Fitzcarraldo

This Wednesday in class we are watching Fitzcarraldo. I looked up some facts about the production of the film online. It is interesting to note that the writer and director of the film, Werner Herzog, is German and actually shot the film on location in Iquitos, Peru. During production, Herzog was criticized for taking advantage of the local people in these Peruvian jungles that were used in his film. Another interesting fact is that Klaus Kinski, the main actor in the film and also a German, fought openly with cast and crew members and indigenous persons throughout production. Kinski created so much conflict that an indigenous chief offered to assassinate him for Herzog, but Herzog declined. I think these experiences that occurred during production show the actual cultural differences and ignorance that still exist between European culture and the indigenous within Latin American countries.
Here is the Wikipedia article on the movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo