In the famous Werner Herzog’s movie made in 1982, Brian Sweeney Fitgerald, or Fitzcarraldo, represents a real character, Carlos Fitzcarrald; son of a North-American marine and a Peruvian woman. He was one of the most intrepid adventurer who launched him through the Amazonian jungle.
After some difficulties during the Pacific war against Chili in 1881, he’s nicknamed “the crazy of the jungle” when, hiding in Iquitos region (in the heart of Amazonian jungle) he became one of the first “rubber king”. But the transport this amazing raw material is stopped by the imposing presence of the Andes. From there, he had the idea of looking for a river which initiate in the Peruvian or Bolivian Amazonia and which would join the large river Amazonia to directly carry the rubber by waterway towards Atlantic. This pursuit rapidly took enormous dimensions; he tried to dug himself a river, had to confront native population rebellions, he bought lands in an area reputed as inaccessible in Amazonia, sent thousands of barks and men to the heart of the rainforest looking for a miraculous way, had to transport it with man-portables when the rapids were too powerful...He made built attics considerably disproportioned at the confluence of two rivers to transform it into his operation base, in the midst of nothing…
Herzog movie obviously spotlights the figure of a crazy-visionary who lived adventures worthy of Indiana Jones but the true story isn’t finally very far from the fiction.