Conquest of the Useless chronicles Werner Herzog’s disastrous attempt at shooting his 1982 epic Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon rainforest.
Herzog’s persistence in the face of endless setbacks — cast changes, a border war, environmental complications, the all-but-impossible task of leveraging a steamship over a hillside — is unsurprising from a man who willingly ate his own shoe after losing a bet. The journal offers a candid peek at the audacious spirit and self-referencing paranoia of an acclaimed yet controversial filmmaker.