Fitzcarraldo Quotes

[repeated lines]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': I must stop my ship!

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': This church remains closed until this town has its opera house. I want the opera house.

[shouting and ringing the church bells]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': I want my opera house! I want the opera house! This church remains closed until this town has its opera house. I want my opera house! I want my opera house! I want my opera house!

Don Aquilino: Ladies and gentlemen, don't worry. This gentleman is harmless. He's just had a, a soul-stirring experience.

Rubber Baron: Sir. My servants will conduct you to the kitchen. My dogs' cook will prepare you a meal. Thank you very much, sir. You were superb.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': To your dogs' cook.

[downs champagne glass]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': To Verdi.

[downs champagne glass]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': To Rossini.

[downs champagne glass]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': To Caruso.

[downs champagne glass]

Rubber Baron: [picks up champagne glass] To Fitzcarraldo, the Conquistador of the Useless!

[raises glass]

Rubber Baron: Cheers!

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': As true as I am standing here, one day I shall bring grand opera to Iquitos. I will outgut you. I will outnumber you. I will outbillion you. I will outrubber you. I will outperform you. Sir, the reality of your world is nothing more than a rotten caricature of great opera.

Molly: Fitz, Fitz, let's go. This man is no opponent. He's as dead as a doornail.

Rubber Baron: Madam, I'm still standing firm on both my legs.

Molly: You're a big game hunter, aren't you?

Rubber Baron: What's that got to do with it?

Molly: Then you should know: When you shoot an elephant, he sometimes stays on his legs for ten days before he topples over. Good night!

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': How can anyone learn patriotism from a school book?

Young Missionary: The Government requires it.

Old Missionary: The natives get used to it. Like vaccination.

Young Missionary: The children already feel like little Peruvians. The other day I asked them, "Are you Indians?" "No," they said, "not we, the ones up the river, they are Indians." And then I asked. "What are Indians?" "They said to me "Indians are people who can't read and who don't know how to wash their clothes."

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': And what about the older people?

Old Missionary: Well, we can't seem to cure them of the idea that our everyday life is only an illusion, behind which lies the reality of dreams.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Actually, I'm very interested in these ideas. I specialise in opera myself.

[first lines]

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Come on, we are late!

Molly: As long as we're doing it, let's do it in style. A few in minutes more.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': We're going to miss Caruso!

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': I'm doing all this because I have one dream. The opera. The great opera in the jungle.

Molly: Fitzcarraldo will build it and Caruso will sing at the premiere. It's only the dreamers who move mountains.

Opera Manager: For five years now, we've been the richest town in the whole world. It's like gold fever. Please. Soon, this opera house could be too small. Prices are ten times higher than in New York. There are palaces begin built with tiles from Delft and Florentine marble.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': But Iquitos is catching up. It's still a filthy little town, but the rubber business is growing by leaps and bounds.

Opera Manager: The better-off citizens in Manaus, if I may put it this way, they send their laundry to Lisbon because the water of the Amazon River is felt to be impure.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': What's he saying?

Don Aquilino: We must be quiet. He says whoever talks will be swallowed up the evil spirits of the whirlpool. Shh.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Is this a rubber tree?

Don Aquilino: Right. "Hevea brasiliensis." They call the rubber tree "caoutchou," "tree that weeps." These bare-asses love flowery language. Gold, they call "sweat of the sun." Bees, "fathers of honey." You know, it's no easy job to discipline them, believe me.

Notary: Can I ask you a question of a personal nature? Do you really know what you're doing?

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': We're gonna do what nobody's ever done.

Molly: We're going to be very, very rich.

Don Aquilino: You know, the two of us have a bet going - how long it will take until you go bankrupt. Oh, please don't take it personally. We're all sportsmen, aren't we?

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': No, only one of us. I shall move a mountain.

Captain (Orinoco Paul): My eyesight isn't so good, but I cannot be fooled.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': What do you mean?

Captain (Orinoco Paul): The jungle plays tricks on your senses. It's full of lies, demons, illusions. I have learned to tell the difference between reality and hallucinations.

Huerequeque (The Cook): Compadre, I am Huerequeque! I am the best cook in all of the Amazon. I have worked on every kind of ship there is. And, amigo, ha! I know what they say about me. "Huerequeque is a stupid drunkard!" But, in here

[points to his head]

Huerequeque (The Cook): positively electrico!

Captain (Orinoco Paul): What do you know about the Jivaros on the upper course? I was there during the disaster of '96. Have you had any contact since then?

Young Missionary: Yes, some years ago. Two of our brothers set off with some natives. One of them came back a few days later and said that the Jivaros had withdrawn into the forest. The expedition vanished without a trace. Then, a few weeks later, one of the brothers was washed up. He was already rotting away and his head was gone. Anyway, what do you want up there?

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': I'm planning something geographical.

Huerequeque (The Cook): Those bare-asses have never heard music like that. That will teach them to respect us.

[a shot arrow barely misses his head]

Huerequeque (The Cook): These Jivaro people left the interior of Brazil about 300 years ago. For ten generations, they've been wandering through the jungle looking for a white god in a sacred boat. And they believe at the end of their pilgrimage, the white god would show them a land without sorrow, without death, where people stay young forever.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': We are gonna take advantage of this myth.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': There. There's the Ucayali. All the river above Pongo das Mortes belongs to us.

Huerequeque (The Cook): I knew it. I knew it! We are going to build a tunnel for the railway to go through.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': No. We gonna drag that ship over the mountain. And the bare-asses are going to help us.

Captain (Orinoco Paul): How the hell are you going to do that?

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Just like the cow jumped over the moon.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Shouldn't we tell him that it melts? There'll be nothing left of it.

Huerequeque (The Cook): There is no word for ice in their language.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo': Why are they doing all this? Why are they working like horses for us? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Huerequeque (The Cook): I don't know. I really don't know. the only thing I know is that there must be a reason for it.