Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
“Hypnotic….It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate.”
—Janet Maslin, New York Times
Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man) is one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of our time, and Fitzcarraldo is one of his most honored and admired films. More than just Herzog’s journal of the making of the monumental, problematical motion picture, which involved, among other things, major cast changes and reshoots, and the hauling (without the use of special effects) of a 360-ton steamship over a mountain , Conquest of the Useless is a work of art unto itself, an Amazonian fever dream that emerged from the delirium of the jungle. With fascinating observations about crew and players—including Herzog’s lead, the somewhat demented internationally renowned star Klaus Kinski—and breathtaking insights into the filmmaking process that are uniquely Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless is an eye-opening look into the mind of a cinematic master.
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria. He never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. During high school he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce his first film, in 1961, at the age of nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than fifty films, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God; The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser; Rescue Dawn; and Grizzly Man. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Read more from Werner Herzog
Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of Heart of Glass Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Herzog by Ebert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paul Frey: A Story Never Predicted: From Trucking to the World Opera Stage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Conquest of the Useless
Related ebooks
Werner Herzog: Interviews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peter Bogdanovich: Interviews Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Films in My Life Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Todd Haynes: Interviews Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Stanley Kubrick Produces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cinema of Werner Herzog: Aesthetic Ecstasy and Truth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJonas Mekas: Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClaude Chabrol: Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn Cassavetes: Interviews Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Steven Soderbergh: Interviews, Revised and Updated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStanley Kubrick: Adapting the Sublime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and the Reimagining of Cinema Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitchcock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scorsese by Ebert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Easy Riders Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And Rock 'N Roll Generation Save Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Weeks in the Midday Sun: A Cannes Notebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Krzysztof Kieslowski: Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInner Views: Filmmakers in Conversation: Expanded Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Robert Bresson: The Auteur and His Market Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Smell of Success: And Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGoodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Coen Brothers, Second Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eric Rohmer: Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski: Variations on Destiny and Chance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJean-Luc Godard, Cinema Historian Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Huston: A Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mediocre Monk: A Stumbling Search for Answers in a Forest Monastery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Conquest of the Useless
53 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Wild dreamscape and from an earlier time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conquest of the Useless is pure prose poetry and probably the best book about the jungle I've ever read. Before reading it I was already familiar with the film and the documentary Burden of Dreams, about the making of the film, which is required background before reading this book. Conquest of the Useless reads like a fever dream. Although about the film, the main character is the jungle. It's written in diary format with some days taking up only a single line. There's no narrative but rather flashes of incident. What makes it so amazing are Herzog's trademark non sequitur's which weigh with unspoken significance. Scenes appear without context as part of the fabric of the jungle and it's dreamy obscenity of life and death. The book has many rewards and is hugely generous but will require patience. It took months for me to complete, I could only read small amounts at a time, when the mood was right, leaving scores of pages underlined. A great work of art in its own right.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Magnificent book, one of the best I've read in this year.I've grown quite fond of diaries and journals over the past while and Herzog's notes, written in minuscule script during the making of his epic film "Fitzcarraldo", are mesmerizing, poetic, candid and illuminating. Not much about the making of the actual film, more a depiction of the inner landscapes of the director's mind, the moods (ecstatic, furious, depressed) that accompanied the massive undertaking of bringing the film to the world's screens.
1 person found this helpful