Credit: Dangerous Minds / Zephir Film

The fact that any movie gets made, whether it’s Sinners or The Room, is a complete miracle.

This isn’t to say that every film is good or deserves some level of respect. Haters and critics provide a service more important than anyone blindly consuming ever could. However, movies are basically impossible to make. Just ask anyone who’s made one. Each of them has a different, impossibly complicated way of catching lightning in a bottle, then showing it off to everyone and hoping that they don’t just shrug and go back to their lives.

Anyone who commits their life to making films is certifiable, and there are few better examples of this than Werner Herzog. To some audiences, Herzog is better known for the “I would like to see the bay-bee” meme from his guest spot on The Mandalorian, but don’t be fooled, he’s also one of the most critically acclaimed and respected directors in European cinema. Many of those films were made in collaboration with the actor Klaus Kinski, quite possibly the only man alive at the time who could match his freak.

The cornucopia or riches they created speak for themselves. Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu the Vampyre; Woyzeck; Fitzcarraldo; and Cobra Verde, all masterpieces and Herculean tasks in their own way. There isn’t a frame of those films that wasn’t bled over by anyone involved in the film, not least Kinski and Herzog themselves. Anyone who thinks that this was some close friendship, or even a functioning partnership, is profoundly mistsaken however.

If anything, the biggest miracle of those five pictures is that Herzog didn’t kill Kinski with his bare hands.

Why were Kinski and Herzog at each other’s throats?

So, first things first, Kinski’s alleged shameful behaviour wasn’t saved for a movie set. If we’re to believe his daughters, who accused him of sexual abuse following his death, his behaviour while shooting was nothing compared to what allegedly happened at home. So it becomes very easy to believe why Herzog held an intense, vitriolic hatred for Kinski.

Perhaps the director knew, partially, what he was getting into, at least. Herzog’s first exposure to Kinski’s work was seeing a theatrical production where he played Jesus in a one-man show. Kinski broke character to berate the audience for not listening, started swearing at the crowd and then, when someone tried to lead him offstage, started screaming incoherently. That was the guy that Herzog took a look at and thought, “That’s him.”

Kinski took that attitude into the production of Aguirre: The Wrath of God, causing the two grown men to have full-on fistfights about his behaviour. Rumour has it that Herzog made Kinski finish a take at gunpoint comes from this movie, although the truth is that Herzog only verbally threatened to shoot him. Admittedly, it isn’t a whole lot better, and from everything one can read about Kinski’s behaviour, it’s kind of miraculous that he didn’t find a bullet with his lead actor’s name on it.

If you need proof, check out the documentary Herzog made about Kinski eight years after the actor’s passing. Simultaneously, My Best Fiend is a study in what makes a terrible person worth collaborating with, while showing the depths of his behaviour on set. I mean, the poster is Kinski grabbing Herzog by the throat, a terrifying look of murder in his eyes. Yet for whatever reason, Herzog felt that it was worth putting up with.

In fact, it says more about Kinski’s behaviour that Herzog eventually called time on their creative partnership. This was a man who once had his crew drag a 320-tonne steamship up a hill for the sake of filmmaking. Yet eventually, Kinski was the one thing he couldn’t put up with.