Get Your Reps In: The Grueling Comedy of “Burden of Dreams”

Burden of Dreams (1982)

A making-of odyssey so vast that it nearly eclipses the movie it’s chronicling, Burden of Dreams comes to Cinema 21 on Sept. 21 through 26. In newly restored 4K, Les Blank’s documentary captures Werner Herzog’s Sisyphean determination to make Fitzcarraldo (1982), a legendary production equal parts baffling, haunting, profound and side-splittingly funny. Blank’s brilliance lies in watchful matter-of-factness, highlighted by Candace Laughlin’s sporadic narration, as Herzog and his crew try—among many self-imposed misadventures—to pull a 300-ton steamship overland through the Amazon rainforest. Dreams stays poised and unfussy, never building excess drama when the crushing despair and life-and-limb danger of Herzog fighting to make his movie roil before us. Of course, Dreams is also the origin of a dozen classic Herzogisms about the mirthless universe: “It is the harmony of...overwhelming and collective murder,” he says of jungle ecology, half-admiringly. As ambition bleeds into delusion, Dreams tells us both how and how not to make a movie, but not how to tell the difference. Tragicomedy at its finest. Cinema 21, Sept. 21–26.

Also Playing:

Academy: First Blood (1982), Sept. 20-25. Nothing but a Man (1964), Sept. 20-26. The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Sept. 20-26. Cinema 21: Lolita (1962), Sept. 21. The Babadook (2014), Sept. 22. Clinton: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Sept. 19. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), Sept. 21. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Sept. 21. Beyond Good & Evil (1977), Sept. 25. Hollywood: The Beyond (1981), Sept. 21. Zombie (1979), Sept. 22. Stephen King Double Feature: The Dead Zone (1983) and The Green Mile (1999), Sept. 22. Saved! (2004), Sept. 23. Vice Squad (1982), Sept. 24. Tomorrow: Ruthless People (1986), Sept. 19. Rushmore (1998), Sept. 21. Bring It On (2000), Sept. 22.