![]() However, with a little foresight (and myth-making of its own) “The Lost City of Z” provides a fresh perspective. MORE: Dark secrets of Hong Kong uncovered by urban explorersĪdding to the myth is perhaps unavoidable at this stage – especially given the impossible task of imagining Fawcett’s final days. Because, as rude as it sounds, then you’ll get caught up in it – the mythologizing – and that wasn’t my interest.” “It’s almost like you had to make a movie not acknowledging them. “It would get me panicked that I would screw it up… If I thought about it it’d destroy me,” Gray adds, only sounding like he’s half-joking. “I tried not to think of the people who are obsessed with Fawcett,” he says. Was there any pressure, given the mystique surrounding Fawcett? Some episodes were omitted – not because they were prosaic, Gray says, but because, within the context of a film, they were too remarkable to be believable. Eight expeditions were turned into three, each with their own sense of purpose. “I thought this is essentially impossible,” he remembers after reading Grann’s book. Gray, also on screenwriting duties, had the unenviable task of condensing a monumental life into 141 minutes. They have no resistance to a lot of the diseases we have.” And even if they wouldn’t have your head, if you had a common cold, for example, and you shook their hand and gave them it, they would die. “There are 62 uncontacted tribes, and they will have your head. “You can’t really shoot there,” Gray says. ![]() As for Xingu itself, there were more fearsome obstacles in the way. All that area that was deep jungle essentially looks like Nebraska,” he explains. “It’s an unfortunate truth, but a lot of where Fawcett was has been cut for soybean farming. Amazon Studios/Bleeker Streetįilming in Pantanal, Brazil would have been the ideal location, says the director, but it proved impossible. MORE: Sailing through one of Earth’s last paradisesĭirector and screenwriter James Gray. He compiled his findings, first in a New Yorker feature, then 2009 bestseller “The Lost City of Z.” As its film adaptation opens to critical praise, the release is a good occasion to pause for thought and review the late explorer’s theories – much of which have since been proven true. As recently as 2004 there was one hypothesis he had run off with an “ erotic siren.”īut David Grann’s travails, broken laptop and all, yielded new information – of Fawcett, and Z also. A skeleton claimed to be Fawcett’s was revealed to be an imposter. Some were captured by tribes other lost their lives. Handfuls of men, including intrepid amateurs, scoured Brazil’s Xingu River region in vain. It’s said Fawcett’s gung-ho exploits at least partly inspired the character of Indiana Jones. A variety of thinly-veiled retellings appeared in Hollywood, and his story was pastiched in a 1930s Tintin comic. Fawcett’s tales had previously inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Lost World,” and in the decades after his disappearance his pop culture influence grew. The man, already a legend, transcended into myth. In fact, he’d written a new chapter in an epic, 90-year-old mystery – and though he hadn’t concretely proven Fawcett’s fate, he’d come close.įawcett was said to have inspired the character of Indiana Jones. Grann’s fixer returned hours later and, unlike Fawcett, the journalist emerged from the jungle with answers. “I don’t want to do that again,” he says. You can just start spinning in circles, because the wilderness starts looking the same.” “ still holds this potential… you can really get turned around. ![]() “That gave me a real sense, a glimmer, a glimpse, of what Fawcett and his parties went through every day,” Grann says, recalling his predicament from the safety of a London cafe. Grann may have been armed with the latest technology and an armful of inoculations, but in that moment he and Fawcett were almost one and the same. ![]() Or he was, until his local fixer and guide went missing. Despite a lack of physical fitness and a loathing of camping, the writer was hot on Fawcett’s trail. Unbeknown to him, it was already broken beyond repair. The seriousness of the situation was matched only by its absurdity, as he moved through the mangroves raising his laptop aloft. Thos Robinson/Getty Images North America/Getty Images for The New Yorker FestivalĮstimates suggest that around 100 people had already died in the hunt for Fawcett, and Grann refused to be the next.
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