Burden of Dreams Page #4

And we found this boat in Colombia

on one of the Amazon tributaries.

Uh, it was used for-as a steamboat

up and down the Amazon...

and later on it was used

in the, uh, war against Colombia.

As a matter of fact, the peace treaty

was signed on that boat here.

It was very hard to move it here.

As you see, there are many leaks.

We had to fill the whole hull

with empty petrol drums.

And so we kept it afloat,

and we tugged it about, uh...

350 miles up the river,

and we put it here.

And it should be rusty, as it is.

And it will be one of the leading characters

in the picture that we are doing.

Italian film star Claudia Cardinale

plays Fitzcarraldo's lover, Molly...

the madam of an elegant brothel catering to

the wealthiest rubber barons in Iquitos.

She uses her contacts

to help him buy a steamship he needs...

to make enough money

to build the opera house.

Claudia, there is also one thing.

You could easily try to

open one of those doors.

- Yes. This one?

- Yeah. No, not this one.

- This here is closed.

- This one.

This one is closed.

So you can't do -

you can't do any-

- Yeah. No.

- No.

- You shouldn't open that one. Yes.

- I just try to open, but it's closed.

- That's the only one that you should not open.

- Okay.

Of course,

we need another boat going on the river.

And for this reason

we have bought another boat...

which has about the same size,

the same shape of the hull.

The Huallaga,

which was built in 1906.

And we rebuilt the whole boat,

and we repaired the engine...

and we'll need a third boat-

a look-alike.

No one knows how long it's going to take

to pull a real steamship over a hill in thejungle...

which is why Herzog needs three ships.

While one of the ships stays in Iquitos

and another goes over the hill...

Herzog can keep on shooting

with the third ship...

including a crucial scene

in the Pongo das Mortes...

the "Rapids of Death. "

The Huallaga may be destroyed in the Pongo.

We'll try to save it with, uh,

remote control from a helicopter.

I'm not 100% sure whether it will make it.

But I hope because there's

so much work and care and toil in it.

Many, many people have given

their sweat and their...

blood of their heart.

And it's really beautiful.

I- I like the boats very much.

Uh, very close to my heart.

I would like to keep them all.

Did you sail the ship

all the way up the river from Iquitos?

Yes. They had to come from Iquitos

all the way up here...

which was quite hard.

It's a very, very big distance.

Maybe 1,500 miles or 2,000 miles.

Between Rio Urubamba

and Rio Camisea...

we are pulling the boat now.

After shooting in Iquitos...

Herzog moves cast and crew

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