There are certainly similarities, but slightly different themes. Check out both movies and decide for yourself. While you're at it, see (or read) Oscar & Lucinda - another movie about an eccentric trying to bring 'civilisation' to a remote place.
sharetwo things instantly reminded me of fitzcarraldo: ice as gift to the natives and "god didnt complete his creation".
and of course the obvious similarities: south american natives, an european quixotic character,...
but that really doesnt justify calling it a rip off. but i believe that, who ever put this 2 things in the script, had fitzcarraldo in mind.
Welcome to 2023. Definitely a Fitzcarraldo feeling, but not as good.
shareIt is possible but I think unlikely as the book came out the same year as the film Fitzcarraldo, so it seems both would've been in the process of being written about the same time. As far as I've heard novelist Theroux and film-meker Herzog didn't collaborate or share notes or have anything to do with one another.
shareJust watched Fitzcarraldo and this movie came to mind right away. So did the movie The Mission with Robert De Niro and Aguirre, Wrath of God.
"Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same." Lee Woo-jin (Oldboy)
Definitely some similarities and I liked it, great acting and script in both but Fitzcarraldo, I believe, is one of the top films from the era. Harrison is very good in this but Kinski just plays the hell out of a madman on an insane quest. In some ways this film reminds me more of Der Zorn Gottes, The Wrath of God.
shareNot at all. The focus is entirely different. Fitzcarraldo isn't a misanthrope, despite the suggestions in the film that he despises his profiteering peers with no taste for art. His quest is also very different, and he is actually encouraged by his loved ones (Claudia Cardinale) to do it. Similarly, his obstacles are different. I always felt the typical description of MADMAN KINSKI!!! was misapplied to Fitzcarraldo; he is driven and frustrated, but not insane. At the end the film is a simple testament to man's "burden of dreams", as the herzog-documentary so aptly put it.
Allie Fox's quest is so different, and psychologically it is more complex. The Mosquito Coast's main dilemma is: how can an idealist live with others? Allie Fox answers this by absolute self-reliance, but it turns out to be destructive to his family (the intimate representation of the OTHER). The implication is that no man is an island, and that uncompromising idealism may be functionally equivalent to blind narcissism. There are other minor themes as well; it is a "theme-rich" book and movie.
So you see its very different from Fitzcarraldo, jungle+river notwithstanding :)
I have to imagine that Weir was heavily influenced by Herzog.
Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.