It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome to the next picture show, movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film

and how it shaped our thoughts in a recent release.

I'm Scott Tobias here with...

Keith Phipps.

Here on the next picture show, we believe that no film exists in a vacuum

and that all culture is more interesting in context.

So every other week, we get together to talk over a classic film and consider how it relates

to a current movie. This week, we're hacking our way through miles of untamed South American jungle in search of profound truths and ancient civilizations. Personally, I love the jungle. I think it's full of erotic elements. What do you think, Genevieve? Well, there is some sort of harmony here, Scott. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. Wow. So I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. But maybe we'll settle our differences over the two jungle adventures in this week's episode. Want to tell us about those? Oh, sure. The new James Gray film, The Lost City of Z, based on David Grant's best-selling book, tells the story of Percy Fawcett, a turn-of-the-century British explorer who made multiple attempts to find an ancient city in the Amazon. While on a perilous mission to map out a border between Brazil and Bolivia, Fawcett discovers evidence of what he believes was a great lost civilization in the heart of the jungle. His obsessive quest courts danger from the extreme heat, from disease and

deadly animals, and from indigenous peoples who are suspicious of outsiders. In order to achieve his

elusive goal, Fawcett has to contend with nature first, and his struggles were called director

Werner Herzog in Burden of Dreams, Les Blanks's documentary about the making of Herzog's Fitzgeraldo.

Both men are inspired and a little bit crazy, and their actions say a lot about the vision and hubris of Westerners trying to conquer an untamable territory. Yes, it's like I was saying, Genevieve. The jungle's great, especially if you're experiencing in an air-conditioned theater or in the comfort of your own home, just as I experienced burden of dreams and the Lost City of Z. So catch jungle fever with us after the break.

At the age of 37, German filmmaker Werner Herzog has a worldwide reputation as one of the

most talented directors to come out of the movement known as the new German cinema.

In 1977, he ventured deep into the upper Amazon jungle of Peru, scouting locations for a surrealistic adventure film he'd been planning for years, Fitzcarraldo.

From the beginning, he expected it to be an extremely difficult project,

but it wouldn't be the first time he'd risked everything for new images.

In 1971, for instance, he came to the upper Amazon to feel Maggiere, wrath of God,

and he and his crew spent weeks living on rafts in the middle of the river.

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