Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

by Werner Herzog

“The Orphan,” but the film had probably been mistitled by the distributor, because the plot had to do with a very rich man who suddenly became poor. Nonetheless he went on living in his palace, unmistakably a cheap set made of papier-mâché, with garlands of plastic flowers for decoration. There was a daughter to be married off, and the prospective bridegroom, a sleazy fellow with a little beard penciled on, fell in love on cue. Then songs were sung. Then came telephone calls. What? Horrors! said the rich man, who had a good heart, I am ruined. From then on there was lots of weeping, usually by four or five people at once, and the tears flowed most copiously when one of the sons was to leave home to get a job. All the poor folk in the town had already been invited to the wedding, which was called off now because the bridegroom’s parents refused to have anything to do with an impoverished rich man. The poor folk stood outside the former rich man’s door, weeping for him, but they looked like middle-class people, poorly disguised extras: only the one in the very front had a few symbolic rips in his sleeve. The poor folk at the door demonstrated their good hearts by rejecting the rich man’s last money, which he wanted to give them, and insisting that they would pray for him to become rich again. The rest of the rich man’s extended family formed picturesque tableaux in the background, then suddenly took one step forward in unison, and stood motionless, showing their emotion. Tha...