Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Wednesday evening I sat through the almost interminable 1982 film by Werner Herzog called Fitzcarraldo, based on the most wildly narcissistic golden blond male character I’ve ever stretched my imagination to comprehend. Now it inhabits film archives, is “taught” in film classes, and moved me to believe that, by the sheer force of his will, this blond man could persuade hundreds of Peruvian natives to haul his steamboat over a mountain—which apparently he did. All this is in pursuit of his dream that opera music can, in fact, “quell the savage beast” which seems proved when stains from Aida on an old-fashioned wind-up phonograph quiet the headhunters’ drums.
It’s amazing that this film and others of Herzog’s (in his eighties now) can still be shown, even to limited audiences in art movie houses, given the deeply ingrained racism and misogamy which they enshrine—with a brush of romance here as so often to disguise it.
But to be persuaded even in this objectionable form to the possibility of “the impossible dream”—the Andy Williams lyric sung only by men such as Frank Sinatra—has its uses. There have, of course, been women over the course of time who became obsessed or possessed by the necessity to “fight the unbeatable foe” and even more forced to “bear the unbearable sorrow,” but I have yet to hear of a blond wild woman believing in heart and soul in the possibilities of opera music—although here with opera-possessed thousands paying large sums to attend our summer season here may be one woman so persuaded. But she would probably be deemed insane, as would the wild-eyed protagonist of Fitzcarrado be—except for our delusional obsession with the powers of the bad boy.
To what degree are we talented women constrained in fulfilling our ambitions by the fear of being labelled insane or cast out? This has been our fate since the beginning of time and the mild progress made in the past one hundred years cannot overcome that history.
But is it necessary to be a wild-eyed blond narcissist to achieve “the impossible dream,” trampling those we consider inferiors along the way?
Well…
I had the impossible dream decades ago to set up and fund a not-for-profit foundation to enable women in Kentucky to prove that their art can change lives and influence all the forms of injustice laws and speeches never reach. Not an art that comforts, entertains or decorates but serves to inspire, motivate and train radical female artists who can perhaps achieve equally dramatic and more permanent changes than a blond man in a white suit that never gets dirty in the jungles of Peru.
And we have fulfilled that dream, in part, although the understanding of my aims, which I counted on, seems to have withered and the impossible dream is drifting ever further away.
You are a hero, for one, my hero. Thank You Sallie
Thank you for this and for all you do
Your Vision and you generous support of women in the Arts helped me when I was a farmer running our small dairy farm in rural Kentucky in the 1970’s.
With your funding I bought my first sewing machine.
My first ‘Art Show’ was to lay several of my quilts out on the steps leading up to the Bardstown Library.
I was immediately asked to move them, but before I could gather the quilts together the local weekly newspaper had sent someone over to photograph me with them.
I am not a “known” person such as you Sallie or dear Penny Sisto who is my “neighbor” as I live about 10 miles from her in the same county. This fact of not being a known person does not make me any less than another who is known. We all understand this fact.
I have decided to be the me I want to be. I am wild, witchy, and wonderful. I AM, and I approve of me. I am still the kind, generous and thoughtful lady that I have always been, but will speak my mind when I need to speak my mind. And guess what? I have gotten some blow back from men. Imagine that!! Our new farrier (our beloved farrier died in 2022), does not “approve” of me. Recently the farmer who supplies our hay showed his “disapproval” of me. Well, okay then to all y’all men who cannot tolerate a strong woman in their “space”. If I am crazy then perhaps y’all better look out for yourselves. I will never hurt a living thing on purpose. Never ever as it is not in my belief system. But like any “reasonable” man I can and will protect me and mine.
Dearest Sallie. Do not fret. There are many more women out there that are strong feminists even if they don’t understand fully that they are feminists. They are younger than we are and they grew up in a time when women were fighting tooth and nail for the same things over and over again. As women we know we were not “given” our rights. We are taking our rights and we will take them again and again and again until we no longer have to go on with this crazy cycle of the patriarchy. The impossible will be possible. Equality for ALL!
May it be so.
Sallie, I like this and agree with Andria Creighton who commented above. Thinking of the suffragists who kept on fighting, and the continuing fight for reproductive rights,