dip in the water, clothes and all. When they finished, they filled baskets full, and each put a load on her head, balanced by a strap on the forehead. They stared curiously as they walked up the path.

About two hours went by, Les reading, the guys napping and taking brief dips in the river. Occasionally, a curious child would peek down the path at us, always with a very serious face. At one point, the Indian guy who was with us went up the hill and stood outside the meeting house where Werner and the council were and said things were very heated. A little later, a villager came down and said that we could wait above for Werner. With some trepidation we followed him up the steep path to a grassy area with a couple of palm shelters and a large one that looked like a school. We sat on chairs in the shade of the school's roof, little kids unabashedly staring at us from all directions. One of the men reprimanded the children for staring, and they quickly disappeared. The air was tense; even the children knew something of gravity was happening. Our "guard" offered us crackers and soft drinks. We continued to sit and wait. I kept feeling like I was in a movie, playing an unwilling role. Part of me could not take it seriously. I felt unconnected with the problems Werner was dealing with .... I felt like an innocent victim of circumstance, all the while knowing that our "captors" made no distinction between Les and me and the film company. I tried to smile at the children, and they would not return the gesture .... I felt sad and powerless in this political microcosm of what goes on daily among people who don't understand each other.

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TH E FIRST TRIP; O CTOBER 1979

We could see the meeting house where Herzog was from our waiting area. It was surrounded by people straining to hear what was going on inside. We waited another half an hour. Then Les saw Werner coming out. "He's alive."

"Let's get out of here," said Werner under his breath. We hastily walked down the path and got into our boat.

Werner nervously lit a cigarette as the motor started up.

The noise made it impossible for us to talk, so we'd have to wait to hear what happened.

Werner was tense from his encounter, so when

we stopped at the military station, as was the usual requirement, he did not have the patience to deal with their routine. He sparred with the sergeant, refusing to let

us all go up to fill out their meaningless papers. Werner said it should be sufficient for the sergeant to have a list of

who was onboard and then we should be left in peace. He stripped to his swim trunks and went swimming, all the time daring the guard or the sergeant to come down and

get him. We, including Walter, were getting very nervous and felt like we'd had enough trouble for one day without

creating havoc with the military. But soon Werner cooled off, the sergeant did not come down, the guard did not

shoot, and we left peacefully, after hearing a sketch of Werner's encounter.

Once inside the Aguaruna Council's large meeting house, Werner was faced with two hundred community members, most of whom did not speak Spanish. They locked the door. They allowed him to speak first and present his side of the story. Once finished, he turned the floor back to them,

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L

M AUREEN G OSLING

asking them to spell out their concerns so that he could

answer them and hopefully come to an agreement that would

satisfy their needs. Shouting all at once in voices filled with anger,

they brought up an issue that Werner said they hadn't mentioned before. They told of a specific incident of some

settlers who had moved into the territory and the problems

that had ensued. Werner answered that he had no intention of settling in

the area, that he was there only temporarily and would then leave. He said he would leave the camp and all the materials in it for them to do with as they desired. He said they could

live there, tear it down and use the materials, or burn it down if they wished. He only hoped that it would not become a

military or tourist camp. After the long meeting, he was unsure what would

happen next but hoped they understood him better.

October 16 Today Cesar, a Peruvian anthropologist who is the camp's

manager, told us of a new rumor: Someone had accused both him and Herzog of exterminating two Indian villages. The jungle seems to be fertile for myth making and imagination.

Two new visitors arrived, a German journalist and his

photographer from Stern magazine. They were the only journalists so far who had come to the jungle to try to unravel the web of stories that had filtered out into the international press and painted a rather black-and-white picture of Herzog

versus the natives.

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THE FIRST TRIP: O CTO BER 1979

October 17 Manfried, the Stern writer, was prepared to follow all leads. Werner had told him of his meeting two days ago at Naparuca, and, thinking the Aguarunas might tell a journalist more of what was on their minds, he and Volker, the photographer, set out.

We filmed their return. Manfried told us that the Aguarunas had treated them similarly to Werner, taking away their camera, pad, and pen, and locking the door. From what they told him, he concluded that the film company had made mistakes from the beginning, which by now had snowballed and created such a complex situation that to think of beginning afresh seemed nearly impossible. He saw the Aguarunas as using the film company, an irritating foreign element that had come into their territory and into their lives, as a scapegoat, and it was catalyzing a unification among them and building up their political confidence in the face of the outside world, despite their own intratribal disharmonies.

Manfried also said that the council had totally twisted or misunderstood a statement Werner had made two days ago. They told Manfried that Werner wanted to turn the film camp into a tourist camp when the film was over. Deliberate lying? Simple lack of communication? What?

October 18 This morning we headed upriver, toward Wawaim, the community that had originally consented to work with the film company. Just as we made the first bend in the river, we

16

MAUREEN G OSLING

noticed Nelson and several of his family members or friends shouting and waving at us wildly from shore. We pulled up on the beach, and suddenly everything was animated and serious. Nelson had just received word that a warrant was out for his arrest on grounds of treason. An older Indian woman, his mother, began angrily shouting in Aguaruna at Cesar, then started to cry. She was afraid that Nelson would be taken away and killed. She blamed the film company for

causing all the trouble. The warrant was issued by the Consejo de Aguaruna y

Huambisa, charging Nelson with treason because of his involvement with the film company. Nelson was a local leader who rallied a certain public around him, despite suspicion that he was a brujo. The fact that he'd allied with the film company made him even more suspect to the downriver

faction in Naparuca. Walter was very irate, arguing that treason was a federal

charge, that the warrant was issued from downriver, and that this was not even their jurisdiction. He and Cesar tried to reassure everyone that it was a trumped-up charge and purely a scare tactic. Something could be done and must be done immediately.

We set our course downriver, this time toward Santa Maria de Nieva, where Walter, Werner, and Cesar could find counsel.

Stopping at the military camp as required, it was clear that the officers already knew what was going on. We all had to go up to the station and confront more angry discussion. The major wanted to arrest Nelson

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THE FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

right on the spot. Walter insisted it was all a fabrication and that he had to consult with the authorities in Santa Maria before doing anything else. Les and I tried filming. One of the guards halted Les from shooting. I pretended to quit recording, but kept rolling even as we marched to the major's office. (The major was a stereotypical aggressive Latino military man who could be bought off or could turn on you when it was to his advantage.) With the Spanish flying so fast, I was lost to what was really going on. The major's ranting echoed in the bare office with its great cement floor, which was sweating along with the rest of us. He pulled out a magazine clipping he'd saved from Marea, published in Lima. The headline read, "Aguarunas Dicen 'iNo!'" Another article from a local paper criticized Herzog's company and reported that they'd already retreated.

Once outside again, the guards tried to confiscate our film and tape. Luckily, Les had just started a roll, so the film he pulled out of the camera and lost was only the small amount we'd shot there. In the confusion, Walter quickly whispered to me in English, "Give them the blank side of the tape rolls!" So I satisfied them by pulling off a bunch of tape and letting them hear a blank section to "prove" I had given them everything. Volker gave them an unused roll of 35mm film. I was incredibly nervous through it all, feeling humiliated by them and knowing how vulnerable we were to their whims, because they were in uniform and had guns. But there was also the thrill that we'd pulled the wool over their eyes.

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MAUREEN GOSLING

Once in Nieva, the governor, our gang, and the sergeant discussed the Nelson situation in Spanish. Les and I filmed them. At dinner, the Germans turned it over and over in German. The "Nelson situation" was one in a myriad of problems all pressuring Werner to make a decision, a decision that most other people would probably have made much sooner than this, the decision to leave. So much energy had already been expended in establishing relationships on the government level, to a certain extent on the local level, and on building the film camp that Werner couldn't believe that a solution was impossible. Somewhere amidst the German, Spanish, English, and Aguaruna appraisals of the situation, there must have been an answer.

After the dishes had been cleared away and bottles of cool beer remained, I talked with Nelson a long time about languages, about the manner in which the film company had gone into the communities, and about the ways they could have handled things better. He commented how he and the other natives found the situation in the camp of men all living together unnatural. He said that men and women were always together and that for there to be only men created more of a threat. The presence of women created a different atmosphere-if the film company members had brought their women, they could have befriended the local women and softened relations between the groups. I agreed. Men were together only in a time of war, he said.

(Back in the States, two weeks later, we learned that a group of armed Aguarunas dressed in war paint surrounded the film camp, ordering people to leave, allowing them to take

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TH E FIRST TRIP: OCTOBER 1979

only the generators and radio equipment. Once empty, they

burned the camp down. Four years later, on our first return to Peru after finishing the film, we heard a few more spin-off stories. The camp was actually burned twice, the second time by Aguarunas who hadn't been in on the first burning! And to this day, at the conclusion of their community assemblies, they repeat a theatrical representation of the burning of the camp, as a reminder of their successes in expelling outsiders, Herzog's and another group fifty years before. But Herzog's intervention has become an historical sidebar, now overwhelmed by the greater and more pressing problem of settlers and continuing fights for the land title. A Peruvian from Lima plans to make a documentary film about them. He says they surprisingly said yes to his proposal, which he presented to them in a three-hour closed-door assembly reminiscent of Herzog's encounter. Among the conditions: that they own part of the film and that two of their members learn about filmmaking.)

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For Chris Simon

April 12, 1981-Sunday On our way to the jungle camp It's morning in Pucallpa, a city of 200,000 on the Ucayali River, a giant tributary to the Amazon. I'm waiting for coffee (probably instant) on a patio overlooking a large swimming pool at the best hotel this side of the river. It is not very elegant. A high wall hides the poverty that is everywhere without. It is raining lightly. Eight vultures are perched on the hotel roof. Eight more can be seen on the roof of the building across the street. They seem to be waiting out the rain so they can dry their feathers and get on with their job of removing the dead. We arrived yesterday afternoon in a rainstorm after a two-hour flight from Iquitos in two light airplanes-two hours of flying over huge, snaking rivers. For the entire flight, we looked down on a constant forest, a solid sheet of variegated green as far as the eye can see ....

The original plan was to stop here to refuel and then proceed to the jungle camp two more hours to the south in the high jungle a hundred miles east of Cuzco-but Klaus

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

Kinski was tired. He had already been traveling for thirty-four hours from Miami in a plane that passed up Iquitos because it was fogged in and was forced to go on to Lima, returning to Iquitos the following morning with no allowance for sleep. And a torrential rainstorm finally settled all the questions. Travel by light aircraft is not possible in heavy rain.

While waiting for the others to awake, I enjoy what's left of the relative coolness of the morning air and remember the meal of the night before-catfish (known here as dorado). It was very good. They grow big. Forty to fifty pounds. Their filets have no bones. The other great fish is called paiche-a big, ugly-looking fish that has a delicate taste. The night before, I had it at a restaurant. It was good, but my delicate mental balance was off and I couldn't handle my inability to communicate and went for a walk, where I watched rats and roaches scurrying all over a garbage dump.

Today is much better. The rain has stopped. The sky is full of puffy clouds and we are again in flight, sailing over muddy rivers and endless forest below. After two hours of flight without seeing any town and only an occasional Indian village, we landed in a rough field at a missionary settlement, unloaded, and immediately became engaged in getting our equipment to a waiting boat. During the thirty-minute trip downriver to the camp, I watched the solid jungle wall and felt anxious to begin the film. When we arrived, I missed the shot of Kinski leaping out of the boat and onto Herzog, throwing his legs around his chest. I was rushing Maureen to hurry up out of the boat to record sound, and in the confusion of handing the N agra recorder to a helpful hand

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LES BLANK

on shore, her brand-new Nikon went into the river. It was plucked back out by its strap but not soon enough to keep it from getting wet and inoperative. Our first casualty-and

missed shot. The camp has around forty people and twenty houses,

complete with generator-powered electric lights, writing tables, beds, and large verandas with hammocks. Mick Jagger's valet stayed in ours before us. It has a divider, effectively making two rooms. Pacho is next door sharing a similar arrangement with a German ex-sea captain, who has been running a restaurant in Iquitos for four years. In the film, he plays the captain of the riverboat.

All houses overlook the river, which today after last night's rain is swift and brown and reportedly free of dangerous creatures. We're told there are Amahuaca Indians living upriver, who recently attacked an Indian couple who drifted into their territory. The woman was killed by an arrow. The man still had one sticking out of his head when he arrived at Herzog's camp for treatment by the camp doctor. I begin to question my desire for adventure. My thoughts are soon diverted by pisco sours (without ice) served up shortly after our arrival. There seems to be unlimited beer and it's cold. The chicken is locally grown, chewy and tasty. The potatoes are served in a peanut sauce. Garlic and chili peppers are plentiful. I can't yet decide if I'm in a dream or [at] some super summer camp. The reality is that the film is just beginning, starting up after forty percent was shot with Jason Robards and Mick Jagger. The Indians are very restless. They were due home by now to

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THE SEeD 0 TRJP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

harvest their coffee and cacao but have decided to stay on, despite the despair felt by the relatives at home. They find it difficult living in rectangular barracks-type buildings for an extra six weeks, which is tough on their lifestyle. Also, three groups of Campas are living together. Normally, they would not associate that much with one another. Now there is stealing of single women from one group by another and a considerable amount of resentment is building. The Machiguengas, whose territory this is, are an entirely different tribe and are beginning to get edgy.

We learn that yesterday a huge tree was cut down for the :film and it nearly wiped out the whole production crew and director in a single blow when it landed where it was not supposed to ....

A fourth fatality has occurred-a child, ill with a disease it had on arrival in the camp. Another, a possible fifth, is being operated on now.

I stepped through one of the bridges that were unsoundly constructed. With accidents to the crew on location, such as an Achilles tendon sliced by an outboard motor, a finger cut nearly off, and a dislocated shoulder (all perfectly cured by a local paramedic), I'm now glad to have the insurance I took out for the first time in my life shortly before leaving. I also wrote my first will.

April 14-Tuesday We arrived at the site of the first filming after passing through the Indian camp. The women giggled at the sight of Maureen. I smiled at the sight of them (some quite

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LES BLA K

luscious). Then a ten-minute walk into the jungle up a hill and into the midst of a hundred Indians with red war paint, clutching long arrows and bows. Watching the tedious process of setting up scenes was tiring. In the middle of it, an Indian shot a snake. Werner, realizing it was the most dangerous of Amazonian snakes, stopped what he was doing and called his cameraman over to get a shot of it. It was on a steep, muddy hill. I went downhill of the snake to get a shot, and as I was shooting, aboutseven or eight arrows began shooting into the poor snake, and I realized that poor me was in the direct line of fire should any of the arrows overshoot from the excited Indians at the top of the hill. I reminded myself yet again to be more careful.

At lunch, I left the equipment for Pacho and the porters to take back to the boats and strolled through the jungle looking at exotic butterflies and plants. Passing through the Indian camp, I noticed a large rodent being barbecued on a

spit, tail and all. Back at our camp, baked, stuffed chicken was waiting

for us. Also three warm beers, and then a fourth, since, all of a sudden, some very cold beer appeared. My siesta in the hammock on our porch was pleasant. It started raining again and I enjoyed having missed the trouble of hauling equipment to the site of the afternoon's shooting. I stayed in the hammock the rest of the day, reading, sipping tiny amounts of cognac, and listening to Linda Ronstadt on my

Walkman stereo headset. I took my first swim of the trip in the river and

immediately freaked when I felt sudden hits on my fingers.

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23. 1981

"Piranha!" I thought, and started running out examining what I thought would be nubs where my fingers were .... Everyone of them was still there! Saved again. On closer examination, I realized the fish trying to bite me were of a harmless variety. I returned to the "delicious" water, as the boat captain describes it. Cool, not cold. The sand beneath is soft. The current is strong but not impossible to swim out of. Dinner that evening was meat cooked in a good sauce, black beans and rice, laced by me with extra raw garlic and chills. Pacho, who has not been doing garlic, has come down with an infected throat and the runs and feelings of fatigue. Maureen has taken her first fall, down slippery stairs leading to the river. The doctor treated her abrasion.

After dinner, we went upriver to the Indian camp for a welcoming fiesta. They were waiting for us in the light of a half moon, drumming a steady, fast beat. We were led into a shed painted with the red Achiote coloring used for their face and body painting and offered masato, the fermented beverage made by chewing up yucca roots and spitting it into a dugout canoe, where it works into alcohol in two days.

It was actually pretty good, except for the knowledge that it was made with spit. Then we were treated to groups of women singing beautiful songs as twelve men beating drums in cadence circled our shed in the light of the half moon. I wish I could have seen what they looked like. It sounded like something halfway between pygmy singing and blues. We recorded some of it. They were most interested in hearing it played back, gathering around in an orderly circle, not crowding us too much. They have a lot of

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physical contact among one another-holding hands, arms around shoulders and necks. I look forward to going back to hang out and film.

AprillS-Wednesday We breakfasted a little faster than usual and got in the long dugout boat to travel to where a path led up to the top of the hill where Fitzcarraldo had built a lookout in the top of a tree.

To get there, we walked. The usual retinue of people to carry things was not around. The doctor, who is trying very hard to impress Maureen, offered to carry something, so I let him carry the camera case, now about five pounds heavier and a killer. I took what was left-the tripod, the one that nearly ruined my back twelve years ago when I was hunting for elk in the Olympic rain forest. I think the only reason I'm alive now is the exercises and running I did before coming down here. The path was steep and muddy, crossed by fallen trees and thorny vines-difficult with a seven-foot cylinder nearly a foot thick and heavier than hell. I had to stop several times to prevent a heart attack.

At the top of the hill, I filmed Klaus Kinski being raised a hundred feet to the lookout From there Fitzcarraldo sees the all-important proximity of one river to the other. Having carried the heavy tripod all the way up makes me feel like I've joined the club of Werner Herzog Penitentes. Knowing my history of back trouble, it was actually a quite stupid thing to do. But I did it! ...

After napping in the hammock, and having lunch, we shot a visually beautiful interview with Werner during a

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

rainstorm. He expressed his intention to end his life if he failed to complete the filming.

Mer dinner we shot the scene in which the Indians encounter the Molly Aida crew while they're eating. David

Espinosa, a real Campa Indian, is excellent playing the leader of the "savage" Indians.

April 16-Thursday

An hour before dawn, I awoke, as I often do, got up to pee in back of the house, and returned to my nice hard bed.

Listened to the soft sound of rain on the thatched roof and in the trees and vines. And I was about to nod off again when Werner came in speaking with urgency that I must get up and hurry. '''The boat is leaving just now! You should

bring the camera only! No tripod, no sound, no assistant! The Pongo [the deep, deadly rapids that sucks whole boats into its gigantic whirlpools] has risen ten feet and is presently rising at one foot per hour. We must hurry

because the boat may be torn to pieces at any time." (In the

last surge of the river, the riverboat had broken loose from fourteen huge cables that snapped under the force of the

water, causing the boat to drift into the rapids, where it then became stuck-it was now about to float free.) I quickly got my stuff together and was looking for something warm to put on for the rain when I heard a motor start up and

the boat taking off. I was told they could wait no longer ... and that I might be able to join them by plane if one could leave Pucallpa in time after the rain stops. The trip by boat is four hours; a long time to sit huddled over a stiff seat.

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Yesterday one of the light planes we use crashed, totaling the plane and critically injuring the pilot and two Indians

being brought up to be extras. The second such accident. Werner believes it's sabotage. I hoped the plane would not

be available. I was ready to relax .... A group of men went off upriver to go "fishing." They

use dynamite. There are big fish here that have broken

eighty-pound test line. A large jaguar was killed near here recently, I'm sad to say.

A swim with Pacho. We worked our way upstream close to shore, then were carried along upstream by a crosscurrent caused by the sudden bend in the river. We surprised Gisela (the costume designer), who thought she was on a remote

beach and had just stepped out of her swimsuit She quickly stepped back into it while we were approaching. Pacho and she went for a walk, disappearing up a streambed. I stayed

in the rushing water and watched the pure blue, smog-free sky. It was the end of the day after a long rain. Time passed.

They returned laughing. She was wearing a wreath made of flowering plants. We made our way upstream, stepping over

large, flat, rounded stones, and then I discovered the tracks of a large jaguar. Very thrilling. I hope the hunters don't find out.

We then drifted back to camp in the swift river. Played cards with Pacho. Werner returned from eight hours of boat

rides on the river to and from his big boat, which was not damaged by the Pongo.

Dinner of barbecued beef and onions cooked on a newly built barbecue pit made from oil drums. Mer dinner eight of us played an Italian-style blackjack game.

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

Another day Good Friday?? I've lost track of the days.

A bunch went out yesterday to dynamite some fish out of the river to have something special for Good Friday. They got nothing. We now have shot nineteen rolls of film. I am sitting out tonight's filming on the boat because I find it tedious standing around waiting for something to happen. I didn't go up to the filming on the platform in the tree today because I would have to be lifted up and down from the precarious perch, a hundred feet up. I also have a substantial fear of heights and a definite lack of faith in the structural integrity of the engineering and carpentry around here. My bed has collapsed. My leg has gone through one of the suspension bridges. I nearly fell from my porch when I leaned on the railing and it came loose.

We went instead to the Indians' camp and filmed the doctor's daily routine of seeing some fifteen to thirty patients. Shot some nice faces in a Rembrandt lighting situation. Interviewed some Indians and filmed the process of making masato. I was impressed by the skill with which the women hacked and pried off the tough skin from the yucca roots. I had trouble getting the spitting action covered, because I never knew when one of the three women would be spitting, and they kept blocking one another ....

April 18-Saturday Yes, it's Saturday for sure, because tomorrow is Easter. Freshly killed jungle turkeys are lying out in the kitchen,

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waiting for preparation. These are turkeys raised in the jungle. They are similar in taste to duck. All dark meat.

This morning Kinski was complaining about having been chased from his house by ants. Having been fiercely stung by two the day before, I was sympathetic and have also been wanting to film him talking. So ants it was. We went out to establish the ants, but as soon as I would have the camera set up, they would suddenly dwindle in numbers and then completely disappear. Once I made the mistake of setting my tripod leg in their path. They got pissed and scattered in all directions and got even by biting me twice on the toes of my sandaled feet. I put on jungle boots and tucked the pants in and made a deal with Pacho to stick his bare foot in the path of the ants so I could get something humorous to illustrate Werner's story about "squatting down in the middle of an ant's nest." He did it. One or two ants crawled on his foot, and one bit him. He yelled. I laughed.

N ow, for my end of the deal, I must persuade Werner to talk about his tattoo for Pacho's film on Ed Hardy, the great San Francisco artist who gave Werner and me our tattoos. I must not omit the fact that I was also bitten by a soldier ant that drew flowing blood and hurt like the bite of a cat or dog.

Kinski didn't have much to say about ants, since they had abandoned his house by the time we started shooting. He talked and talked about everything else and was enthusiastic about helping to find locations to be filmed in. Next to jungly trees covered with ferns, lichens, and against a backdrop of the river (now green in color). And last, he said he wanted something different. There were two huge fallen

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THE SECOND TRIP; APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

trees crossing each other. That's where he wanted to be. He managed to get himself out on this intersection at great risk. Pacho went with the recorder and claims to have gotten good sound, even though he was more than fifteen feet away.

Then a quick lunch of garlic, tomatoes, bread (cooked daily in the primitive wood oven at the Indian camp), and three beers. A short siesta and we then waited by the river for a boat to take us down to the riverboat, where we were to film a hundred dugout canoes approaching the strange ship cautiously, since they are supposed to have never seen a white man, much less a riverboat. Not enough Indians or dugouts showed up, so everybody waited until the last minute and then tried to get a shot. It was scary, because some of the Indians didn't know how to swim or handle themselves in boats, because they came from the highlands where there are no rivers, only small, steep streams. There had already been a death by accidental drowning before we got there. A man who couldn't swim took a canoe out for his own entertainment and tipped over.

April 19-Easter Sunday

Last night I went to bed early, missed the party the crew had after returning frustrated after the generator broke down and having more trouble with nonactors trying to be actors. I don't talk to anybody these days except Pacho and Maureen and, occasionally, Thomas the cameraman, so I probably would have felt self-conscious at the party. I'm feeling unconnected to the people around me and-except for events like the large moth sitting now on the railing next to my hammock

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constantly licking the poncho with its long tongue and the daily communion with the pristine river-I don't feel connected to nature. This could be just a mood that will be gone tomorrow (I hope). With three more weeks to go with the same setting and same people, things will have to change. It was a beautiful and sunny day, but I didn't enjoy it.

I snapped at Maureen and, later, Pacho. Read Newsweek cover to cover (which always makes me feel worse). We filmed people taking it easy, waiting for the late-afternoon repeat of yesterday's action of Indians swarming into the big boat. The Brazilian woman who does sound with her husband was sweeping leaves from around the three-story house they share with three others. Thomas Mauch was reading in his hammock and preferring to be working. He was the cameraman on Aguirre, the Wrath of God. I also filmed three young women washing clothes in the river, who sang for us while they worked. The laundry is picked up daily but returned only after sunny days. Have now shot twenty-seven rolls of film at eleven minutes each. I feel I'm wasting a lot. Although I am not too often inspired, the subject matter's general interest may make up for it.

APril20-Monday We traveled more than six hours in an open boat in the rain, a heavy way to communicate with one's self and with a very raw and extravagantly beautiful nature-gigantic trees and frequent rapids that often threatened to swallow us up or at least tip the boat over. The Indian helper had a back pocket stuffed with round stones from the river that he used

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - J UNE 23. 1981

in a slingshot to shoot at birds along the way. Amazingly,

he only missed by inches on every shot-some a hundred feet or more away-and most on the wing. By the time we

arrived at the dreaded Pongo, I was fatigued by boat travel, sitting on a hard, low seat, and constantly confronted with

the possibility of capsizing. The real thing, with all its dark ominous swirls, whirlpools, and deafening roar, totally

unnerved me. I was shaking like a leaf when I stepped ashore on the slippery, wet rocks.

When the boat was finally set up to float through the

Pongo, it was the end of the day and too dark. So we got back on the big boat with very perilous maneuvers getting from the launch onto the boat without being slammed between the

two. The tumultuous waters caused the launch to bob up and down and spin around like a leaf.

Since we hadn't planned on spending the night, there was

no dinner-and, worse, nothing to drink. Without glasses, I

couldn't read. Werner and Thomas, the cameraman, hogged the Sapo game. Sapo is the Amazon's answer to pinball machines and, more recently. video games. It consists of tossing solid

brass discs, an inch and a half across, toward the open mouth of a brass frog (sapo in Spanish). Only rarely does the disc fall into

the mouth. One's lucky to hit the holes in the area around the sapo. Each hole is good for a certain amount of points. Getting into the sapo's mouth is, of course, the biggest score of all. It is fun and requires a great amount of concentration and skill. It is noisy but much better noise than idiotic video games.

I tried to sleep in a hammock on deck, which was fun because of the constant beating of the boat's hull against the

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rocky shores of the Pongo. The hammock kept constantly swinging. However, I had no sweater to keep me warm from the wet and cold thirty-knot wind whipping through the

Pongo in the high Urubamba River. I gave up and desperately

seized a bunk in one of the crew members' cabins. He was polite enough not to throw me out when he discovered me in his bed. I slept there until daybreak. I don't know who he was or where he finally slept.

April 21-Bloody Tuesday Out on deck at daybreak, I managed to find out that the camera crews were being stationed on the banks of the Pongo and the shot was to be made very soon. Quick

instant coffee and bread roll with jam and cheese and then I'm off making the deadly passage from the big boat to the

little boat that could easily break a leg if one weren't quick

enough to move fast when the boats smash together. Other terrors are dropping the camera and/or N agra into the angry, swirling, roaring waters. Then comes pulling the

little boat away from the big boat into the rapids without capsizing and being let out to scramble over slippery rocks without equipment. We made it without mishap and got the

shot okay, recording Werner barking orders into a wireless mike. He is most cooperative in wearing the wireless, unlike Kinski, who refuses it. But Werner felt the scene was not exciting enough, even though the boat deliberately banged into the rocks three or four times going down the Pongo. He decided to put the actors on board and flew back to camp to pick them up. While awaiting his return, we enjoyed the

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THE SECOND TRIP; APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

magnificent place we were in. Above us was a hundred feet of solid trees and waterfalls. A hundred miles up the river is Machu Picchu. I looked for interesting driftwood for making mobiles and found some crammed into high-water areas between piles of boulders.

A few hours later, Werner returned with Kinski and the man who plays the captain, Paul Hittscher, who is indeed a retired sea captain. I filmed Kinski's approach into the Pongo, expecting him to be as scared as I was, but he wasn't. He looked glad to be there. Then I filmed preparations, such as fixing a camera to film the windup gramophone on which Fitzcarraldo plays opera out on the deck next to the bridge. There is to be a shot of this during the banging of the ship going through the Pongo. I had to decide whether to put myself on the shore, which would be boring, or on the big boat, which would be dangerous. I chose the latter and was fairly shaken up to be on board and filming as we collided with the shore while Kinski was screaming bloody murder. On the second impact, which came from the side, I was wrenched in such a way that I had a pain in my side from my body being snapped when the boat plowed into the rocks with an explosive noise that reminded me of the great LA earthquake and war movies when the bombs hit. On the next movement, the boat picked up more speed than before and headed down the river straight for the rocks. I lay down flat on the deck and hoped for the best. The crash was enormous. Bone-shattering. The cameraman shooting the record player was foolish enough to be looking through the viewfinder at impact. He's lucky he escaped with only bad bruises and

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cuts around his eye. Thomas Mauch, the main cameraman, who was shooting Kinski, was thrown to the deck, badly cutting his hand by falling on the camera. His head also had a gash. Werner came up to me to get me to come and film the blood. Thomas told me not to film him. Werner told me to do it anyway. I did. Maureen brought up the tequila we had asked Pacho to send when Werner went back to pick up the actors. It helped to quell the feelings of terror that had been experienced by all who were aboard during the crazy, dangerous river trip.

Then quickly into the little boat to get Thomas back to camp and sewn up. In the excitement, Werner forgot that the second launch was not working, so the two-person camera crew shooting from the shore was not able to be picked up until 2 A.M., after ten hours of freezing on a rock with strong wind and fierce biting bugs. Meanwhile, our trip back was like a dream. Werner, Thomas, and Kinski were jubilant for having shared and survived yet another weird and death­defying adventure. I felt glad to be alive and shot a lot with the Bell & Howell of them and the river and, later, silhouettes of treetops and the sky. Frequent hits of tequila made it even more mellow. We still had about two hours to travel after sunset. Fortunately, there was no rain. The sky was perfectly clear. Full of stars. The full moon had not yet risen. We navigated strictly by starlight, following its reflection in the river and dodging the rapids. We finally found where the Camisea River enters the Urubamba and turned off for a final half hour of travel on this narrower and less hazardous river. We glided along in complete darkness now that the jungle

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - J UNE 23. 1981

was blocking out the sky. The Urubamba, which is about a half mile wide, afforded much more starlight.

On arrival at the Indian camp where the doctor has his clinic and supplies, we were met by armed Indians who immediately jumped onto the boat as the wounded were taken off. They were coming as our guards since another "incident" had taken place the day before, we soon learned. Three of the Machiguengas had gone looking for turtle eggs on land that is in dispute between this tribe and the Amahuacas. They were asleep at 9 P.M. and the man and wife were each shot with three brutal arrows. He got his in the neck, she in her rear and waist. A raid is expected. Had we gone back with Werner to gather the actors, we could have seen the wounded Indians arriving and being sewn up. Werner and I arrived at a decision to go on the reprisal raid with the Machiguengas and Campas (now allied).

He and Thomas said that if I was a real documentary filmmaker, I would accompany the raiding party. I told them I would do it only if Werner would go, too. He said he would. To myself I said, "Oh shit! I don't want to die!"

April 22-Wednesday · Five-thirty. Woke up after a fitful leep. I did not relish the idea of entering Amahuaca territory and being the target of their arrows shot without warning from the densely fore ted bank.

Fortunately, Werner decided that the trip would take one and a half days by peke-peke and the speedboat could not get through the shallow areas of the river. Besides, as

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Pacho wisely commented, our presence would make it look like Werner had gotten involved again in Indian affairs. I've not yet asked him how he feels about the film company's shotguns going on the punitive trip that went out at daybreak, as we watched and filmed thirty or forty Indians riding off into the early-morning fog. The Amahuacas still rely only on bows and arrows and have rejected efforts by missionaries to "civilize" them.

It feels so strange to be a part of this old ritual warfare. I keep wondering if I'm not in a movie and find it scary to know that this film has no script.

This afternoon we did some interviews in Spanish with the young Indian women who work here washing clothes. They tell of a birth control herb that works wonders. I'm most curious to obtain some and see for myself and to find out what, if any, the side effects are, besides cessation of menstruation. I bet the Tampax people wouldn't care for this at all. It could be a great help in slowing the population explosion.

Kinski is going more and more bonkers. He has screaming fits with regularity-four or five today. Now he wants to get a shotgun to shoot the local chickens because they are so unclean. He just tried to smash the tape deck in the dining room because it prevented his sleeping well the

night before. "Pelicula 0 muerter' Werner Herzog. "Patria 0 muerter' Battle cry of Italy's Garibaldi and

Castro's Cuba. "I don't think anything is worth sacrificing one's life

for." Les B.

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

April 23-Thursday Today we took it easy. I read The Milagro Beanfield War in my hammock and interviewed production manager Walter Saxer's Peruvian mestizo girlfriend of one and a half years, who now has his baby of a few months. She refers to herself as a jungle girl and runs the camp-the food, laundry, and maintenance. She had just met Walter when we were here before, a little over a year ago.

There was a moment this morning when the Indian girls doing laundry spotted Indians downriver and said they were from one of the hostile tribes. We got out the camera and recorder and rushed in their direction, which may have been stupid, since we could have been shot. Everybody else was out shooting film. The Indians were actually Campas

and friendly. This afternoon we filmed a scene of Indians digging

away to make the cut in the jungle through which the ship is to be pulled. When dynamite was used, I hid the camera behind a bulldozer, not getting the shot, since I didn't want to be hit by debris. One Indian was cut by flying rock.

Got lots of shots of Werner up to his knees in mud while directing Indians. An Indian we had made friends with was featured in the scene also. He gave us a great song about getting loaded on masato.

April 24-Friday Seven-thirty A.M. I would do better writing in the mornings. Evenings, before going to bed and after two or three beers and a couple of pisco sours, leave me feeling on the wordless side.

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Right now the rain from the torrential downpour that lasted all night long is steadily dripping from the trees. The bread, which is baked daily at the Indian camp, was late getting here, but there were plenty of fresh oranges and papayas and, as always, fresh eggs and cheese and instant coffee (which I can't tolerate but take anyway). For some perverse reason, instant coffee has more value in parts of Latin America than real coffee, even when it's grown in the area.

It is now close to two weeks that we've been in the jungle and have not spent money, except to lose 1,000 soles ($2.50) in a game of the Italian-style blackjack game called "Siete y media" (7 Ih). Were I not keeping these notes, I would have no idea what day was what. It's all very pleasant except for not getting along so well with the people with whom I daily share meals and boat rides. Maureen is doing better at this. She also has the advantage (or disadvantage) of being the only really available woman in camp. Gisela is now coupled with the Brazilian makeup person, much to Pacho's chagrin. Anya, the production manager/"script girl," is coupled with Bubu, the first camera assistant.

We are waiting to go film a scene in which an Indian catches an arrow shot at him. Klaus wisely refuses to stand in. Thomas, the cameraman, says he wishes he had an arrow filter for the lens, since the arrows will be coming straight into the lens. Thomas is a funny guy.

Later the same day ... The arrow-catching scene was interesting. More than

two hundred Indians were carefully arranged in the trocha, a path a hundred yards wide bulldozed through the jungle

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

between the two rivers. To get there, we board a boat, disembark, and hike through mud up a slippery hill. Since the war party of Indian warriors has not returned, the best arrow-catchers and arrow-shooters were not here, and Werner wasn't satisfied with those left behind-so no film was shot. It was entertaining to see the guy grabbing arrows out of the air. They had no points but would have smarted if you were struck by one, which did nearly happen to the cameraman who was in the direct line of fire.

The river rose to about thirty percent more than usual. Whole trees were swept along in an eight- to ten-knot current full of foam and orange mud.

A special blossom was picked by the people in the Indian camp to determine what had happened to the war party. It dried up, which means there was trouble. Had it not dried up, it would have meant the group was on their way back. We also received word from the pilot that they had not yet arrived at the enemy territory because of problems with the boat motor.

April 25-Saturday My alienation and subsequent depression have been gradually building. I rarely tell people "hello," nor they me. Everybody else has someone to jive with. Maureen, Pacho, and I are getting along okay, fortunately, or I would really be lost.

Today we all boarded the Molly Aida (the big riverboat) for a cruise upriver and filming of scenes that require a real moving background. But the ballast (heavy stuff to keep the ship deep enough in the water to make the propeller work)

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had been removed to get the boat ready to drag over the hill through the jungle, and no one thought to replace it before the river trip. I had visions of something like the Delta Queen trip down the Mississippi River. Instead, the boat could not make headway against the current, even though three outboard motorboats came out to help push and were nearly wrecked as we went once again into the rapids. I kept the camera running this time but with the eyepiece closed, so I could keep a lookout for things crashing .on my head. Very exciting. All the cast and crew were in the foreground on the top of the boat, looking like the end of the world had arrived. The boat is now stuck in the mud, as is the duplicate boat up by the Pongo. Morale here is slipping.

The war party returned without sighting any enemy.

Tonight the Brazilians are having a party.

April 26-Sunday early Three turkeys have arrived. The male has been gobbling

away since daybreak. Werner thinks he can pull the boat up above the rapids

by winch and then have smooth sailing in the rest of the river for his filming. I hope so. At the "party" around a big fire, Bill Rose, the frequently irksome, smoking, drinking, self­proclaimed comedian, said, ''Tonight a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders ... and placed on top of my head." He can rarely be quiet, is usually pessimistic, and seldom says anything as amusing as this.

Eight P.M. The film shipment still has not gone out. I was slow getting started this morning, feeling sort of

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THE SECOND TRJP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23. 1981

heavy and sorry I'd eaten pinkish pork around the fire last

night. Werner told us to eat some of the charred potatoes

that were being dug out of the fire, which I did as a gesture

of compliance with whatever rite of passage he thinks he has

embarked upon. I wasn't forced to eat the meat but couldn't

resist. No one else is sick, so I guess it's something else I've got, besides food poisoning.

I trudged through cleaning ten pounds of frozen squid

that Pacho had spotted in the freezer and volunteered me

to cook, not knowing that while I have consumed enormous

amounts of the stuff in the last year, I have never cooked it.

Maureen found the Garlic Times and Gloria miraculously found

all the ingredients called for in Val Filice's dish cooked in our

film, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers. It turned out pretty well.

In the middle of cooking, Klaus Kinski came in to invite

us to eat smoked barbecued chicken that he had made

in his private barbecue pit behind his house. We couldn't

leave the cooking food, so he brought it to the dining room,

where Werner and Thomas, the cameraman, devoured it like

"piranhas," as Klaus described it. He has all his breakfast fruit,

as well as his lunch and dinner vegetables, washed in bottled

mineral water to prevent his catching any unwanted amoebas.

Pacho came breezing into the hot kitchen, having been

down to the Indian camp, where a fiesta was going on.

People were swilling masato and dancing to modern

transistor music, many in Western clothes. Again, like a

good cook and a bad filmmaker, I didn't abandon the stove.

After eating two satisfactory portions of squid with

two beers, and filching a cup of the cooking wine, I hit my

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hammock and read and napped until hearing "Ayire!" shouted

through the jungle. This means, "Kill him!" in the Campa

language. I went to see what was going on. David, who plays

the chief, had gotten very loaded on pisco and came to pay

his respects, but not without boiling out all the complaints

Indians have ever had against white men. We followed him back to his camp, where he railed

some more under the shed where tribal councils and masato­

drinking occurs. Werner wandered arol\nd shooting stills of

people picking lice from each other's heads.

I filmed a young woman I've come to notice, singing one

of her people's old songs. Her baby has a severe harelip, and

I had trouble framing it out. Also filmed two other women

from another language group singing-one who was terribly

shy and has painfully red gums. I would like to find out if she and the harelip child are ever going to be treated before

returning to their jungle homes. The film company has sent

several Indians to Pucallpa and Lima for treatment of severe

problems they had developed before coming to the camp.

A boatload of Indians was leaving. They were going home

and didn't act real friendly to us, including the intelligent young

man we had interviewed and recorded singing (to whom I had

given the black T-shirt in exchange for a promise of some bird

feathers). He made no mention of the feathers. We asked if he had located any. He said, "No hay," and that was it. Pacho handed him a heavy camera case, expecting him to hop up and

lug it up the steep, slippery, muddy, and clay-filled river bank,

as he had done so many times before. He politely put it down

and Pacho carried it himself.

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All the inhabitants of the Indian camp were standing at the top of the ban1e The drunk chief pointed at us and screamed, "Kill them! Kill them!" The rest joined him. At this point, I wanted to throw up and shit at the same time. I still have this feeling now, some four hours later.

Fortunately, no one took the chief seriously, and we proceeded to shoot the film. We did an interview with the man and his beautiful wife who had been shot by Amahuaca arrows a few days ago. They're having a speedy recovery and told us their story. I forgot to insist on using the lavaliere microphone and so did Maureen. The leader of the braves who went on the punitive raid of the hostile Indians agreed to be interviewed. They couldn't find any Amahuacas, since the river had risen, erasing their tracks. It is certain, however, that the gunmen were noticed. No arrows were fired from the jungle and no guns shot into the jungle. So Werner is relieved not to have to anticipate a revenge attack. His Indians are back and ready to work. However, the river has fallen more and made it completely impossible to move either of the ships, one now leaning perilously over with half its propeller in the air.

Upon returning to my hammock with a shot of pisco and a cold beer, I gradually started getting colder and colder. I put on a wool shirt. Later a sweater, then a spread, and still I kept getting cold. Beginning to get nervous, I put on Maureen's sleeping bag and asked her to call the doctor, who travels with us. ,Que conveniente!

He gave me a couple of stomach pills, aspirins, approved of the mint tea Maureen brought, and told me to remove the

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sleeping bag and wool shirt so my pores could breathe when the sweating came. I also timidly asked him to check my little toe, which felt like it might have athlete's foot. I had made myself nervous remembering stories of things that crawl into open wounds. He confirmed it to be a fungus and told me not to wear a Band-Aid, so it could breathe.

April 28-Tuesday All yesterday I was bed- and hammock-ridden. Finished off The Milagro Beanfield War and started jorge Amado's Tent of Miracles but mostly just dozed and floated in my fever. Both boats are still stuck in the mud. Walter tried to horse one out, impatiently, against the advice of the Brazilian engineer and broke three cables-one after the other.

Have come to bed with a half-finished beer and an uncounted wad of winnings from a 7 Ih game with Werner, the two assistant cameramen, Walter the producer, and jorge the Peruvian go-between, manager of the Indians. (He is also a fine documentary filmmaker, who has made a film on Peru for German TV. He is also a high roller.)

My winnings are $95. Most of my winnings came from Walter and the airplane

pilot (who always buzzes the river when he leaves, missing it by almost three feet and getting lower each time). Both were dead drunk. It's interesting what one can learn about people when gambling with them. Werner made outrageous bluffs and usually lost, never betting big. Walter, jorge, and pilot all teamed up against me when I was dealing and cleaned me out of around $100, until we reestablished more practical rules.

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April 29-Wednesday Awoke early with a pisco hangover. Pisco is supposedly made from distilling wine, like brandy, so it's not as rough as aguardiente, which is made from distilling fermented sugar cane. It nevertheless does leave a fierce hangover when overindulged in. What doesn't? ...

Flamenco guitar music is playing over a tape deck in the kitchen. The sun is setting beyond the bend of the river. I just scored an ice-cold beer. My health is back to normal. It rained all day. Filmed lots of water. Missed a couple good shots. Played hearts with Pacho, Werner, and one of the stranger camera assistants, who was also in the deadly game last night. I'm beginning to enjoy the forced atmosphere that allows for leisure time in which to read whole novels and to while away two or three hours at a crack playing cards. It reminds me of childhood vacations at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico, or of the time I spent working as a seaman.

The film is in serious trouble. I am glad I'm just a documentary maker. I wouldn't survive Werner's pressures and problems.

I filmed large ants with a close-up lens. Saw a red tree frog but failed to catch him. Gisela saw a black panther, near where I saw large cat tracks.

At dusk Gloria poured a pint of liquor down each of two female turkeys to get them numb, as is the custom in the Amazon, prior to cutting their tongues out and hanging them upside down so they will bleed to death and have white meat instead of dark, so she says.

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April 30-Thursday Today we had a leisurely breakfast and got in a boat to go up to where the new trocka (clearing through which to haul the boat) has been cut. Werner had to write a new scene to accommodate the unusual steepness of the new hill. It's nearly vertical and will have to be dynamited. I'm amazed at how well the young workers who carry our stuff manage ascending straight up these slippery heights without slipping.

An Indian boy spotted a very strange insect in a tree and knocked it down with his long arrows. I filmed it, but before I could get a good shot, it took off, much like a helicopter. The Indian swatted at it with his arrows, hitting my lens with a swish of feathers ....

May Day-Friday Up early this morning and off at 7:30 to climb the trocka and then hike through the jungle on a long trail to where the shooting of the day was to take place. A rubber baron is carried up on a sedan chair wearing fancy two-tone brown­and-white shoes and a mosquito-netted helmet a la Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen. I waited more than an hour with the crew to get the last shot when the sun finally went behind the clouds and discovered the battery was dead and Pacho had not brought the freshly charged one. It started raining before the day's shooting was finished, and the sun was still out. Would have photographed nicely had I had a working battery.

A long tromp down the muddy mountain in the rain and into the long boat with three inches of water in its bottom and

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THE SECOND TRIP: APRlL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

back to a good lunch of pork stew, mashed potatoes, canned peas, and asparagus. And hot beer!!

May 2-Saturday Gisela is going to Iquitos, so we're rushing to pack the film. Found a beautiful large tree frog with fantastic webbed hands. It is presently cooling off from the morning's excitement under an Adidas running shoe on the porch.

May 3-Sunday We filmed upriver a scene in the camp where the liquid rubber is dried onto large balls over a fire. It is played by Kinski, a famous Brazilian actor (recently arrived), and four or five Indians. It's nice jungle up there-flat and easily accessible. Most of the jungle is so full of vines and undergrowth that it's hard to walk around in. It was also quiet. Here it's very noisy. The ever-present sound of a generator, cassette players, and the horrible shortwave radios.

Kinski felt upstaged by the turkey in the scene-a gigantic white one with a wild red-and-partly-blue head that struts around all puffed up with its tail looking like a Spanish fan.

Huerequeque shot a large wild duck, which was hung

up on the set alongside a bunch of bananas. Mer the filming was finished and the boat was waiting,

Pacho and I started swimming back in the fast downstream current. It wouldn't have been too difficult to drift all the way back to camp (except for bouncing on the boulders in the more shallow and very swift water), but I didn't want to miss lunch (it was after three), so I caught a ride in the boat

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when it caught up. It's such a pleasure to drift in the river and watch the virgin forest float by. The amount and variations of life impress me deeply. I'm always seeing plants, birds, trees, and insects that I've never seen before. I miss all this nature when working in El Cerrito.

There was fresh-killed chicken for lunch and, only three hours later, rice and canned shrimp for dinner with a salad of tomatoes andfresh basil. Then Huerequeque brought in the duck he had cooked over the coals of the Brazilian's eternal fire. He cut off a leg for himself and left the knife for anybody else to take what they wanted. While I was politely waiting for someone to do their cutting on the breast, so I could then separate the other leg from its thigh and take the thigh, ZeZe, the Brazilian recordist, ran off with the same leg and thigh. I quickly grabbed a wing. It was heavenly. Not tough and gamey like American wild ducks but wildly delicious, with dark meat still bloody. I was being urged to get into a 71h game by the pilot-so I did but now wish I'd kept eating wild duck instead ....

Today the sun shone all day-the first such day. Werner, crew, Klaus, and Jose-the Brazilian actor-went to the Pongo. We lazed about Pacho and I took a sunbath, and then I took a swim, discovering a place across and down the river where vines hang down to the water. Here, I hung on and let the current try to carry me away.

May 4-Monday Werner went off to view dailies in a little town around here. We took our time getting going and went to shoot the

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destruction of nature going on in the building of a twelve- to fifteen-degree slanted road with a bulldozer and dynamite. It was another sunny day-very pleasant, unless wearing jungle boots two sizes too big, long pants, and climbing the hill that is presently a grade of eighty degrees. Puff, puff. The porters do it easily and with loads. Their regular job is carrying diesel fuel in five-gallon cans (forty pounds) up these cliffs. The bulldozer consumes seventeen gallons

per hour. After arriving at the top, where the bulldozer was

working, and climbing even higher for a good shot looking down on it, the fucking thing broke down again. We interviewed La Place, the man in charge of getting the boat over the hill. According to Pacho, he has a multimillion-dollar construction business, has built two jungle airports, and owns a whorehouse in Manaus.

After this we trudged back. I laid in the hammock and read Newsweek. Lunch of beef and salad. Siesta-reading magazines-a delicious swim upriver to the rapids, where I tried for twenty minutes to pull myself upstream by grabbing large smooth rocks and pulling myself along, raising my head up out of the water for breath. Huerequeque, who also caught and cooked a nice fish for lunch, was panning for gold. Said he found none. I drifted downriver, watching a kingfisher-type bird, flitting skittishly away downriver whenever I came too close. I now wish I had further pursued my interest in biology/botany/birds/insects, etc., and can easily see myself doing films on these subjects. I'm now reading The Whispering Within, on evolution and the origin of human nature.

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It's now looking like the moving-down-the-river boat scenes can't be shot until November, when the waters start rising again, and it could take thirty to forty days to pull the stupid boat over the hill. If so, I may shoot the boat coming out of the water and split and see if PBS would be interested in showing this next season-which wouldn't be so hot for publicizing Werner's film. I shall have to have a talk with him.

May 5-Tuesday ... Read and slept the afternoon away, filmed a nest of young spiders discovered by Maureen, and went off to the Indian camp at sunset to shoot Kinski and Huerequeque being welcomed by the Indian chief, who gives them fish and masato.

Kinski thoroughly washed the bowl with mineral water and then substituted canned condensed milk for the masato. The Indians, many of them newly arrived, expressed a keen interest in Pacho's beard and arm hairs. They gently touched them, one after the other.

It started raining like crazy. Our house has sprung about six new leaks. Maybe the rivers will rise and they can get one of their boats back to Iquitos. Otherwise, it's looking like coming back in November.

May 6-Wednesday Today a boat arrived with two ladies of the evening, one wearing high spiked heels and a slinky dress. I swore off pros some time ago and prefer to wait for the real thing. It is an interesting situation. Pacho is working overtime finding out

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all the details. He wants to know if our "all-expenses-covered"

arrangement includes the $10 (for a short time) the ladies are asking. Since he's been doing a good job, both as interpreter

and assistant cameraman, I said, ·'Yes. Once."

Other than that, today was also exciting because the river rose after a heavy rain last night, and the boat was

pulled into deep water and chugged up and down the river in front of the camp for certain shots that needed a moving

background. I filmed from the shore, drank beer in the intensely hot sun, had lunch and a nap. Then a swim in the rushing, swollen, mud-filled red river. Tiring of getting nowhere in an effort to go upstream, I sliced out across the

river and hung on the abovementioned vine. The force of the river kept me bouncing off the top of the water. Feeling

a little rested, I struck off for the home shore and had to work hard to keep from being taken downriver more than the fifty yards it took me. I ended up having to climb out into

the jungle and found the most incredible mushroom I've ever seen. It was covered by a delicate, lacelike veil and had a

strong aroma.

May 7-Thursday Last night, killed a couple more magazines and then played 7% until late at night, when it was very quiet. Not exactly pleasurable but not a painful way to pass time. I hadn't played cards so much since I was at Leon Russell's camp and, before that, during my eight days in a Louisiana jail on a pot offense. I did win a little, which gives a sense of accomplishment and

competitive gain.

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I'm now slowly rocking in the hammock and getting

ready to go to work in the trocha, where it's hot as hell and gruesome to climb. I hope to film the bulldozer working and some dynamiting. The last time they dynamited, I

was too cautious about getting the new Aaton and/or me hit by a rock and hid behind the bulldozer. I will be more

adventurous this time .... But it was not exciting.

Klaus had a wild fit because the still photographer, who doubles as a camera assistant, didn't take stills of Klaus when he wanted them because he was too busy setting up

the camera. Klaus felt neglected and screamed and cursed for five to ten minutes. The Indians were amazed. We filmed

but didn't feel it would be fair to use it. The bulldozer has been down so much that they don't

think it will finish the job of building the road over the hill before two weeks from now. Also, Claudia Cardinale is not coming until June 8-so we are going to an Indian settlement for a few days and then taking a week or two off. [Michael]

Goodwin has been telexed that he cannot be accommodated until the beginning of June-after the crew is in Iquitos, back

from the jungle. The press has been absolutely forbidden-no exceptions, not even friends of Werner or Werner's brother.

May 8-Friday Today we plan to interview the prostitutes and the Catholic priest whose idea it was to have them here. Pacho has been a good researcher and doing his job of getting to know his subjects. The ladies' presence seems to have the

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whole camp in a fervent state of excitement. The men who don't opt for hookers have intensified their campaigns for Maureen's favors. Klaus finds it amusing to hear all the huffing and puffing and moaning in his neighborhood­which adjoins the hookers' house. Last night Werner brought me over to the tawdry and less-experienced one and told me to show her my tattoo. I did. And Werner showed her his. I asked whose she preferred. She said she liked me and my tattoo but liked his better.

May 9-Saturday Yesterday was a good one for our film. Walter gave us several good interviews. Pacho performed what may go down in film as one of the more interesting of interview situations. One of the prostitutes was clad in bra and panties and swimming in the river. Pacho was cavorting around her, asking questions and diving underwater and tickling her. Amidst the shrieks, giggles, and water-splashing, the facts of her livelihood in the camp were revealed.

The other prostitute, the younger, more innocent one, appeared on the banks of the river clad only in a towel and too shy to bathe in front of us.

She gave us a very frank interview about getting married at fourteen, having two kids and a lousy husband who drank and beat her. She left him, became a whore at seventeen, is now twenty, and does it strictly for the money to support her kids. She has worked jungle camps such as ours and prefers it to being in a whorehouse. One more aspect of exploitation.

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Werner gave Pacho a good interview about his Ed Hardy tattoo. I got to display mine. More interviews with Werner discussing the problems of making an eight-legged tuxedo for a flea in Even Dwarfs Started Small and other matters more serious, such as the role and motivations of the artist in society.

The river has risen, due to a rain last night. Thus the boat will be fired up and they will shoot some moving scenes on the river instead of going, as planned, to Iquitos, where they were going to shoot until the bulldozer finished its assault on the hill. We plan to go to a Catholic mission elsewhere in the jungle for a few days to see how the Indians are in their regular setting.

I am rocking away in the hammock. The sun has just set. I've spent all day here, napping, reading, writing, and watching the light on the river through the trees. There are certain fungi that light up like Christmas ornaments for about fifteen minutes per day (when the sun is out). I tried to film it today but was a few shades too late. I sure enjoy being out of doors every day, feeling the air, hearing the sounds, and smelling the aromas of the jungle.

I missed my swim today. Somehow I'm not so eager to swim in a fiercely flowing river, all red-orange with mud and carrying large pieces of trees during the overrun after heavy rainfalls. The big boat slipped a clutch and was swept into a sandbar.

The crew all left in a rush to try to get to Iquitos via a chartered sixteen-passenger plane, but I noticed a few straggling back to camp some three hours later.

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Pacho got to talking with a group of Peruvians who service the settlers up and down the rivers. They have agreed to carry us up the Urubamba for one-and-a-half days to where we can find ground transportation to Machu Picchu. Werner said it is the most beautiful place in the world and that I must go. It doesn't matter when I get back, he says, as long as it is within three weeks. We make plans to be picked up on the boat's return in a few days and head for the famous Inca holy land.

May 10-Sunday A beautiful parrot was shot by one of the Indians and its tail and wing feathers given to us. The bird is good to eat, they say. I prefer it alive-but if it has to die, then ...

Pacho, Maureen, and I plucked all the feathers, some two hundred or more, including all the tiny downy ones tipped with bright scarlet, and then took turns selecting our favorites. This occupied the afternoon.

A brief swim in the flooding river at sunset. Card playing till bedtime. I'm now getting bored by card playing.

May ll-Monday I have just noticed a little insect with six legs and two long antennae (twice as long as his legs, all with white tips). It is walking briskly around the cassette player, perfectly in tune to the music. When the music was over, it flew off.

May 12-Tuesday Pacho is getting cabin fever-quite crazyish. We got up early and left, packing hurriedly to catch a plane to some

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mission station. Into a boat and down the river to a mission settlement. Out of the boat, up the slippery bank. Wait and wait, watching Indians drying coffee beans and making a deal to score a kilo of roasted ground coffee tomorrow. Filmed a teacher giving Spanish lessons to the Machiguenga. Walking around carrying the camera in very hot direct sunlight. Fierce. The plane came, carrying twelve live chickens, seven cases of beer, fifty kilos of potatoes, fifty kilos of onions (fragrant), and fifty kilos of flour. And a butchered cow, but it was going back to Satipo.

May 13-Wednesday

Up early with Maureen to catch a plane with Walter to another settlement to hunt for "natives" for the film. It rained hard all morning, clearing around 1 P.M., and off we went into the rain clouds, and I began to remember that there had been two crashes in the same kind of plane I was riding in, and our pilot was much crazier than the ones who wrecked. I stupidly left the Bell & Howell behind and missed some great shots of flying over and through gigantic mountains and rivers, especially coming back at sunset and climbing over a ten-thou sand-foot mountain whose other side is a sheer cliff with an eight-thousand-foot drop. It was a strange, frightful, exalting experience to fly over it. Tommy, the Peruvian pilot of Hungarian parentage, exclaimed, "Look over there!" It was Cuzco, he said. It was a hundred miles away and looked like a pyramid, lit up in the golden afterglow of the setting sun. After an hour's flight, I was very nervous. We started landing on an area like a

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narrow aircraft carrier full of mud puddles. I asked Walter if the people were expecting us. He said, "No."

It was not a mission. It was a village that had been convinced by a leftist group of people who "protect" Indians and harass Herzog that we were all evil incarnate and that they should attack the encroaching colonialists and kill as many as possible. I again became nervous when they surrounded us and started giving us mean looks and yelling at us in their language, calling us exploiters of Indians and asking what the value of the camera was and was I going to leave it with them. I wondered what I would tell the insurance company and how I would get a police report. There were some striking-looking people I would like to have filmed-a seventeen-year-old Ava Gardner look-alike who made me melt when I sneaked glances at her. A real Nefertiti. Since every eye in the place was on me and curious, including hers, it was hard to watch her for more than two seconds at a time. Same thing for two Indians who were wearing patched and torn Western clothes. They were very mean and lean. And giving me very ugly and killing looks. When I asked if I could film, they said it would cost $2,000. They gave us a lot of masato. I wondered if it was poisoned. It was red. All other masato I've drunk was always white. I was glad to leave after they told Walter for the hundredth time that none of them was interested in going to work for the film company­leaving home for three to four weeks to make $3 a day and be forced to live with two hundred to four hundred other Indians who were the same tribe but total foreigners. Nor did they care to tell me on camera why they were not interested.

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Nothing is ever perfect! Maureen had to ride back to camp in the cargo section of the plane, since all but one of the front two seats had been pulled out to make room for twenty live chickens, twelve live ducks, one large white live turkey, and all kinds of boxes and sacks, plus the duck, chicken, and turkey shit-especialiy noticeable during landing and takeoff. They started dying one by one. Maureen was complaining loudly about her discomfort. This and the overwhelming smell of shit made it hard to get blissed out by the beautiful terrain below and beyond. The Catholic mission we had stayed at overnight was planning to sell the company a big pig to carry back on the plane, but they had wisely not tied it up for the 10 A.M.

arrival time for our pickup. Or it, too, might have added to the shitting and dying.

May is-Friday It was great being away from Camisea camp. Upon our return we learn that the crew is going to Iquitos for a couple weeks to shoot and there's no room for us. Pacho, Maureen, and I take a vacation, traveling with river traders up the Urubamba, through the Pongo, and overland to Quillabamba, Machu Picchu, and Cuzco. Feeling refreshed, we return for more jungle shooting on May 27.

May 28-Thursday This morning filmed the Brazilian engineer taking leave of Werner because he refuses to cut the hill as steep as Werner wants.

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The sobering consequences are that Werner says he

will attempt it his way, aware that thirty to forty people may be killed in the process if things go wrong. I don't want this to happen and have a growing dread over what the next ten

days could provide.

May 30-Saturday Yes, the Aaton is starting to fail. Most likely the humidity has gotten to it Tuesday they're scheduled to start the ship up the forty-five-degree hill. Bell & Howell may have to shoot it This

morning we screwed around until too late to catch the boat, and by the time we got one, it had started raining. Returned to camp, wrote postcards, slept, ate lunch, slept, went to the trocha-the atrocious forty-five-degree hill, all muddy and slippery-and filmed the "dead post" being inserted at the top of the hill and covered up by the bulldozer. This is supposedly to hold a weight

of some two hundred tons, a half-million pounds. It's a thick

tree trunk sunk eight to ten feet deep in the dirt and blocked crossways with other trunks to prevent its being pulled out

In rust-colored cushmas smelling of campfire smoke and musky body odors, Campa people walk on big, strong feet that

grip the rocks like hands-feet that I've never seen get cut. They laugh with a shrilling shriek that is infectious. It is

the same with the children. Hilarious.

May 31-Sunday Went to the camp of the Indians, interviewed the man acting as chief. He had little good to say about his experience of being away from his family for six months and risking his life

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to pull the boat over the hill. He suggested that Werner and

Walter help push from behind, so if the boat slips back they will be crushed along with the Indians.

On our way back to wait for our boatman, we happened

upon a scene of women-sixteen or twenty seated on the ground, six or seven standing-shouting at each other.

Apparently, one had taken another's husband and the other was challenging her to a fight Each side had spokespeople who kept the argument going for thirty,minutes while

we were there photographing away and feeling very voyeuristic-something of a documentarist's dream: beautiful

women so caught up in their drama that they didn't mind the cameras. The light was nice. It's also a metaphor of what happens with crowding in the world. When people are

unnaturally thrown together, there is social strain. There was also a group of men watching all this and

somewhat amused. It was all very public. And curious. The camera seems to be working. What a relief.

A shipment of beer arrived. I have had two already

tonight The Indian said there was no masato or any other alcohol for them today-not even one soda pop. A hell of a

way to spend a Sunday. Some even had to work. The boatman did not show up as he had promised. It's

the same scoundrel who decided it was more important to bring flour back from the airstrip than Pacho or me, and we spent five hours waiting upon the banks of the Urubamba­Camisea. Another motorista with a peke-peke took us back. We had missed lunch, but we were fed anyway after being chided by the kitchen staff.

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June 1-Monday We shot in the torrid sun, the dead point being worked on. The Caterpillar tractor was down in a ten-foot-deep trench, mucking around. Apparently, safety precautions are now being taken-a larger cable and a backup safety cable, to keep the ship from crushing everybody if the

other cable breaks. Lunch, siesta, a nice swim with Pacho above the camp

after a torrential downpour. Business transactions with Werner, who is very fair. listened to Pacho's translation of La Place's discussion with Werner. I despair of all the translating necessary for eventual completion of the film. Werner told the story he wants to do about Sweeney, the mad king of early Irish times around the fourth century.

June 2-Tuesday Bright sun, refreshing breeze all day. A holiday spirit drifted about. It's the third or fourth day without any shooting for the crew or actors. The Brazilian sound couple and Klaus started making a clay oven. A couple of Indians pitched in. They did it all day and enjoyed themselves. I enjoyed watching them. A butterfly lit on Klaus. He did a sort of

dance with it for the camera.

June 3-Wednesday The moon is new. Supposedly, craziness occurs now, as well as full-moon times, and new projects will prosper if undertaken. The boat may start up the hill tomorrow. Huge logs and cockeyed lifting-pulling devices have been built with

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vines and slipshod engineering. I'm very afraid. It's all I can do to walk up the forty-five-degree slope carrying a camera. How the 320-ton ship will be pulled up it I do not know. At the fastest, it will take ten days to take it over the hill with no mishaps. I predict five to ten days' worth of mishaps-which means we won't see Iquitos until June 19-24 or later, after the two or three days it usually takes to make connections from here to there.

I'm in my hammock under a bare bulb a foot from my head that attracts all kinds of flying insects. I encounter five or six kinds of moths and as many beetles nightly, not to mention flying ants and other weird little divine creatures. life amazes me more and more. A book I'm reading, The Denial of Death, by [Ernest] Becker, states that the greatest terror of existence is the fear of dying. The more one loves life, the more one dreads having to lose it by dying. So people tend not to love life so much and block out death as well-but not without increasing the burden of unconscious and crippling anxieties. How does one win? The other book, The Whispering Within, suggests we win by making sure our genes find their way along the road to immortality. Pacho and I swam down to the trocha, about a mile downstream. What a pleasurable way to travel-drifting down at a fair clip, watching the sky's clouds through the overhanging trees and vines. The scene to be filmed was Indians raising a huge pole to serve as their winch to haul up the ship.

They really got into it, yelling and screaming iI:l a most convincing manner. I need to do more interviews to find out why they do it so well. David Espinosa, the Indian

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we interviewed, who's been here six months and wants to go home (but Walter keeps talking him into staying), had nothing good to say about his experience, but he stays and exerts himself-doing a perfect job for $3.50 a day. Life is short. Art is long?

I hope I get out of this world alive. Just sent for the Eclair. The fucking Aaton apparently

developed a severe case of fungus while we were away up to Cuzco and not using the camera regularly. Like not being able to get it up when one really wants to. But worse. When turned on, the camera more often than not does not run. There won't be another boat going over the mountain for quite a while. And Goodwin, coming to replace Pacho as my assistant, bringing the Eclair replacement, will take a week. It will be fun to watch him taking all this in. I hope he doesn't flip out.

June 4-Thursday Because he is limited with visitation rights with his young son and can only do it at this time, Pacho will leave today, going first to Lima for five days, like a rat off a sinking ship. (Lucky rat.)

June 5-Friday Without Pacho, there's only Maureen to talk to. There are times-like now-when I wish I were the friendly, chatty, outgoing type, or at least fluent in Spanish. The Spanish­speaking people seem very interesting and lively. The Germans are morbid and depressing-unfriendly, unsound.

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If the boat gets started up the hill today, Pacho owes me ten buckaroos. Reading about [Ronald] Reagan, Games] Watt, and their attitude toward wilderness really disgusts and frightens me.

Yesterday was an amusing day, which I had not realized until Maureen mentioned it. Starting with a large, white turkey perched on the gunwales of the long boat, we rode down to the trocha. His head looked very funny through the camera in a telephoto position. Could be a good cutaway to a baffled observer of the bizarre scene here. I sometimes catch myself just watching and I realize that I am sucked up in this whole thing myself, acting as if life is proceeding as usual, when it's not. It's damned weird to have people risking their lives to fulfill a mad Bavarian's impossible fantasies. Klaus came to the trocha in a tiny dugout canoe with ZeZe, the Brazilian soundwoman, to get four Indians to dig clay with his camp shovel and put it in the canoe for the adobe oven they are building with all the excitement of children making mud pies or mental patients involved in occupational therapy. Too much clay was put in the dugout. It sank.

Huerequeque went swimming in his jockey shorts and then danced around on the barge in the pouring rain and now-drooping underpants, directing the throwing and tying of ropes to the big boat, which had moved away from the bank with us and all the Indians who were taking cover from the rain. I neglected to film this.

Paul, the German ex-sea captain who owns one of Iquitos' better restaurants (there are only two), was struck down by fever and flu and on recovering from this developed

67

THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

a nasty infection from a slight abrasion on his ankle. It has

gone up his leg to his groin. The whole leg is swollen and

hot. He may have to return to Iquitos soon if the doctor's

shots are not effective. This would be a disaster of disasters

and necessitate shutting down until November.

Just thought of doing a little film here as a spoof of

Fitzcarraldo. Everybody here is so bored and frustrated.

There must be a comedy here somewhere. Making a movie

would be more fun than making a mobile.

June 6-Saturday I enjoy being so close to the river and its changes, and

the jungle, and, when I get up on the trocha, the sunsets

(incredibly beautiful in a soft way, on the rare evenings when

it is not raining or clouded over). And I enjoy the freedom

from all headaches and claustrophobia I get from minding

the details of Flower Films back in California.

Today the boat, after being freed from snarled cables

caught up in the bulldozer blade and other fuck-ups, is now

ready to proceed out of the water and up the hill tomorrow.

June 7-Sunday Woke up before dawn. Rain was falling hard. Moved objects

away from the areas under leaks in the ceiling. Three

big ones, and we keep forgetting not to leave important

equipment under them. Last night it was the suitcase the

exposed film is in-after finally putting it out in the sun

yesterday to dry up its mildew. Laid awake for a long time

enjoying the sound of the rain.

68

LES BLANK

The rain raised the river and nearly washed away the

logs that the ship is resting on and that provide the means for

pulling it out of the river and up the hill. Had that happened,

it would have been disastrous. So we lose one more day

while more dirt is scraped from the wall of the trocha and

shoved under the boat and more logs crammed in to serve

as its highway. Waiting at the river for an hour after Werner

and his crew said they'd send the boat back for us. They

didn't. He returned, saying there would be no shooting till

late afternoon. We trudged back up the hazardous steps it la Sisyphus with all the equipment. Read some more in the

hammock, chewed coca leaves, drank a room-temperature

beer I had stashed from last night. The lunch bell rang just as I was getting too restless to cope.

Finally, I could no longer stand it and went out of my

hammock when the rain stopped and asked Werner if we could

do another interview. He said yes, and we drifted down the river

in a dugout, crashing into the Molly Aida at the point where he

was talking about the Pongo, the scene of other crashes.

Contacted Goodwin in Iquitos. Strange that he's here.

It was nice to hear his voice saying how excited he was to be

here and asking how long we will be in the jungle. He arrives in

Puca11pa Tuesday and even may be here the same day, if lucky.

June 8-Monday

I learned at breakfast that David Espinosa has malaria, as

do two other Indians. And two hours later, I learned that Huerequeque also has it. Very scary. Like the plague. And

there are hardly any mosquitoes at all. Paul the captain's

69

THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

infection has been halted. I now have two beers stashed away, some rum, a couple books to read, and I'm healthy ....

June 9-Tuesday Goodwin has arrived. But he came in and immediately started playing boy reporter and was offended and insulted by my request that he not take notes during the first hour of his arrival in front of all the paranoid Germans. lucId, Werner's half-brother and now the producer of Fitzcarraldo, is very angry that Goodwin is here. When I asked Werner if I could bring in a new assistant to replace Pacho, he said, "Okay." I told him it would be Goodwin, but when Lucki complained, Werner told him he had forgotten that Goodwin is a journalist with an assignment from Esquire to do a story on the making of Fitzcarraldo. All other journalists were denied permission to visit the camp. So far, the press has been mostly negative.

Today I awoke with a terrible back problem. Not having Pacho to arrange for help carrying the equipment, I've been doing too much of it myself.

It was difficult filming what was an important day of shooting. The boat was pulled and the coupler, which was as big as they come, three inches thick, snapped like a piece of macaroni. The boat slid back. No one was hurt. One can sense fear in everyone. This is very serious. We filmed Werner filming make-believe scenes of Indians that were supposedly killed by the boat running over them. Werner applied blood makeup to their noses and mouths. Too disturbing in light of what could happen. I now fear I may

70

L ES BLANK

come out of this terribly wounded-or, like some Vietnam veterans, horribly calloused. Today I killed a butterfly.

June lO-Wednesday Sent off film shipment number five and begin the two- to four-week wait anxiously for it to arrive in San Francisco before the fungus blossoms. Today was a very pleasant one. Filmed Klaus getting totally covered in mud in his jubilation over seeing the boat beginning to move up the mountain. Took a walk halfway up the trocha, which again took most of the pain out of my back. Back to camp, a brief refreshing swim with Goodwin, who is enjoying it here immensely. Werner has been being alternately cruel and kind to him­taunting him for being so pale and fat, saying the crocodiles like white meat. Goodwin has no suntan and is rather rotund.

After lunch, a ride down the river to Urubamba with Werner, checking on shooting for tomorrow. The light was beautiful. The banks of the river a feast for my eyes. I knew I might never see the Camisea again and looked all the more. Had the camera but didn't shoot.

June ll-Thursday Went downriver to shoot an extravagant scene in which Indians block the river with log rafts tied to a rope across the river. All the Indians who could not swim were placed on these, and those who could got in dugouts to paddle toward the boat. And then the dynamite went off, scaring me, so I pulled my eye away from the eyepiece-probably fogging the film. Somehow the scene was shot before it became too dark,

71

THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

and we waited for more than an hour in the light of a half moon while the Indians shuttled back to camp. Werner talked more about the vileness of nature and the awful chaos of the firmament. I hope to get this on film.

June i2-Friday Go early to the Indian camp with the padre, Father Mariano Gagnon, whose mission we had visited. He came to see how his thirty men were, who had only come for three weeks, which now has stretched into four and going on five. Two have malaria; the others are most unhappy and depressed. The grounds of their camp and their housing are filthy. They say it's because women usually keep things tidy and they have no women. Also thefutbol (soccer ball) is broken and has not been replaced. Werner arrived in his garlic T-shirt, and the father gave him holy hell, which we gleefully filmed. But I asked Maureen to load magazines, because I thought she was quicker and safer than Goodwin. She wasn't. She accidentally fogged a roll of film. Not film already shot, fortunately, but it was the last roll of film we had brought, and some even better action occurred with the angry priest that I had to watch happen without filming or recording. No more tape, either.

June i3-Saturday The camp is falling apart Goodwin nearly went through one of the suspension bridges when it collapsed with him on it. I filmed a most humorous scene of him standing by the broken bridge and describing the situation.

72

L ES BLANK

June 14-Sunday Last night we went without equipment to watch the crew shooting the celebration that occurs when Fitzcarraldo has succeeded in pulling the ship over the hill. The "fiesta" was a horrible scene, with drunken Indians going round and round and the actors getting drunk and falling down in the mud. I didn't shoot because we were not offered a ride over the trocha. I hadn't negotiated a ride for the equipment and didn't feel like carrying it over the trocha all the way between the Camisea and Urubamba rivers for about a mile on the rugged and deeply muddy terrain. Just as well. The film has enough damning material as it is. Werner apparently is down on me for filming so much negative material at this point where things are falling apart.

There is no beer for me, but the lighting crew were given beer for lunch. All day today we sat on a log in the trocha while three hundred Indians turned their molinetas (giant turnstiles). Such a drag. I'm sick of this scene. Again, we had to wait forever before a boat would take us back to camp after dark. Fortunately, it was not raining.

Now it looks like the whole crew is leaving at 3 A.M.

down the Urubamba to catch a plane to Iquitos, to shoot for five days and return here to move the boat.

I'm tired of it all and could care less if they move the stupid ship-or finish the fucking film.

June i5-Monday Today the camp is a pleasure. Everybody left at 3 A.M.

except for the Mexican actor, the prostitute, Klaus, and

73

THE SECOND TRIP: APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

the Brazilian sound-recording couple. The last three left

before lunch. We're packing our gear and feeling good

about getting out. However, the thought of coming back

with Herzog and crew in ten days is a cloudy and ominous

possibility. Still haven't seen the damned boat go any more

than its initial ten yards ....

The crew that left at 3 A.M. by boat to catch an 8 A.M.

flight are still waiting as of 2 P.M. at the airstrip because of

rain. I laugh. And am glad it's not me. I cease to feel sorrow

for Herzog's problems. He says he's not supposed to be in the

jungle, thinks nature is vile and something to be conquered.

Typical hubris that calls for tragic punishment by the gods.

June 16-Tuesday Final packing and goodbyes. Had four beers with lunch after

carrying all the equipment mostly by myself back up the

stairs to the house during a downpour of rain. Such stupidity

hurt my back, which had just started to heal. I can't stand

admitting my weakness, and since the workers had hauled

all the stuff down I didn't want to ask them to carry it back.

With the rain and the thought of things getting wet (lately

becoming an obsession), I did it without even thinking.

Riding on the Camisea River toward the airstrip at

Urubamba was like a dream. The sky overcast. Ught soft

The river green. Only five minutes to wait for the plane. A nice

but monotonous ride for two hours to Puca1lpa. Saw some interesting rainbows. At Pucallpa there was time to down two

cold beers and a piece of fried fish before taking off for Iquitos

on a big plane. On landing fifty minutes later, we became

74

LES BlANK

confused by all the urchins who descended on our equipment

hoping to get a tip. It was highly distracting to see my Aaton

being picked up and carried off by a six-year-old kid, hoping

to make a nickel or a dime, or worse, disappearing with it

completely. To add to this, no one met us at the airport, and

other equipment belonging to the film company had been put

on the plane at the last moment without anyone telling us to

watch for it and without claim tags. Only because the waifs

thought it could be ours did we end up attempting to shepherd

it along with the rest of our stuff. Had to take two cabs.

Goodwin and I arrived in our cab after Maureen, who had

already taken all the stuff except one of the company's parcels

(some valuable rifles) that was lying on the floor. The driver

said nothing else was in the cab. She believed him. He left in a

hurry with the guns. There was no beer in the house.

June 17-Wednesday Feel shitty about losing the guns. Keep running through

my mind how it could have been different and prevented.

But when Werner found out some other guns more valuable

than those we lost were found among the extra packages not

lost, he was relieved and not unfriendly. We shot him filming

Claudia Cardinale and her girls at the whorehouse. She's

very appealing. And so are her girls. All very virginal and

sixteenish, wearing white lace gowns, but chaperoned.

June 18-Thursday This is the most miserable day I can remember since shooting Always for Pleasure.

75

THE SECOND TRIP; APRIL 12 - JUNE 23, 1981

June 19-Friday Went to shoot the scene in which Kinski and Claudia return to Belen and walk elegantly on planks in their white clothes across the cesspool-like mud. Looked good. Enjoyed watching everybody repeating their actions over and over. The Chinese man carrying a dozen live chickens. The workers carrying fake caucho. Little children, dressed in turn-of-the-century costumes, walking barefoot through the black shit, people carrying bananas, a woman carefully throwing out a pan of water just as the couple walks by, an occasional undirected pig and several undirected ice men carrying a hernia-making ton of real ice. It was like a mechanical scene of village life-but each time something different happened, like Claudia would slip on the planks, the banana man would miss his cue, the trunk carriers drop their trunk, etc. All the bystanders laughed uproariously at each mishap.

Then a cruise through Belen drinking beer and filming. Then up the mighty Amazon in a long boat on a cool overcast afternoon for one-and-a-half hours in a peke-peke, stopping halfway at a floating store for more beer.

June 20-Saturday Back to Belen to Fitzcarraldo's house, built here on stilts above the water. We float around in a boat behind the camera boat-then in the same boat, while Fitz paddles around in a beautiful sunset.

I enjoy shooting people passing by and looking out their windows. Reminds me very much of the floating

76

L ES BLANK

market in Bangkok, without the hordes of tourists and a lot more funky.

The ship on the Camisea can't be moved. The other ship on the Urubamba will be stuck until the rainy season starts in October. The crew makes preparations to go to Manaus to film scenes at the opera house. Werner doesn't feel it would be so important to shoot that and suggests we return to the U.S. I feel greatly relieved, like a wounded, ragged soldier whose war is over.

June 22-Monday Visited Fitzcarraldo's tomb. Not enough light to film.

June 23-Tuesday

77

... ..-..AMS A FILM BY LES BLANK

with Maureen Gosling

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

BU For nearly five years, acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog desperately tried to complete one of the most ambitious and difficult films of his career-Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man's attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank captured the unfolding of this production, made more perilous by Herzog's determination to shoot the most daunting scenes without models or special effects, including a sequence requiring hundreds of native Indians to pull a full-size, 320-ton steamship over a small mountain. The result is an extraordinary document of the filmmaking process and a unique look into the single-minded mission of one of cinema's most fearless directors.

FILMMAKER-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New, restored high-definition digital transfer Audio commentary by director Les Blank, editor and sound recordist Maureen Gosling, and Fitzcarraldo director Werner Herzog Dreams and Burdens, a new 38-minute video interview with Herzog Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), a 20-minute film by Blank featuring Herzog fulfilling a bet Deleted scenes

• Photo gallery of images taken by Gosling • Theatrical trailer • New and improved English subtitle

translation and optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Plus: A new essay by film scholar Paul Arthur and an 80-page book of excerpts from Blank's and Gosling's production journals

1982 • 95 minutes • Color • Monaural • In English, German, Spanish, and indigenous Peruvian languages with optional English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio

Under exclusive license from Flower Fi lms. ©1982 l es Blank-Flower Films. ,P2005 The Criterion Collection. All rights reserv€<!, Cat. no, BURl 20, ISBN 0-78003-00l -X, Warning: Unauthorized publ ic periormance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of appl icable laws. Printed in U.s.A. First printing 2005, WWN.criterionco.com

,"......."AMS A FI,LM BY LES BLANK

with Maureen G I' os 109

Cast Starring:

Werner Herzog Klaus Kinski Claudia Cardinale

With special appearances by:

Jason Robards MickJagger

And including:

Alfredo de Rio Tambo Elia de Rio Ene Nelson de Rio Canepa Huerequeque Bohoroquez Carmen Correa David Perez Espinosa Miguel Angel Fuentes Father Mariano Gagnon Paul Hitttscher Evaristo Nunkuag Ikanan Jose Lewgoy Laplace Martins Thomas Mauch Angela Reina Walter Saxer Jorge Vignati Werner Herzog's film crew J\guaruna, Campa,and

Machiguenga tribes of the Peruvian Amazon

Credits

A film by:

Les Blank and Maureen Gosling

Directed, photographed, and produced by:

Les Blank

Sound recording and editing:

Maureen Gosling

Interpreting, interviewing, and camera assistance:

Bruce "Pacho" Lane

Interviewing and camera and sound assistance:

Michael Goodwin

Narration written by:

Michael Goodwin

Narration spoken by:

Candace Laughlin

Editing assistance and office management:

Chris Simon and Andrea Sohn

Research:

Chris Simon and John Lumsdaine

Translations:

Francisca Wentworth, Inez Reider, and Richard Becker

For more information on the filmmakers, go to www.lesblank.com and www.maureengosling.com.

DVD Production Credits Producer: Kim Hendrickson Executive producers: Peter Becker, Fumiko Takagi, Jonathan Turelll Technical director: Lee Kline I Director of DVD development: David Phillips I Production manager: Angie Bucknell I DVD operations and marketing: Marc Walkow I Director of operations and information technology: Tammi Darden I Masters and subtitles: Stephanie Friedman I Research coordinator: Debra McClutchy I Production assistant: Catherine Tyc

Art Art director: Sarah Habibi I Original illustration: Richard May I Packaging design: Martin Ogolter I Art department manager: Eric Skillman I Art production: William Brese I Art assistant: Julie Sussman I Videographic producer: Shayne Christiansen I Video graphic assistants: Chris Ramey, Ian D. Whelan I Menu animations: Justin Sosnovski

Editorial Editorial director: Elizabeth Helfgott I Editorial manager: Heather Shaw I Text editors: Jason Altman, Andrew Semans

Audio Audio supervisor: James Forrest I Audio restoration: Michael W. Wiese I Commentary recordist: Pete Horner/American Zoetrope, San Francisco I Commentary editor: Michael W. Wiese

Quality control and image restoration Quality control managet~ Stephane Pecharman I Restoration manager: Alejandro P. Lopez I QC/Restoration: Betsy Heistand, Maria Palazzola, Patrick Queen

Special Thanks Bo Althern, Ted Green, Mark Ward/ Anchor Bay Entertainment; Kim Aubry, Colin Guthrie/American Zoetrope; William Becker/Janus Films; Les Blank; Merrill Dtillings; Janet Gorman; Maureen Gosling; Elizabeth Gray, John Gudelj/Captions, Inc.; Ken Hansen; Werner Herzog; Matt Lipson; Cynthia Little/Modern Videofilm; Tom Luddy; Tony Ruffo; Lucky Stipetic; Polly Watson

About the Transfer Burden of Dreams is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:-l. Black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are normal for this format. ll1is new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 16mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the pic­ture on this dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quan­tity of materials included.

The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the magnetic track, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digita11.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.

Telecine supervisor: Maria Palazzola, with director Les Blank and editor Maureen Gosling Telecine colorist: Gregg Garvin/ Modern Videofilm, Los Angeles DVD mastering: Criterion Post, NYC

Acknowledgments Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe courtesy of Flower Films. ©1980 Flower Films. All rights reserved. Burden of Dreams deleted scenes from My Best Fiend courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment, Inc., and Werner Herzog Filmproduktion. ©1980 Werner Herzog Filmproduktion. Set and location photo­graphs courtesy of Les Blank and Maureen Gosling. Les Blank and Maureen Gosling journal entries courtesy of the authors, with special thanks to Chris Simon.

CHAPTERS f Fitzcarraldo

1 The story 0 1 . Th Aguaruna strugg e

2. e d J ger leave Robards an ag .

3. Kinski arrives/lqUltO: 4. The second camp . 5. , LeWgoy /Hardsh1P 6. Jose round 7. The ship run

hs a'l~digenoUS population

8. Employing t e

9. Raid party Ids Separate wor 10.

11. Masato 12 Compensation. . "

. "The jungle is wmnmg 13. d' to boredom . 14. Ten mg hill 15 The boat and the 16 Challenging nature 17' Herzog presses on 18'. The film is stuck 19. Four years later . ..

20. Credits 21 Color bars

. . the MENU key on menu~and the moVIe. use h menu selections.

To switch between theARROW keyS to cycle Ulroufo switch between the your remote. useE~~cr to activate the seleC\IO~~wing the movie: press Press ENTE~; ld audio commentarywhll~o activate the English HIm soundtrac at emote at any tiIUc. . . ' n the mOVIe. use the AUDIO key on ~our;hard of hearing while Vlew:n~luded as the last

subti:les fOI:~ ~:y ;-;:' your remote. Col~ ?~~: of your screen, the SUr>IT 'aI'brate the correct ng chapter in order to c I ,

"In Dreams Begin Responsibilities"

By PAUL ARTHUR -

A shot of a street sign near the beginning of Always for Pleasure, Les Blank's 1978 paean to New Orleans music, cooking, and dance, offers a telling contrast with the mood of Burden of Dreams, a project instigated the following year by Werner Herzog: "Joy St." Metaphorically, this is the desired address for Blank's body of nonfiction studies that show, as he puts it, "people full of passion for what they do." Herzog, on the other hand, has consistently mined a territory on the far side of Sturm und Drang. "Joy St." is not simply a foreign country on I;Ierzog's cinematic map; it is anathema to his goal of bleak existential adventure. Indeed, aside from their shared belief in passionate human endeavor-and a mutual affinity for marginalized folk cultures-the creative realms in which these two filmmakers operate could scarcely be more distant.

In 1980, Blank made a casually straightforward short with the self­explanatory title Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, the upshot of a silly bet Herzog made with Errol Morris. The German director's invitation to document his South American production of Fitzcarraldo required a rather different, less transparent filmic approach, one that, perhaps inevitably, ended up registering the disparities in the directors' aesthetic temperaments. Alongside its overt agenda, then, Burden of Dreams inscribes a fascinating double portrait in which Blank remains offscreen while still making his presence felt at every juncture. Adopting an ostensibly neutral recording style that cedes center stage to Herzog's wildly excessive ego, Blank constructs a separate, reflective discourse able to comment on, reframe, and occasionally even subvert the proceedings he was assigned to record.

It's easy to understand Blank's initial enthusiasm for the project, despite any reservations he might have had about its potential unruliness: a free trip to an "exotic" setting (much of his work could be loosely classified as travelogue); an opportunity to examine an obscure Indian lifestyle; direct participation in the collision of Old World and New World cultural values-a sporadic theme in his films. likely less felicitous was Herzog's identification with the flamboyantly embellished historical figure of Fitzcarraldo, a white European devoting his considerable wealth obtained from the exploitative rubber trade to bringing operatic high culture to benighted natives. As several critics have noted, Herzog's elaborate production scheme-involving arbitrary is?lation of cast and crew far from Peru's urban centers, the rigors of a harsh

jungle climate, and reliance on a large contingent of Indian labor drawn from dangerously contentious tribal factions-recapitulated.. on a material level the dramatic arc of the fictional narrative. It is a story that, as is often the case with Herzog, veers toward alienation and madness, exuding an almost mystical admiration for the crazed adventurer.

Based on Blank's previous encounters with ethnic American enclaves, which are marked by a combination of deep humility and appreciation, Herzog should have expected that he'd sympathize with the natives in any conflict involving even well-intentioned European interlopers. And it is possible that the risk-taking director selected Blank precisely because he knew the latter would be incapable of delivering a conventionally earnest puff piece. True to form, Blank/enders an exactingly clear account of a massively chaotic shoot that, due to a host of weather- and tribal-induced delays, stretched over more than four years and necessitated radical changes in cast and scripted action. The documentary has a brisk chronological outline-augmented by informational voice-over narration-juxtaposing behind-the-scenes directorial glimpses, outtakes (including a weird scene on a church tower with original actors Jason Robards and Mick Jagger), direct on-camera interviews with Herzog, and passages of independent (i.e., non-Fitzcarraldo-related) observation.

Earlier in his career, Blank filmed promotional shorts for a poultry company and a cookie manufacturer; here the friction between that kind of disengaged professionalism and unmistakably subjective annotations helps infuse Burden of Dreams with a surprising density. According to Blank's modest assessment, "If I make a better' film, it's only because I had better subject matter." Herzog's disastrous spectacle proved a particularly ripe subject, yet it is Blank's formal treatment, the evocative flourishes surrounding documented events, that helps define the meaning of his friend's obsessive quest. For example, a brief prelude of aerial shots introduces a foggy Amazonian landscape over the sound of ethereal choral music; the pairing recalls openings of other Herzog films, yet it also bears a hint of Hitler's famous descent from the clouds in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935), suggesting a theme of godlike domination that at once mirrors' and diverges from Herzog's fictional allegory. When production stalls, as it often does-Herzog claims his film is "cursed," admitting that "the jungle is winning"-Blank filters in lively scenes of the Campa extras' quotidian routines: food preparation, clothes washing, the blending of a local alcoholic drink made from yuca plants. It is significant that most actiyities are "women's work," a realm that Herzog's masculinist vision rarely

acknowledges. Later, Blank constructs a touching vision of cross­cul,tural identification by juxtaposing the sound of a Caruso aria coming from a record player in an earlier shot with loving close-ups of native women, as if they are responding to the beauty of this alien voice. The moment recalls an archetypal collision staged by romantic adventurer Robert Flaherty in Nanook o/the North (1922), when the titular Eskimo marvels at a phonograph record (then jokingly decides to bite it) . Unlike either Herzog or Flaherty, Blank clearly prefers the rhythms of collective effort, of sensuous community, over Eurocentric ideals of heroic individualism.

In essence, he has crafted a film about the interaction of premodern tribal e,xistence with European modernity, epitomized by a movie narrative about the invidious clash of brute nature and a singular ego bent on his own, ultimately delusional, mission of cultural enlightenment. As Herzog's project grinds on, he grows morbidly disenchanted. Seen in front of a variety of open-air backgrounds, he declaims to the camera: "I live my life, I end my life with this project," strangely insisting that Fitzcarraldo may be the last film to capture "authentic" Indian culture before it is overtaken by rampant homogenization, spearheaded of course by the onslaught of American commercialism. In sepulchral tones, Herzog denounces his filmic habitat: "The trees here are in misery and the birds are in misery"; "It's a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger." Blank duly records the rants but remains skeptical. When Herzog speaks of the jungle as an "obscenity," "the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder" full of "fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away," Blank calmly cuts away to images of picturesque flora and fauna, a clear contradiction of Herzog's nihilism.

Burden 0/ Dreams has a climax roughly paralleling that of the fictional story. A large steamboat Herzog has purchased and shipped hundreds of miles to serve as his hero's idee fixe, an object of strenuous-in fact:, deadly-native labor, is cast adrift in a raging river during attempts to film a key scene involving Klaus Kinski. As the boat lurches, Herzog's cameraman is thrown to the deck, sustaining bloody injuries. While cast and crew are placed in harm's way, precisely the kind of existential test Herzog thinks will induce heightened drama, Blank and company hover in the wings, rendering the messy -psychodrama with a clinical eye that nonetheless fosters our recognition of a proverbial ship of fools. As the crisis atmosphere ebbs, Blan~ gives himself the last word in a graceful coda featuring a village

photographer's black-and-white portraits of various members of the proquction team-plain but striking images rendered with a crude box camera. In this fond farewell, the documentarist implicitly chides the elaborate technological system imported to produce mere passing entertainment, against which the visual evidence of village life and its enveloping landscape are etched all the more sharply. Yes, it would seem that for Blank the jungle really has won.

In 1982, the making-of was not yet the standard practice it has become in mainstream cinema. Who knows what Herzog said to his backers to convince them of the necessity of dragging along a secondary film crew, but part of his personal rationale for the project must have been the prospect of exciting anthrop~logical encounters in a remote land. The intrepid voyagers got more than they bargained for, and, arguably, it is Blank and company who took home the real cinematic prize. Herzog's dream was in part predicated on an echo chamber of personal instability and failure-an uncanny defile of characters that starts with the historical figure on which Herzog based his script and proceeds through the fictional "Fitzcarraldo," the blatantly unhinged actor who plays him (Kin ski) , and the director at the helm of this wayward enterprise. Arguably, the buck stops with Blank, an agnostic with regard to the cult of "mad genius" underwriting Herzog's metaphysics of creativity. In this sense, Burden 0/ Dreams anticipates a strain of aberrant making-ofs that includes Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper's Hearts 0/ Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), a dissection of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Chris Smith's beer-soaked dfary of a no-budget slasher flick, American Movie (1999), and Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's recent Lost in La Mancha (2002), tracking Terry Gilliam's doomed Quixote project. What remains unique in Blank's precursor is an uneasy relationship between extreme artistic passion and an unvarnished beauty lurking just outside the frame.

Paul Arthur is the author 0/ A Line of Sight: American Avant-Garde Film Since 1965 (University 0/ Minnesota Press). He is a regular contributor to Cineaste and Film Comment and is coeditor o/Millennium Film Journal.