“A good soldier of cinema”:
Werner Herzog, on the set of
Fitzcarraldo in
Peru, July 1981
JEAN-LOUISATLAN/SYGMAVIAGETTYIMAGES
WHEN Werner Herzog describes Mick Jagger as having “a strange mad intensity”, he clearly means it as a compliment. Herzog, whose best work explores obsession both fictional and in real life, cast Jagger in a key role during a first aborted attempt to make Fitzcarraldo, a film that famously involved a gigantic ship being carried up a hill using only “stone age technology”. As this documentary explains, that shoot descended into chaos – technical issues, illness on set, an amputation, two plane clashes and a war. By the time production resumed, Jagger had to go on tour with The Rolling Stones and was written out the script.