Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

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Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

by Werner Herzog

4.17 · rating details · 299 ratings · 73 reviews

Werner Herzog is one of our most revered contemporary filmmakers, a visionary director who ceaselessly tests the boundaries of art. "Fitzcarraldo," his lavish 1982 film about a would-be rubber baron who pulls a steamship over a hill to access a rich rubber territory, was hailed by critics around the globe and won Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at Can

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Paperback, 306 pages

Published June 29th 2010 by Ecco Press (first published January 14th 1999)

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Feb 09, 2011

Mariel rated it

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Recommends it for: burden of dreams

Recommended to Mariel by: I can't remembers not the same as I don't know

Shelves: letsgotothemovies, mymemoir, theyhavelargetalons

I'm glad that I've not felt that compelled to HAVE to do something. But I kinda relate in feeling sometimes like people around me don't give a shit and I'm some crazy dreamer chick with a crazy dreamy look in her eyes.

But I also kinda wish that I had those visions in my head that had to come out in words and images. I've not felt the kind of righteous rightness that burdened me to create. Maybe that's why I almost never remember my dreams...

What other conquist...more

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Nov 01, 2011

Andrew rated it

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Totally engrossing diary of his time in the jungle during the years of tribulation surrounding Fitzcarraldo. So much of it is about the bugs and plants and the ground. This book is completely mesmerizing. (Sidenote: I stood in line to get my copy of this book signed by Herr Herzog and I brought him a copy of my book to give to him as a thank you for his work. He was utterly astonished and full of gratitude that someone would want to give him something at an event like that and stood up and asked...moreTotally engrossing diary of his time in the jungle during the years of tribulation surrounding Fitzcarraldo. So much of it is about the bugs and plants and the ground. This book is completely mesmerizing. (Sidenote: I stood in line to get my copy of this book signed by Herr Herzog and I brought him a copy of my book to give to him as a thank you for his work. He was utterly astonished and full of gratitude that someone would want to give him something at an event like that and stood up and asked me to come over for a hug. I guess he was used to just signing stuff and posing for pictures with people, but I thought it was only fair that I give him something back since I've gotten so much out of his work.)

Quotes from the book:

To fail to embrace my dreams now would be a disgrace so great that sin itself would not be able to find a name for it.

When I am in my cabin and toss the tea remaining in my tin cup out the window, the liquid spurts through the screen onto the banana fronds outside, but the tea leaves remain suspended in the window screen in a flat, strange pattern, harshly reduced by one dimension, betrayed. They stay there as a two dimensional reminder of the turbulence by which the tea went through the wire mesh.

A little farther upstream I shone a powerful flashlight on the opposite bank and made out alligators, their eyes glowing as if someone were smoking a cigarette over there.

The rolling of heavy rocks on the river bottom. has anyone heard rocks sigh?

My work has given me everything and taken everything from me.

(I like the humor of this one:) Lord grant me to see an unknown fish at my fee.

I recall experiencing a similar shiver of awe as a child in Sachrang, when I found a fried piece of bright blue plastic that had floated down the brook and got caught on an over hanging branch. At the time, I had never seen anything like it, and I kept it hidden for weeks, licked it, found it slightly stretchy, full of miraculous properties. Not until weeks later, when I had my fill of owning it, did I show it to anyone. Till and I discovered when you held a burning match to it, it melted; it gave black smoke and a nasty smell, but it was something we had never seen before, an emissary from a distant world high in the mountains, along the upper reaches of the brook, where it vanished into gorges and there were no people. So where did it come from? hHd it blown into the mountains by the wind? Idid not know, but I gave the plastic a name-what I do not recall. I do know it had a nice sound, and was very secret, and since then I have often racked my brains, trying to remember that name, that word. I would give a lot to know it, but I do not, and I also do not have that delicate piece of weather-beaten plastic anymore. Having neither the secret word nor the plastic makes me poorer today than I was as a child.

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Jun 21, 2011

Derek rated it

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as Herzog writes in the prologue to Conquest of the Useless: "A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle..."

this premise not only becomes the obsession of his protagonist in ...more

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Jul 22, 2009

Spiros rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone seeking to understand one of the 20th Century's great works of Art

Shelves: cinerelated, new, i-fought-the-law, heroes

Fear and Loathing in the Peruvian Jungle: Werner Herzog's Pursuit of his Dream.
I feel that it is a fairly safe statement that never has a film production been so fraught by so many factors: political hurdles, extortionate local bureaucrats, wars between indiginous tribes, plane crashes, torrential down pours, drought, dried up funding, drunken extras, drunken crew, drunken actors, snakes, seperate media circuses involving Mick Jagger and Claudia Cardinale, snakes, and Klaus Kinski, to name...moreFear and Loathing in the Peruvian Jungle: Werner Herzog's Pursuit of his Dream.
I feel that it is a fairly safe statement that never has a film production been so fraught by so many factors: political hurdles, extortionate local bureaucrats, wars between indiginous tribes, plane crashes, torrential down pours, drought, dried up funding, drunken extras, drunken crew, drunken actors, snakes, seperate media circuses involving Mick Jagger and Claudia Cardinale, snakes, and Klaus Kinski, to name just a few. Herzog battles against his head of production, against the jungle, against illness, and against gruesome injuries to himself and his crew: "Mauch said he could not take any more, that he was going to faint, and I told him to go ahead. Then he thought he was going to shit his pants from the pain, but he could not decide between the two options, and in the end did neither."
Herzog, despite a prediliction for filming in extreme environments, is not a wide-eyed lover of nature: "The jungle, existing exclusively in the present, is certainly subject to time, but remains forever ageless. Any concept of justice would be antithetical to all this. But is there justice in the desert, either? Or in the oceans? And in the depths? Life in the sea must be pure hell, an infinite hell of constant and ever-present danger, so unbearable that in the course of evoltion some species - including Homo sapiens - crawled, fled, onto some clods of firm land, the future continents."
Somewhat surprisingly, a confessed fear of spiders runs through this journal; as I expected, an almost pathological loathing of chickens pervades the entries. Unsurprisingly, it would seem that Huerequeque didn't have to do any acting: he played himself. A leit-motif running through the journals is the bizarre quality of the news from civilization that filters down into the jungle: the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the account of the Japanese surgeon who remved his own appendix, the computer in Miami which sent a dilatory insurance client 24,000 notices of late payment of a monthly premium. Juxtaposed to the shambolic film production, these intimations of entropy from beyond the trees have a tendancy to make Herzog's travails a little more quotidian than they might otherwise seem. (less)

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Oct 03, 2009

Alex V. rated it

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First there was a dream about hauling a boat over a mountain, then there was the story Fitzcarraldo to male that dream a solid thing, then there was the film, during which a documentary was made (which is better than the film, story or dream) during which this journal was written and in it you might find the grander meaning of Werner Herzog: romance nothing; ebrace everything.

This book is exhausting because all the corrosive forces at play: the oppressive jungle, the people oppressed...more

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Oct 07, 2009

Andy rated it

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I’ve watched plenty of DVDs with the director commentary turned on, enough to know that this material is rarely illuminating and all too often a complete waste of time. And so it seems like Werner Herzog’s diary of making his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, the diary reconstituted after three decades on a shelf somewhere, wouldn’t be something I’d be too interested in reading.

But Herzog is an engaging diarist and a witty observer, and in short, this is the diary of a madman. Venture with cas...moreI’ve watched plenty of DVDs with the director commentary turned on, enough to know that this material is rarely illuminating and all too often a complete waste of time. And so it seems like Werner Herzog’s diary of making his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, the diary reconstituted after three decades on a shelf somewhere, wouldn’t be something I’d be too interested in reading.

But Herzog is an engaging diarist and a witty observer, and in short, this is the diary of a madman. Venture with cast and crew into the remote Peruvian Amazon, carve a path through the jungle and up a steep embankment, and then pull a 320-ton steamship up and over this slope. And then there were the scenes to be shot in the river’s rapids. Herzog’s project was absolutely absurd and many of his colleagues tried to talk him into shooting his movie in a sound stage instead. And probably they were right; Herzog might have made a better film in California.

Here are some fairly typical entries from the book:

On local craftsmen: It took [the carpenter:] six days to make two sets of shelves for the hats. For three of those days he was hammering on the wall, for reasons not obvious to me. When this job was done, he attached a molding to Gisela’s closet, for which he had to climb into the closet. I saw him kneeling inside. Then we did not hear anything more from him and forgot all about him. When we got worried hours later and opened the closet to check, we found him asleep on his knees.

On transportation:Upon landing on the river near Saramuro, the two young pilots, who take themselves tremendously seriously, almost destroyed the floating platform, and later they flew off course, and because they had forgotten to fuel the plane in Saramuro, the tank was almost empty, and the still had not found the Maranon. They turned to me and gave me an embarrassed grin. I was sitting in the aisle on several sacks of onions and politely pointed out to them that they were flying away from the mountains instead of toward them.

On local swimming holes and the “irrationally” cautious Jason Robards:In the bathing lagoon near Iquitos, where children are always splashing and swimming, a piranha bit off half of [Klausmann’s:] second toe. At the time there was much laughing and joking at his expense, but to Robards this is proof of how malicious and life-threatening the jungle is.

For what he endured in the Amazon—obstacles by turns environmental, sociopolitical, and psychological—it is impossible not to admire Herzog’s tenacity, but after a few hundred pages of this—poisonous snakes, native attacks, near drownings, and on and on—I found myself begging him to throw in the towel. Of course though, he didn’t. Herzog went on to complete his film in the jungle, and the only reason I can conceive of is that Herzog knew that someday his Amazonian adventure would make one hell of a story.
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Sep 07, 2009

Sophie rated it

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Herzog presents himself as a modern Robinson Crusoe. He can do no wrong, even though he does a lot of bad things. I cannot help thinking that he wrote this knowing it would be published later, and that makes some of the descriptions garish and exaggerated.

-Yesterday I had opened the window in the bathroom, and the evening sun was shining in, clear and bright. I took my shoes and put them on the windowsill to air out. Half inside, half outside, with the trees pointing in. Later I for...more

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Feb 13, 2010

Kathy rated it

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Gave this to Jeremy for Christmas and look -- now I'm reading it. I may not love the movie Fitzcarraldo the way JM does (not at ALL, in fact), but I'm sure I'll enjoy the story of the making of it. Crazy!

Okay, so I didn't love it either. It wasn't so much a "making of" as it was Herzog's journals documenting the process. A fine line, perhaps, but not what I was expecting. There's a point where Jason Robards has dropped out of the production and Herzog is considering taking ...more

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Jul 08, 2010

Marie rated it

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Incredible. Love Herzog's prose, he writes the way he directs, often focusing on seemingly random but interesting things amidst the greater picture. Miracle that Fitzcarraldo was made, fascinating miracle. Love him.

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Dec 22, 2009

Linda rated it

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If you are a Herzog fan, you will love this. Reality, dreams and imagination all flow together with no boundaries. Part chronicle of the making of "Fitzcaraldo", part journal of his thoughts and struggles with the jungle and the whole experience, and part cathartic rant, you will hear his voice throughout. In an interview that I saw, he claims that this is the only diary he has ever kept on a film, and he did it here out of tne need to channel the chaos around him. Not a conventional r...more

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Oct 07, 2009

Billy rated it

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"The enormous remaining boa constrictor will die in its cage, I think; it leans its ugly head against the wire and has a heartrending air such as you see only in the dying. I thought it must be thirsty and carefully poured water on its mouth and head, but it merely stared at me from the depths of a loneliness that had little connection left with earthly things. So we decided to release the boa. Walter and I shook it out of the cage, because it did not want to budge. The women watched from a...more

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Jan 08, 2012

Michael Igoe rated it

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It's hard to imagine a better book to read while severely jat-lagged to the point of semi-delirious. Herzog's journals are at once understated and wildly vivid, describing a period of high-drama from the perspective of its perpetrator who maintains a totally dispassionate tone throughout the whole thing, as if he is capable of observing his own life like a fragment of his larger operatic vision. I haven't even seen Fitzcarraldo, yet, in reading this book I have a different understanding of ambit...more

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Jun 14, 2011

Steve rated it

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Werner Herzog is one of my favorite filmmakers and Fitzcarraldo, while not his best film, is certainly his most impressive in terms of the courage, determination and endurance it took to create it during a lengthy shoot in the jungles of Peru. Conquest of the Useless is the diary Herzog wrote during the making of Fitzcarraldo. It contains a few details regarding the technical aspects of the film's production, but it primarily describes his dreams (or, more often, his waking visions), random tho...more

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May 14, 2011

Peter rated it

Werner Herzog's poetic, fever-dream account of the making of 'Fitzcaraldo' his most famous film, in which a mad opera lover ( and also, of course, the filmmakers) pulled a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle. The book is based on his diary entries during the long and arduous process of making this strange vision a reality.

It vividly describes, in a different way to the film, life in the jungle -- a kind of dreary fecund existence. You can almost smell the rotten fruit and fee...more

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Jun 19, 2011

Luke Johnson rated it

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There are few more interesting minds on the planet than Werner Herzog's. His films are quirky and always wholly original, both in terms of subject matter and his ferociously unique perspective. This book, a collection of his journal passages written while shooting his epic "Fitzcaraldo" in the deep Peruvian jungle in the early 1980s, offers a glimpse of how that mind works and the types of insane situations that must pepper all of Herzog's life to shape his singular outlook on earthly ...moreThere are few more interesting minds on the planet than Werner Herzog's. His films are quirky and always wholly original, both in terms of subject matter and his ferociously unique perspective. This book, a collection of his journal passages written while shooting his epic "Fitzcaraldo" in the deep Peruvian jungle in the early 1980s, offers a glimpse of how that mind works and the types of insane situations that must pepper all of Herzog's life to shape his singular outlook on earthly existence.

He is a very skilled writer, and in these musings captures the insanity of a Conrad-esque jungle. His descriptions of the local flora and especially fauna and how they interact with the humans around them are indispensable, and thoroughly entertaining. The writing is light and ephemeral, and though it's quite interesting to read, without a true narrative arc or clear direction it almost evaporates after reading it - it doesn't leave much of a lasting impression.

The book is the third component of what is a wild tale of cinematic megalomania. In "Fitzcaraldo", the title character decides to build an opera house in the middle of the jungle. In order to do this, he must raise the funds by harvesting upriver rubber. But in order to get the boat where it needs to go, Fitzcaraldo must pull a huge ship up and down a giant slope - he must literally move mountains. Of course, to capture this on film, Herzog himself must do the exact same thing - and does. The movie is great, but just as interesting is the documentary, "Burden of Dreams", about the making of the movie in which Herzog plays a sort of real-life version of Fitzcaraldo, with wild dreams of pulling off the impossible for the sake of art.

If you read this book - which Herzog describes in the intro as "inner landscapes, born of the delirium of the jungle" - you must see the two films. And if you've seen the two films, definitely read the book.

(I've bumped my rating up to four stars just because the whole package is so great, but as a standalone book, I'd say my overall enjoyment of it and attachment to it could be described with three stars.)(less)

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Aug 31, 2010

El rated it

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Recommends it for: Clovis and other Herzog-heads.

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, late20th-centurylit, wanderlust, cuckoos, put-it-in-your-journal

Werner Herzog is one of the greatest filmmakers in cinematic history. Anyone who says otherwise is, well... Wrong. Seriously. Go watch Grizzly Man and come back and tell me I'm wrong. That shit is crazy.

He also did this one film few people have heard of, Fitzcarraldo. During the filming of that movie in South America, Herzog kept a journal of his everyday experiences. Later he turned those recollections into a book, Conquest of the Useless. Santa loves me and gave it to me for...moreWerner Herzog is one of the greatest filmmakers in cinematic history. Anyone who says otherwise is, well... Wrong. Seriously. Go watch Grizzly Man and come back and tell me I'm wrong. That shit is crazy.

He also did this one film few people have heard of, Fitzcarraldo. During the filming of that movie in South America, Herzog kept a journal of his everyday experiences. Later he turned those recollections into a book, Conquest of the Useless. Santa loves me and gave it to me for Christmas, so it's about time I got around to reading it.

Herzog's recollections cover a gamut of information - the socioeconomic situations of the countries in which he was filming, the politics, the weather, the wildlife, his crew and film-buddies. The Hollywood gossip factor was pretty high here, from Jason Robards (initially chosen to play Fitzcarraldo until he freaked the eff out about being in the jungle all the time and had to go bye-bye) to Mick Jagger (whose role in the film was ultimately cut, sadly). Some of my favorite passages from the book involves those two particular crazies:

Herzog on Robards: "Robards is being flown out today. [...:] I had seen Robards at the crack of dawn, when it was actually still quite dark, hurrying through the camp without his dentures, his hair flying and his eyes crazed, like King Lear through the deserted chambers in his castle." (page 130)

Herzog on Jagger: "We shot some footage with Mick and the little Indian boy who is called McNamara in the film, and both of them did such a good job that the team broke into applause. During the scene Mick was bitten on the shoulder by one of the monkeys and laughed so uproariously about it afterward that it sounded like a donkey braying. Whenever we take a break he distracts me with clever little lectures on English dialects and the development of the language since the late Middle Ages." (page 131)

You can't make that kind of stuff up. You have to be there. I love me some Jason Robards, don't get me wrong. But that man has always been at least 900 years old. He's like Ray Bradbury. Were they ever young? But I can totally picture Robards going around stark-ass crazy. And Jagger - well, whoda thunk that he'd converse about language on some downtime? I love it.

There's also a bit about Herzog fishing piranhas out of the water and trying to convince his crew it's okay to swim there now. They didn't believe him, even after he got in the water himself to illustrate. Dude, I don't know about you, but the piranhas I've seen at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium are nothing to be trifled with.

(Which then led me to think about the fish in my high school Biology class called Oscar. He wasn't a piranha but I swear each day that damn fish got just a little bigger and scarier-looking.)

Piranhas are scary. Which is probably why I haven't seen the movie yet. It's not like they're the evolved sting rays like in that classic book I read a few years ago, Natural Selection. Piranhas will beat your ass, even in 3-D.

(This review was written in a sober state.)(less)

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Aug 12, 2009

Lee rated it

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Shelves: favorites

Here's something to do before the end of the month: read this book and watch "Fitzcarraldo," "Aguirre: Wrath of God," the Herzog documentary about Klaus Kinski called "My Best Fiend," and the Les Blank documentary about the making of "Fitzcarraldo" called "The Burden of Dreams." A highly recommended crash course in Herzogian ecstatic beauty . . . At one point, a diary entry begins with a hilarious understatment, something like "Profoundly un...moreHere's something to do before the end of the month: read this book and watch "Fitzcarraldo," "Aguirre: Wrath of God," the Herzog documentary about Klaus Kinski called "My Best Fiend," and the Les Blank documentary about the making of "Fitzcarraldo" called "The Burden of Dreams." A highly recommended crash course in Herzogian ecstatic beauty . . . At one point, a diary entry begins with a hilarious understatment, something like "Profoundly unreconciled to nature." But the writing is so natural and the descriptions of the jungle and mountains and fog and insects and, well, nature in general are profoundly evocative. Like all Herzog documentaries, you also have to sort of treat it like fiction. Mick Jagger, who was in the film early on, is portrayed as pleasantly impish. The New York Times review was idiotic, wishing for more logistic/technical information about certain shots, or Coppola's role etc. The reviewer wanted characters who appeared once to be introduced and appear again, as in a novel or non-fiction, not a journal -- he wanted a non-Herzogian non-fiction, essentially. But this thing reeks of Herzog everywhere as he charts the athletic/spiritual endurance required of pulling off an ambition like this, and also the singular sort of obsessed perspective that allows it to happen in the first place. Also, it's real funny. Dozens of LOLs, often at audacious, over-the-top descriptions, or sudden crazy jumps from sentence to sentence. "Seen from the plane, the sheer expanse of the jungle is terrifying; no one who has not been there can picture it. We do not need virtuosos of syntax." And yet on every page Werner proves himself a virtuoso of seeing and describing what he's seen. This book is almost more about language than any particular film - Herzog's sentences seem to me sharper and funnier and more peculiarly individuated than those of most contemporary prose writers. Plus, this book seems to prove that what's inside the artist comes outside the artist. Hope he has a journal like this for Stroszek, too - another highly recommended movie (if you're a Joy Division fan you probably know this as the movie Ian Curtis watched before he hanged himself).
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Oct 05, 2009

Topher rated it

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Shelves: art, biography

I read Werner Herzog's Conquest of the Useless immdediately before reading the Lost City of Z by David Grann. Two jungle books, but complete opposites, hilariously different: They are perfect embodiments of apollonian and dionysian minds.

Grann's is an impeccable work of journalism and research, with a bursting bibliography and pages of acknowledgments for the archivists and librarians who helped him cross his historical 't's and dot his anthropological 'i's. No question, it's a good ...more

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Oct 15, 2009

mary rated it

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This book baffles me. Herzog as center of the primordial universe. I had no idea a person could be so self-absorbed, and yet I am undeniably charmed and engaged by his prose. The idea of hauling a steamship over a mountain on the backs of humans is conceptually and metaphorically compelling, but to do this without regard for lives or money lost in the process is something that disturbs me deeply. Where does this mania spring from if not a thirst for power? Why sacrifice so much for a dream to be...more

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Mar 26, 2010

Simon rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction

Oh, how I enjoyed this: the filth, the misery, the degradation, the hopelessness.
Don't read this expecting to learn anything about moviemaking, but you will learn a lot about determination (or stubbornness). Herzog has a wonderful eye for detail and an almost poetic turn of phrase, especially when describing the overwhelming, pitiless jungle. Based on this I would never in a million years visit the Peruvian jungle, but I'm glad Herzog did.
Thanks to Jane for the recommendation.

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Aug 24, 2010

Jennifer rated it

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I'm not sure where to start on this one. The book is an excellent fever dream of dry wit, sublime observations, recordings of actual dreams, and so many other wonderful and hilarious tangents about the moving of a large ship up a large mountain with a large number of crazy people and all the other crazy things that entailed. I am now very excited to engage with Herzog's work as an author....I only knew him as an amazing filmmaker before....

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Dec 09, 2011

Steev Hise rated it

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Shelves: own-it, filmmaking, fun

This is a wonderful book. If you're a big Herzog fan like I am, or interested in filmmaking, or Peru, or just interested in reading the journals of a really unique artist and thinker, trying to do the impossible in the middle of a jungle, you will probably like this book. I'm not sure who else would like it for sure if they don't fall into one or more of those categories.

This book covers a lot of ground. It's some descriptive logging of daily work on a film set, but it's much much m...more

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Dec 18, 2011

Sara Gray rated it

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This is one of those few books where I wanted to turn back to the first page and start reading it all over again once I finished it. Herzog is a poet; passages crackle with the same awesome intensity of his best film scenes, while others are just goddamn hilarious. And all the human misery of having a great dream, and his unending dedication to it despite anticlimax, are inspiring and heart-rending. I couldn't tell half the time if he was recounting real events, dreams, hallucinations, or shit h...more

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Jun 06, 2010

Nat added it · review of another edition

Whoever translated these notes (Herzog himself?) managed to capture the feel of Herzog's spoken English.

Towards the end of the book it becomes difficult to separate Herzog's descriptions of his bizarre and vivid nightmares from the description of the filming of the movie.

Herzog says that the indian extras offered to murder Kinski because they couldn't stand his screaming fits.

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Jul 22, 2009

Bob Hardt rated it

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If you're looking for more on Herzog's aesthetic vision behind his amazing "Fitzcarraldo", you've come to the wrong place. Still, this is an entertaining diary from the depths of the Amazon with lots of bitchy observations from Herzog. It's a fun and quick read with some diatribes against Jason Robards alone making it worth the price of admission.

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Jul 07, 2009

Matthew rated it

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A madhouse. A relentless parade of insane details, characters, and situations, recounted by a man who seems to be anticipating the worst, and for whom chaos is some kind of sinister nourishment. To think that this represents someone's diary, and not some sort of crazed Stanley Crawford novel, borders on the unthinkable. I relished every page.

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Jan 03, 2010

Chris S rated it

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Recommends it for: Fever-dreamers

Shelves: diary, inspirational, film, south-america

Brilliant. Herzog's catalogue of woe while filming Fitzcarraldo and trying to drag a ship up and over a mountain.

As well as detailing the shoot, his fever-dream diary contains detailed and evocative descriptions of the jungle natural world, the lifestyles and culture of the native indians... and, I found, a sense of beauty in that world. What also impressed me was the stamina - physical and mental - that Herzog had to display in order to get the job done. I found that inspirational....more

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Jan 27, 2011

Jimmy added it · review of another edition

Well, this thing's completely fascinating. It reads like his films, it's the most intense thing ever, and half of the scenes in Fitzcarraldo are in this books. You can just watch Herzog cataloging images for his film. Completely remarkable.

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Oct 04, 2009

Dan rated it

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This was one of the strangest books I have ever read. Herzog is a master filmmaker and this is the behind the scenes story of one of his biggest films. If you're a Herzog fan, give it a read. If not, it might not appeal to you.

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Jan 26, 2011

Ryan rated it

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Shelves: adventure, cinema, survival, art, horror

JG Ballard meets Heart of Darkness. Maybe some Thomas Bernhard mixed in. Herzog is compelling writer and stylist, as anyone that's seen his documentaries knows from his narration. His closing line, perhaps, sums up the book best: "the river flowed by in majestic indiffernce and scornful condescension, ignoring everything: the plight of man, the burden of dreams, and the torments of time." Though don't let this lead you to believe it's solely morose; Herzog's incredible passion for livi...more

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About Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog (born Werner Stipetić) is a German film director, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.

He is often associated with the German New Wave movement (also called New German Cinema), along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders and others. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams or people with unique talents in obs...more

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Books by Werner Herzog

Of Walking in Ice: Munich - Paris 23 November - 14 December 1974

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

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“But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.” — 5 people liked it

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title link	preview: Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7906937-conquest-of-the-useless?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275688881m/7906937.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7906937-conquest-of-the-useless?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog[/url]

Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

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