Shahar Madjar, MD

It is morning in Marquette and the air is sweet. It is autumn and the sun is painting the leaves in red and yellow. It is dead quiet outside my window and Lake Superior is standing still. It is a perfect time to catch a dream. I am talking about “big dreams,” call them big aspirations, if you’d rather. Perhaps I should catch other people’s dreams, and examine them carefully.

I imagine big dreams as colorful, mysterious butterflies. I see myself holding a butterfly net, a dream catcher, running and chasing. And when I catch a dream in midair, I gently untangle it from the flimsy net. I won’t dissect the dream the way children cut into the belly of a frog in biology class, peering into life. Instead, I will let it rest on a sofa beside me. Where do dreams come from? I will ask, and, How do dreams come true?

The other day, I “caught a dream” by simply watching Fitzcarraldo. It is a movie made in 1982 by Werner Herzog, a German film director. The movie is based on a true character, Fitzcarraldo, a man with big dreams, an opera lover, and an admirer of the famous Italian opera singer, Enrico Caruso. Fitzcarraldo’s dream is to build an opera house in Iquitos, a city in the Peruvian rainforest, along the Amazon river and to hear Enrico Caruso singing there. To raise money, Fitzcarraldo hopes to enter the profitable rubber industry. He leases a parcel rich in rubber trees but devoid of easy access to the Amazon. Fitzcarraldo discovers a point where only a narrow bridge of land separates the inaccessible tributary that borders his parcel and the main river. The rainforest is unforgiving, the river is shallow and turbulent, and droves of hostile indigenous people abound. Yet, Fitzcarraldo and his crew, aided by a group of natives, manage to pull a 320 ton, three-story steamer over a steep, muddy hill from one river to another. His dream, as originally conceived, never comes true, but the closing scene, where Enrico Caruso sings aboard the off-the-beaten-path giant steamer is stunning.

In order to make the movie Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog, the director of the film had to follow in Fitzcarraldo’s footsteps. Werner went to the Amazon, bought a steamer, overcame the unforgiving rainforest, the turbulent, shallow water of the river, and the droves of hostile indigenous people. And he managed to pull a 320 ton, three-story steamer over a steep, muddy hill from one river to another. He did so despite major problems with his casting (Mick Jagger left the crew in the middle of the production, he had prior commitments), severe weather conditions, and a war between Peru and Ecuador that was raging at that time. The story of the obsessed Werner Herzog is told in a documentary film called ‘Burden of Dreams.’ From the movie’s title, I conclude that some dreams are burdensome. From watching the movie I have also learned that when Werner Herzog dreams, the end result is always interesting.

So, years later, when Werner Herzog vowed to eat his shoe, I wondered, Is this another dream of his? What happened to the shoe after Werner ate it? And what happened to Werner? I will tell you in my next column (to keep the story continuity I recommend clipping and saving this column).

Editor’s note: Dr. Shahar Madjar is a urologist at Aspirus and the author of “Is Life Too Long? Essays about Life, Death and Other Trivial Matters.” Contact him at smadjar@yahoo.com.