Frank Townend
Member
- Messages
- 1,069
- Location
- Alexandria, Virginia
Wes, I think you mean Burt Munro or maybe Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald.
But speaking of the Amazon and Fitzcarraldo, did you see/like Fitzcarraldo ? (Werner Herzog)
Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald, a European living in a small city in Peru in the early part of the 20th century, has a great love of opera and an indomitable spirit. He is a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso and he dreams of building an opera house in his city of Iquitos. This will require a lot of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and can be leased for exploitation.
Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel.
To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour and brothel owner, Molly (Claudia Cardinale), he buys a steamer (which he christens the Molly Aida) from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the further one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across an isthmus, from one river to the next. Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.
But speaking of the Amazon and Fitzcarraldo, did you see/like Fitzcarraldo ? (Werner Herzog)
Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald, a European living in a small city in Peru in the early part of the 20th century, has a great love of opera and an indomitable spirit. He is a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso and he dreams of building an opera house in his city of Iquitos. This will require a lot of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and can be leased for exploitation.
Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel.
To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour and brothel owner, Molly (Claudia Cardinale), he buys a steamer (which he christens the Molly Aida) from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the further one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across an isthmus, from one river to the next. Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market.