The Film That Nearly Broke Werner Herzog

Description

Werner Herzog heads into the Peruvian jungle armed with nothing but a dream and an ever slimming checkbook. Chaos ensues.

Here's the second part in what is looking to be the Werner Herzog trilogy. Only focusing on one movie this time; Fitzcarraldo. Hopefully I can wrap up this series with the next entry so that I don't end up doing Herzog content forever.

Decided to do some animation work for this one. My mistake, won't ever happen again.
patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DRHugo



Here's the footnotes for the Awajún / Aguaruna bit:

Footnote 1: There were many political organizations around this time representing Awajún (Aguaruna) interests, though the Council of Aguaruna and Huambisa People seems to be considered the most significant one from this time.
The Huambisa are the neighbouring people to the Awajún. Today, they are known as the Wampis.

Footnote 2: It’s been disputed if Werner’s camp was actually on Awajún (Aguaruna) territory. Werner denies it, of course, but I think even Evaristo Nugkuag, the leader of the council at the time, has admitted that the camp wasn’t on their territory. Instead, the issue was that the activities of the camp extended into Awajún territories. So Werner was cutting down trees in their territory and using them to build the camp, was planning on filming in Awajún territory, etc.

Footnote 3: There were more reasons than just this one, but it seems their biggest worry was having their people be portrayed as “savages” subjugated by white Europeans.

Footnote 4: Werner is probably referring to the fact that the Council of Aguaruna and Huambisa People was not actually an officially recognized legal entity in Peru until 1980 (?). Bit of a moot point, as they likely would have been officially recognized whilst Werner would have been in the process of filming, which would have been a real bureaucratic fustercluck.
The actual legalities of this whole situation are very complicated, and should be left to the actual experts, and not some dingus with a YouTube channel.

Footnote 5: For the record, I don’t think Werner necessarily acted out of malice in this case. I think he set out to make this film with full cooperation and respect to the native Awajun people. Though at the end of the day, he ventured into their territory with a lack of understanding of the cultural and political complexities of the region, and as a result he ended up in a situation that he was unprepared for and unable to deal with. So more so arrogance than malice, I guess.

Footnote 6: While the film was filmed in Machiguenga territory, most of the extras you see in the film are not Machiguenga, but instead Ashéninka, who were brought in from neighboring territories.