Burden of Dreams Page #5

that we had here.

In our kind of organization,

our technical things.

Um, besides,

I did not want to have them...

too much contaminated in, uh -

- How do you say? In parentheses.

- Quotes.

Yeah. Yeah. In quotes.

Uh, by Western culture.

They should be among

themselves, and they-

They, for example,

wouldn't like our food...

and it would have caused problems.

And we didn't probably

expect to eat their kind of food.

So, um...

these two camps mark

a very clear distinction...

that I never tried to conceal-

that there is a highly technical

group of people here...

from a different continent...

with a different history behind them...

and another group of native Indians...

who basically is living here

in this environment...

has its own way oflife,

its culture.

The women were getting

madder and madder

As the men got drunk on masato

The men said

"Why don't you drink with us?"

So the women drank some too

They felt so good

they wanted some loving

But the men

were so drunk they couldn't

All through the upper Amazon,

Indians drink masato...

an alcoholic beverage

made from a vegetable called yuca.

It's an important food source,

making up a large part of the Indians'diet.

It's also an essential part of almost

every activity, from morning till night.

In order to chew it...

you first have to peel the yuca.

Then you boil it.

After boiling it...

you put it in the cusho.

This is the cusho?

- Yes, it is.

Then you pound it until it's soft.

After that, you chew it.

- What's chancar?

- What we're doing here.

After pounding it, you chew it.

When it's soft like this...

you add water.

By the next day...

it's fermented.

You strain it with a sieve

and drink it.

So you spit here.

Quiet, please.

- Silencio.

- Silencio.!

Yeah. Yeah.

- Sound.

- Right.

Work.!

Masato is also a ceremonial

liquor that seals every important agreement.

Fitzcarraldo has been invited

tojoin his new comrades in a ritual toast...

but Kinski is terrified of infection.

The thought of drinking something

that someone spit into is unbearable.

After scrubbing out the bowl

with bottled water...

he pours in canned milk

to substitute for the dreaded masato.

He wants you to drink it.

It's yuca fermented with saliva. Drink.

My God. Time flies,

and we're getting nowhere.

- Oh!

- It doesn't matter. They'll make another one.

No good. It's no good.

Look here, kid.

This is no good.

The Indians agree

to make a few bows and arrows for Kinski.

They accept his payment

of $3.50 an arrow...

the equivalent of a full day's wage.

To the Indians, who can make

20 arrows in a day...

this probably seems like

an extreme overpayment...

until they have to pay the same 3.50

for a single Polaroid photo...

taken by one of the Peruvian workers.

They earn about twice as much here...

as they would earn when

they work in the field somewhere.

In- On Rio Tambo

or somewhere else.

The tractor driver earns, uh...

a good average wage

for a tractor driver here.

But it is no comparison between, uh...

the level of salaries

that we have to pay...

to actors and technicians here

from Europe or United States...

and those people here.

And I think many-

many, many of the things...

should not be counted

and calculated in - in terms of money.

What is much more important

for the natives here...

is that this land here

which has no land title yet...

will belong to them

after we have finished that film.

And, um, to struggle for them, uh...

for the land title for-

for this whole territory-

that no settlers or no oil companies

or no lumber people...

can exploit it

and take it away from them...

that - that is something decisive.

Because Herzog wants to avoid

repeating the situation with the Aguarunas...

he's made a different deal this time.

He's promised the Machiguenga Indians,

on whose territory he's shooting...

to help them get

legal title to their land.

Ready.!

It's much steeper than we thought.

We have to level the ground.

Build a ramp.

And up here...

we have to make a cut

through to the top.

That'll take months.

Dynamite.

I hope we have enough dynamite.

Stop, stop.!

- Seores- - Apath is being cut

through thejungle for the ship...

up a steep hill from the Camisea...

across a mile of dense muddy forest...

and down the other side

to the Urubamba.

You have to take the branches...

and throw them aside...

cutting with a lot of-

Can you explain it to them?

Don't rush, but work hard.

I want these thrown to the side.

Work.!

We must level the ground.

Build a ramp.

And up there...

we have to make a cut

through to the top.

They were furious and declared war.

- Cut.

The bare-asses

believe the earth is a living being.

Okay.

Did the territory

hold any surprises for you...

that you didn't know about

from your preplanning?

Yes, of course.

Bad surprises.

For example,

that the terrain is not firm...

where we wanted to have

our path for the boat.

It's just completely muddy and wet.

So we had to cut another path...

and that brought us problems because

we had to cut deep into the mountain...

and it's very- very, very tough...

and there were landslides.

Recently, since more than

a quarter of a century...

there hasn't been so much rain now...

and that has brought us

bad surprises.

But basically it is

what I have been looking for.

Today... it went well, but -

I don't know -

I hated the day.

I don't know why.

I have no reason to hate it, but I -

I didn't like that mud up there.

Sometimes I wish to sit

in an easy chair and -

With a cup of tea next to me.

The bulldozer cutting the path through

thejungle uses 150 gallons of fuel a day-

fuel that has to be flown in by lightplane

and ferried up the river in dug-out canoes.

The bulldozer is designed

for tough work...

but Herzog bought it used,

and it breaks down constantly.

Spare parts have to be flown in

all the way from Miami via Iquitos...

and sometimes they're not even

the right parts.

With the topsoil bulldozed away...

heavy rain turns the clay

into deep, slippery muck.

Even when the bulldozer is working, it spends

hours every day sliding helplessly in the mud.

Despite Herzog's high technology,

thejungle is winning.

Most of the Indians

signed on for three months...

but because of shooting delays,

some have stayed six months.

The Indian camp wasn't designed

for such long occupancy.

Sanitation, medical

and food supply systems are breaking down.

Nor are the Indians

used to living in large groups.

Social relations are tense.

That woman there

is single. Those two are sisters.

The wife has reason to be angry because

one of the sisters favors her husband.

You think it's right

that she tell her husband...

"Go with her, then"?

They both want the same man?

No, one of the sisters wants

to fight the wife for her husband.

So they want to fight

like men with fists and all?

- Yes, they do.

- Is the sister saying she'll win because she's bigger?

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