A review by amorasad
Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog

5.0

অল্প অল্প করে পড়ার দুই ধরণের কারণ থাকে— এক, বই খুবই ভালো লাগায় রসিয়ে পড়ার ইচ্ছে, দুই, বই কঠিন/নিরস কিন্তু পাঠক যে কোন কারণেই হোক পড়া শেষ করবে বলে মনে মনে পণ করেছে। এই বইটা প্রথম তরিকার। ভার্নার হার্টযগ জার্মান সিনেমা পরিচালক। ভিম ভেন্ডার্স, রাইনার ভার্নার ফাসবিন্ডারের মত তিনিও নিও জার্মান সিনেমা মুভমেন্টের অন্যতম পুরোধা (এবং একই সাথে লেখক, অভিনেতা, অপেরা ডিরেক্টর) । তাঁর সবচেয়ে পরিচিত সিনেমা Fitzcarraldo, যার নির্মাণকাজ হয়েছিলো পেরুর জঙ্গলে। সিনেমার সবচেয়ে বড় চ্যালেঞ্জ ছিলো পাহাড়ের উপর দিয়ে জাহাজ টেনে উঠিয়ে ওপারের নদীতে নামানো। এ ঘটনা সিনেমাপাড়ায় বেশ পরিচিত হলেও ওটাই একমাত্র বাঁধা ছিলো না। শতরকম বৈরিতা, অসুবিধে, মৃত্যুর ঝুঁকি আর অসম্ভব পরিস্থিতির ভেতর হার্টযগ সিনেমার কাজ শেষ করেন। পেরুর গহীনে প্রস্ততি, শুটিঙয়ের সময়কালে যে জার্নাল রেখেছিলেন, তাই পরবর্তীতে বই আকারে প্রকাশ করেন। সিনেমা বানানোর গল্পের চেয়ে বরং আনুষাঙ্গিক বিষয়াবলী, পরিবেশ আর অভিজ্ঞতার বয়ান ঊঠে এসেছে বেশী।
বইটা পড়ার সময় অনেক অনেক অনেক অংশ দাগিয়ে রেখেছি। সেখান থেকে কিছু উদ্ধৃতি শেয়ার করি। আগ্রহী পাঠক রিভিউর বদলে বরং সেটিই বেশী পছন্দ করবে বলে আমার বিশ্বাস।

The air is as fat as a pig, and lingers rigid and sweaty outside.

A desolate day out of which all life had been drained. In my hut, which is more and more empty, the sublime and the ghostly have taken up residence like siblings who no longer speak to one another.
Snakes had never been seen anywhere near chain saws, because the noise and the exhaust fumes drive the snakes deep into the jungle, but this man had suddenly been bitten twice in the foot. He had dropped his chain saw and just caught a glimpse of the snake before it disappeared into the underbrush; it was a chuchupe . Usually this snake’s bite causes cardiac arrest and stops breathing in less than a minute, and cases in which a person has survived a bite longer than seven or eight minutes without treatment are almost unknown. Our camp with the doctor and the anti-venom serum was twenty minutes away. The man, so I was told by someone who had been working next to him, had stood motionless for a few seconds, thinking hard. Then he had picked up the chain saw, which had stalled when it hit the ground, pulled the cord to start it, the way you pull an outboard motor, and had sawn off his foot above the ankle. I saw the man—his whole body was gray. He was alive, perfectly collected, and very calm.

The council of elders chose a new husband for the drowned man’s widow. The jungle does not allow widowhood.

the Grand Emotions in opera, often dismissed as over the top, strike me on the contrary as the most concentrated, pure archetypes of emotion, whose essence is incapable of being condensed any further. They are axioms of emotions. That is what opera and the jungle have in common.

How often I used to study calendar pictures down to the smallest detail, trying like a detective to figure out the exact date and time when the picture was taken. Looking at a picture of the Hamburg harbor, I examined the models and years of the parked cars, figured out which ship was being loaded with what and where, found a church tower with a clock that showed the time, compared the angles of the shadows: all these pieces of information, when checked against the harbor’s logbook, would make it possible to determine the day and exact time, as well as the photographer’s position and the lens he had used. The picture could serve as evidence in court for a major case, evidence sufficient for a conviction.

The freight included three large turkeys, one of which keeps spreading his tail to intimidate me, gobbling, and putting on a great show of agitation. This turkey, this bird of ill omen, is a pure albino, so it is quite a sight when it fans its great white wheel, spreads its wings, whose tips trail on the ground, and puffs up its feathers. Snorting in bursts, it launched several feigned attacks on me and gazed at me with such intense stupidity emanating from its ugly face, which took on a bluish purple coloration and had tumorlike wattles, that without more ado I pulled a feather out of its spreading rear end. Now the turkey’s sulking.

On the border between Mali and Mauretania, my jeep disappeared with all my equipment, and then my money and passport were also taken from me. A frog appeared under the mosquito net and stared at me. Out on the porch I leaned against one of the posts, overcome with misery, and crushed the termites’ tunnel that ran the length of it. They spilled out like water from a leaky pipe, but were not angry in the slightest. By morning they had repaired the damage to their tunnel. They had to haul material from far away, at least from the ground underneath my cabin. Which of the termites do that? On whose orders? How are such orders given for building and repairs? Or are there specialized construction squads just for that?

A dog hopped over to me on three legs and looked at me like an apostle gazing at the Lord, who has not given him a mission yet.

Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.

A fairly young, intelligent looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.

সারা বই জুড়েই হাইলাইট করেছি। এতই যে, সব দেয়ার প্রশ্নই আসে না। এই কোটগুলোও অদ্ভুত লাগতে পারে। হার্টযগের চারপাশের সবকিছুতে সূক্ষ্মাতিসূক্ষ্ম নজরের কারণেই হয়তো। ফিল্মমেকার হিসেবে তাঁর লিগ্যাসির গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয় এটি। তিনি সাহিত্য পছন্দ করেন। অলঙ্কারময় গদ্যশিল্পের উচ্ছ্বসিত প্রেমিক। বই পড়ার গুরুত্ব নিয়েও হার্টযগ বেশ হাক-ডাক ছেড়েছেন। এই ব্যাপারে তিনি আমার মেন্টর বলতে পারি।