A haunting film in a class of its own, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo tells the story of opera aficionado Brian Sweeney "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski, who played the title character in Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, also set in South America).

A failed railway entrepreneur whose dreams and ambitions are always greater than his ability to achieve them, Fitzgerald is determined to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle, so that the locals can enjoy the music of Caruso and Verdi in their own habitat. The cunning, improbable plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across an Amazonian mountain with aid from the local Indians.

Gwen Goffe, former associate director, investment and finance at MFAH, picked Fitzcarraldo as part of a series that invites notable local celebrities to share a favorite film in Brown Auditorium Theater.