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Burden of Dreams (1982)94 minDocumentaryRating 74/100

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.

Cast: Candace Laughlin, Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, Alfredo de Río Tambo, Ángela Reina, Carmen Correa

Director: Les Blank