Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo »

Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria. He never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. During high school he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce his first film, in 1961, at the age of nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than fifty films, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God; The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser; Rescue Dawn; and Grizzly Man. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Werner Herzog is one of our most revered contemporary filmmakers, a visionary director who ceaselessly tests the boundaries of art. Fitzcarraldo, his lavish 1982 film about a would-be rubber baron who pulls a steamship over a hill to access a rich rubber territory, was hailed by critics around the globe and won Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at Cannes.

The text of Conquest of the Useless emerged as if out of an Amazonian fever dream: the crew's camp in the heart of the jungle was attacked and burned to the ground; the production clashed with a border war; two planes crashed during filming; and Herzog had to unravel the logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects.

More than just a journal or diary of the shooting of Fitzcarraldo, Conquest of the Useless is a work of art unto itself, which charts the inner landscapes born of the delirium of the jungle and offers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

The observations to be found in Conquest of the Useless are much more private and pitiless, as Mr. Herzog finds evidence of an indifferent universe wherever he turns. With the same bleak eloquence that he brings to narrating his nonfiction films (and what voice can match Mr. Herzog s for mournfully contemplative beauty?) this book describes the exotica of the jungle. Obsessed with the bird, animal and insect worlds as a way of avoiding the human one, Mr. Herzog keeps a steady record of the perverse spectacles he encounters.