OK, suckerdwsp316, is that your real name? I'll do my best:
Historical background: The city of Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, became the most prosperous boom town in the world at the turn of the XX century, thanks to the rubber tree. I'm not joking, the rubber magnates were so rich that it became a fashion to send your clothes from Manaus to the best dry-cleaners in Lisbon, Portugal, an almost six month round-trip in those days! Manaus opened an opera house and arranged for the legendary Enrico Caruso to inagurate it. Locally, it was such a grand event that even the carriage horses were given champagne, for all the world to read about in awe.
That's the background, you know the rest about Fitzcarraldo:
He lives in Iquitos, so deep up the Amazon that he's already in Peru, a failed enterpreneur who tried to build a train line up and down the Andes. Lately, he's been building an ice factory, but the really good prospects for clients, the local shortsighted rubber magnates, see no use for ice.
You know Fizt's loves: his hog, the opera, a sense of building something immortal. Oh, and his girlfriend Molly, the madam at the local upscale brothel.
Fitz learns that the best rubber lands in the area are up a river with a waterfall, no ship can get to those lands.
Fitz does his homework and, the visionary that he is, sees something nobody before has noticed and jumps at the chance to exploit it, a tidy get-rich-quick scheme.
Molly charges a buck a minute (after all, these people actually burn money, they're so stupid in their wealth), so she's got a gigantic stash and loans a large chunk to Fitz, who then buys a huge unexploited chunk of land, a large steamship and the most experienced crew he can find.
Only after the boat leaves does the plan, little by little, makes itself apparent: Go up the Pachitea River, home to a tribe of headhunting Jibaros, manage to avoid them, then move a great big steamship from one river to another across a steep and tall hill.
The crew mutinies and leaves when the Jibaros show up, but then the Jibaros join Fitz and his quest, after concluding that the boat is a sacred vessel that will release their tribe from an evil spell.
The boat goes up one side and goes down the other.
A mind-blowing ceremony is held. Next morning, the ropes are cut and the ship is sent tumbling down the rapids and waterfall.
Fitz wakes up to his worst possible nightmare: His dreams are shattering in the rapids.
The Jibaro wake up to their best possible dream: They have offered a worthy sacrifice to the river goddess, the ages long curse on their people has finally been lifted.
Molly the ship limps back to Iquitos after surviving the waterfall tumble. One of the rubber lords buys the boat back from Fitz for a slightly higher sum of money.
Did Fitz pay back a chunk of his debt to Molly? Hell, no! He paid for the latest european opera to play in his hometown, with his hog sitting in a velvet covered chair.
The End
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