Fitzcarraldo NOT in the Top 250? Absurd!

Fitzcarraldo is clearly one of the greatest, most artistically ambitious movies ever made. Fitzcarraldo also cut through social and cultural barriers.

I know a ranch-hand, a man from central Mexico who, when asked what his favourite movie was, the man answered (in Spanish): "There's a film,I can't remember the title, about a man who lives in the Amazon and tries to take a huge boat up one side of a mountain and down the other".

I know an Astronomy PhD in Galactic Structure who considers Fitzcarraldo to be "one of the greatest films ever made".

I know a businessman who told me Fitzcarraldo was "one of the most joyous experiences I've had in my life, certainly the best movie".

When queried a bit further, it turned out none of these three knew IMDb existed.

One more: I select and screen movies every Wednesday at a local non -profit cultural center. The second film I screened was Fitzcarraldo, and 45 people showed up, with no publicity whatsoever. Since then, the best crowd I've had, with publicity, has been thirty or less... except for (ahem) Cobra Verde, which I screened a month and a half later, separating them on purpose. We hit 45 people again.

My personal take on it: Fitzcarraldo is a perfect, stand-alone counterpart to another masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. Where Apocalypse showed the dark side of the jungle (civilized man gone wrong meets the jungle), Fitz showed the illuminated side (civilized man in his purest, most idealistic form, meets the jungle). Apocalypse may have had Brando in unpredictable form, but Fitz had Kinski in top form!

However, Fitzcarraldo is a film that many USA filmlovers don't know, since it's not often screened (theatre) or shown (TV). USA filmlovers are by far the biggest voting block in IMDb.

Surely Fitzcarraldo deserves better. So what do you say, people? Let's kick this movie up, let's put Fitzcarraldo into the radar screen where it belongs!