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BURDEN OF DREAMS (on 16mm!)

May 28, 2013 at 7:30pm

This month we were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Les Blank – the renowned independent filmmaker whose poetic work offers intimate, idiosyncratic glimpses into the lives, culture, and music of passionate people at the periphery of American society. To honor Les and his work, we’ve teamed up with Logan Square’s Comfort Station to present his most celebrated feature film in beautiful 16mm.

BURDEN OF DREAMS (1982) is an extraordinary documentary about the messianic German director Werner Herzog struggling against desperate odds in the Amazon basin to make his epic feature, FITZCARRALDO (1982). Blank tastefully shies away from the sensationalism of the film’s star, Klaus Kinski (if you crave the infamous on-set outbursts of Kinski, Herzog’s MY BEST FIEND is the film for you), and instead focuses on the indigenous peoples and their humid surrounding as much as the ambitious Herzog and his production crew. BURDEN OF DREAMS was honored with a British Academy Award for Best Documentary of 1982, and considered by many critics to be Blank’s most awesome film – including Roger Ebert, who called the film “one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made about the making of a movie.”

The film will be presented on 16mm (the format it was shot on!), with one brief reel change. Print from our Chicago Public Library Collection.

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