Six Damn Fine Degrees #168: My Best Fiend

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness.

Here’s a trivia question for you: which actor and director, who famously ended up working together, supposedly shared a boarding house in Munich?

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #166: Fitzcarraldo

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness.

One of the curiosities about the filmography of Werner Herzog is that it contains his own little two-film micro-genre – “fanatical madman played by Klaus Kinski goes up the Amazon to the music of Popol Vuh.” His first foray is 1972’s Aguirre, Wrath of God, which is quite possibly one of my favourite films of all times. So when I came to Fitzcarraldo, the other of the two films, I was both excited and filled with trepidation. Would it meet the earlier film’s dizzying heights?

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