The relationship between an actor and their director is a very interesting one. It is a relationship that can only go as far as both sides are willing to take it. In many ways the relationship relays on both to give everything they got, in order to succeed. An actor can act only as good as what the director willing to allow. Likewise, a director can only get so much out of an actor, if the actor is not willing to put their heart and soul into the project. It is a relationship based on trust, respect, and love for the craft to making great films. There are many iconic actor/director relationships throughout the history of the cinema. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro/Matt Demon, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hawks, Quinten Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson, and the iconic duo John Ford and his actor John Wayne.

Almost every director in the film industry has their go to actor for a film they are planning. These director know he can get a moving performance out them, that will elevate the film. Likewise the actor knows that the director will truly push him to his best performance, which is why they also come on to the projects. While there are many of these relationships, one stands above all the rest. One fueled by pure hatred for one another but great mutual respect for the other talent. One Fueled by their obsession with pushing each other to their breaking points, in order to get the best out them. That relationship goes to the German duo of directors Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. In the span of 15 years the two would make 5 films together, and would have the most intense relationship in cinema history.

Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski are not very well known in America culture, or media. You probably have never heard of the two men, or even know they work together. This is mainly due to their films not being super commercial, and the fact they are German film, and most America’s probably do not know them. But as obscure as they are, they are two very significant people in cinema, making some of the greatest films ever to grace the silver screen. The two are also national icons in the film world in Germany. With Werner Herzog being arguably the greatest director from Germany ever.

You probably have more question’s than answers right now, after reading this. You are probably wondering what made their relationship some unique and most importantly what it so intense.  Well before we get into that, we must first understand who Werner Herzog, and Klaus Kinski. It is important to understand the character and backstories of the two men to fully understand the relationship they had.

You might have not heard about Herzog, but you probably heard his voice. He has one of the most iconic voices ever in the film history. Werner has an iconic deep old man voice with a slight German accent can be found in many of his documentaries, such as Grizzly Man, and Lesson of Darkness. It not just his works you can find him, he is often in pop culture like tv shows such as the Boondocks and the Mandalorian. Even though now a day’s he is more well known for these aspects in his career, in the early days of his career, he was better known as a young experimental filmmaker who would push the boundaries of traditional film.

Werner Herzog was born on 5, September 1942 in Munich, Germany, but his original name would be Werner Stipetić. His early life was marked by consent fear of bombing raids that would destroy his family house, and for his early years, his family was forced to live in the refuge and leave Munich. When Werner was 12, they moved back to Munich, where his father abandoned the family for unknown reasons. Werner would later take up his father’s surname of Herzog (Germany “duke”) because he thought it sounded more impressive for a filmmaker. Herzog would work years of odd jobs and study the craft of film, going to multiple colleges in Germany and the US to study film. He eventually rose in the ranking in the film industry and, in 1971, would make his 3rd feature film, named Aguirre, the Wrath of God.

Klaus Kinski is less well-known than Werner Herzog. He not hugely known in America media, and film societies. The actor is more of a nation star within the German community. He has evolved in some way into a meme due to his infamous rants and tantrums. But as joked as he is in the world today, he is one of the best actors who can give a riveting performance. Herzog would describe Kinski as:

Klaus Kinski was born on 18, October 1926. His father, Bruno Nakszynski, was a failed opera singer turn pharmacist. His mother, Susanne, was a nurse, and pastor daughter. He was in what the German nationals in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig (now Sopot, Poland). His original name was Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski. Due to the Great Depression, the family could not make a living in Danzig. They would move to Berlin in 1931, where they also struggled. They would live in a flat in the Wartburgstraße 3, in the district of Schöneberg, and took German citizenship.

During WW2, Klaus would conscript into Wehrmacht at the age of 17. He would see little action in the war and was eventually captured by British forces and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, where he would spend the rest of the at war. There is where he found his passion for acting, taking part in a variety of shows intended to maintain morale among the prisoners. After the war, Klaus returned home to learn that his father had died during the war. His mother was also killed in an Allied air attack on the city. Klaus would adopt the name Klaus Kinski and seek a life in the theater industry. Klaus would not see much success in theater, with many finding it hard to work with his explosive and crazy behavior. He would bounce around different touring groups.

Klaus would eventually shift to the film industry, where his first film role was a small part in the 1948 film Morituri. From there, he had many different roles, in many different movies, with him even having a role in numerous spaghetti westerns such as For a Few Dollars More, with Clint Eastwood. It was not until 1972, when his career really took off. That was the year he got the script from a young German director named Werner Herzog for his film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and his career was forever changed. 

In our great big complex world, sometimes things seem  destinied to happen. whether you believe in destiny or not, it sure felt like for Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, it seems like they were destiny to make films together. The odds of someone like Klaus Kinski a crazy, almost psychotic, once Nazi, actor meeting a teenage Werner Herzog living with his mom, seem impossible. They were just too different in so many different aspect of there life to be meeting each other.

But the world works in are strange ways sometimes. When Werner was merely 13 years old, he would meet Klaus for the very first time. Klaus who at the time was a homeless actor, trying to make a name for himself. Was given refuge in a boarding house where Werner was also living with his family. Werner would describe his first times seeing Klaus, was him locking himself in the communal bathroom. He stay there for 48 hours and destroyed everything in the room. Describing the behavior like that of a wild animal.

For a couple months Klaus would live in the apartment with Herzog, behaving in a usually irate, and inhuman like manner. According to Herzog he would practice 10 hours straight on his practice for vocals, and acting, and his little room. He would often scream at level that Werner says could brake wine glasses. Often he would throw his stuff around his room in rage. Klaus left a deep impression on Herzog in those very few months. One what would spark a 15 year long partnership. 

Aguirre the Wrath of God

Aguirre the Wrath of God was the first time Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski would work together, as well as being the 3rd feature film for a still young Herzog. According to Herzog, he had always envisioned Klaus playing the role of Aguirre in the movie. Herzog would send Klaus the screenplay, and according to Herzog:

Upon receiving the call, Werner found Klaus screaming and yelling at him. Werner would then state:

The film itself follows the storyline of a slow descent into insanity. The official synopsis, according to IMDB, is as follows:

“South America, 16th Century. Spanish explorer Don Lope de Aguirre leads an expedition down the Amazon river to find the fabled city of El Dorado. Beset on all sides by unfriendly natives, the journey will turn out to be a treacherous one. An even bigger enemy of the party is themselves, as they start to turn on each other. Even more problematic is their leader, who is quite oppressive and does not appear to be entirely sane.”

Although Klaus loves the screenplay, during the filming, the two would find themself getting into what you would call very violent arguments. Stuck in the Peruvian rainforest, Klaus constantly got into furious fits of rage over the most minor things. Causing both Herzog and Klaus to get into a legendary levels of argument when they were filming. There were many records of noteworthy events of the actor and director fighting each other:

One significant source of argument came at how the actor should portray Aguirre. The two would constantly clash over this point during the film’s production. Klaus wanted to play this madman, who would scream and yell, while Werner saw a quieter, and more menacing character. In order to get the performance Werner desired, before each shot, Herzog would deliberately infuriate Kinski. After enduring an hour of the actor hot-tempered rage, he would eventually “burn itself out.” Herzog would then roll the camera. It is important to note he would do this for almost every shot in the film.

During one particularly rowdy night of the production, Klaus, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, repeatedly fired with a Winchester rifle into it. One of the extras would lose his finger from the gunshot. Werner Herzog immediately confiscated the weapon, and it remains his property to this day.

During one of the scenes in the movie, when the Spanish are attacking a village, Klaus hits an extra over the head with his sword. If not for his helmet, which was an authentic medieval helmet, the man would have been killed. However, he got a severe head wound from the whole ordeal.

According to Herzog, Klaus threatened to leave the film entirely due to Herzog’s refusal to fire one of the sound assistants. Herzog says he threatened to kill Kinski and then turn the gun on himself if Kinski left. Herzog would later declare he was quite prepared to do so, knowing that the authorities would write it off as a hunting accident. Kinski stated in interviews that Herzog wielded a pistol to emphasize the threat, but Herzog denies this.

Much of the film occurs on a rift in the middle of the Amazon river to portray the party’s slow descent into madness. Because of this, Herzog would force his cast, including Klaus, to live on this rift for weeks while filming. Also, the film is shot in chronicle order, so the actor were quite literally, on some level, really going crazy from their prolonged time on the raft.

During the film’s ending scene, there is a sequence involving a massive amount of monkeys running around the boat. At the same time, Klaus walks around in his madness. Werner would state that the man he had paid to get the monkeys for him only brought half and sold the other half to someone else. In a desperate action, Werner would pretend to be a veterinarian at the airport and say the monkeys didn’t have their vaccination documents. He took them away, and brought them to his film production. Werner would also state that the monkeys bit him 50 times during filming, and Klaus would also claim that the monkeys bit him. All the monkeys were released after the filming was done.

[dd-parallax img=”https://jesuitroundup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Image-1.jpg” height=”800″ speed=”2″ z-index=”2″ position=”center” offset=”true” text-pos=”bottom”]Photo of Klaus Kinski playing Lope de Aguirre in the film “Aguirre, the Wrath of God[/dd-parallax]

After a long and almost crazy filming process, the film was edited and released on December 29, 1979. It initially had a very poor reception, with it not being too popular in America or other European nations. Over time it would become one of the biggest cult classics in South America and among film buffs. On a critical level, the film was praised by every critic, like Vincent Canby, writer for The New York Times, calling it:

Danny Peary, a famous sports and movie critic, would write:

Even the great Roger Ebert, the most significant film critic ever, would give the film a 5-star rating. He would also add the film to his book Great Movies and have the film on his top ten best movies on Sight & Sound. Martin Scorsese also has the film on his list of “39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker.” Although not very popular, the film has become one of the greatest films ever to be made, a testament to Werner and Klaus’s talent and their incredible determination. Also, the film would be a big source of inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic film Apocalypse Now.

It was not until 1979, almost seven years before the duo would work on a film together. By this time, the two have already made their names in the film industry in Germany, working on numerous projects thru the years. Their next film would be “Nosferatu the Vampyre.” Werner Herzog would cite that the film as a homage remake of F. W. Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu (1922), a loosely base adaptation of Bram Stoker Dracula. Now, Werner did not have permission to use the intellectual property of the novel, which was owned (at the time) by Stoker’s widow Florence. This resulted in a lawsuit, which saw all film prints being destroyed. Werner would wait till 1979 when the novel  copyright would expire and enter the public domain.

The story itself, while not staying faithful to the source material it is based on, still displays a very unique and somewhat nuanced retelling of the classic novel. There is themes of fear, life, and according to Herzog themes of “sexual attraction,” which had never been done in a a Dracula film. Basic summary of the film according to Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

“In Wismar, Germany, Lucy, and the real state agent Jonathan Harker is a happily married couple. Jonathan’s boss Renfield sends him to Transylvania to sell an old house in Wismar to Count Dracula. The locals advise Jonathan of a village, to return since the count is a vampire, but he does not give up on his intent. Jonathan visits Count Dracula, and when he sees the photograph of Lucy, he immediately buys the real estate. He drinks the blood of Jonathan and navigates to Wismar, carrying coffins with the soil of his land, rats, and plague in the ship. Count Dracula kills the crew members along the voyage, and a ghost vessel arrives in Wismar. Meanwhile, Jonathan rides to his homeland to save Lucy from the vampire.”

Kinski would be playing the role of Count Dracula, which Herzog had to envision the position being filled in by. As usual, Werner and Klaus would always clash while filming the movie. According to Herzog, he would say that the rats in the film were better behaved than Klaus himself. Will there were not as many reported clashes between the two, there were still many sources of conflicts in production so go through them:

One of the reasons Klaus was so enraged in production was that he would spend approximately four hours per day in makeup. This was which was highly uncomfortable for him. The fresh latex ear pieces had to be poured for each day of shooting because they were destroyed at removal. Although Klaus was very patient and well-behaved with Japanese makeup artist Reiko Kru, with whom he had a good relationship with. Klaus would even note that although he hated makeup, he understood the importance it brought to the role of Dracula. Additionally, Klaus would have to be driven to the set of the film, in his Dracula costume. The fact that they were shooting the film on hot Summer days made the car extremely hot, which irritated Klaus greatly and added to his temper.

Similarly to Aguirre, in the Wrath of God, Klaus wanted his character to have a more energetic performance. At the same time, Herzog envisioned a very solemn performance. To get this performance, Herzog would go back to old tricks, get Klaus extremely angry, and get into massive tantrums before filming. When Klaus exhausted himself, Werner would start shooting.

It would not be too long till the two got together, with their next film in 1979. The work on this film happened five days after the work on Nosferatu the Vampyre, using the same exhausted actors and crew. Much of the film was done in one take, causing the filming process of the film to be finished in only 18 days, and edited in just four days (the film is 82 minutes long). The film is an adaptation of the unfinished play Woyzeck by German dramatist Georg Büchner. Now Klaus was not original mean to play Woyzeck, instead Germany actor/artist Bruno Schleinstein was to play Woyzeck. But Werner would change his mind, and decided Klaus would fit the role better. To compensate Bruno disappointment, Herzog wrote the leading role in the film Stroszek especially for him (this was before the production of Woyzeck or Stroszek).

The film is the, story of Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a mid-nineteenth-century provincial German town. He is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie. To raise money for the family, he decided to participate in a medical experiment that involved eating only peas. Woyzeck’s mental health begins to break down, and he begins to experience a series of apocalyptic visions. As this goes on, Maria starts to stray her attention to a new handsome drum major. Who in almost every way is superior to Woyzeck. This all lead up to the violent conclusion, which changes the town forever.

Since the film was shot in such a quick time frame, there is not a lot of info on Werner and Klaus’s relationship during the movie. But they probably fought a lot of times during the production, as usual. The only information I found was that Klaus when seeing the poster for the film and Werner Herzog’s name in big letters, would rip it to shreds immediately, mainly because his contract said that his name must always be the biggest one on the poster.

Interestingly although the actress Eva Mattes, would find Klaus Kinski in the film to be very kind, and loving. This is quite a common theme when it comes to Klaus Kinski and female actors. Many of them would find Klaus to a very shy, loving actor, but they also saw his great talent in the art of acting.

After it was released, Eva Mattes, who played Maria in the film, would win best supporting actress at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. The film was met with many positive responses, with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel (film critic for the Chicago Tribune) recommending the film. As usual with Herzog’s films, it was probably not hugely financial success. In 1981, the film won the Silver Guild Film Award from the Guild of German Art House Cinemas.

It would not be until three years later, in 1982, that they would work on the film together. There next film would be the now iconic film “Fitzcarraldo.” Herzog would say the inspiration behind the film was based on the historical figure of Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald. Who, in the 1890s, arranged for the transport of a steamship across an isthmus from one river into another. Which was done by carrying over the pieces of the ship and having them reassembled at the destination. Interestedly enough, Klaus was not even considered for the role. Instead, actor Jason Robards was cast for the title role of Fitzcarraldo.

Things want south with Jason though. During the early stages of filming, he would become sick with dysentery. When getting treatment, his doctor forbade him to return. Jason also reportedly hated being in the jungle, and all the long filming sessions. Werner would also consider casting famous actor Jack Nicholson, who reportedly loved the screenplay and wanted the role. He demanded his usual 5 million dollar salary, which was too much for the producers to pay, so they did not cast him. Klaus would accept the role, and the whole production of the film would have to be started from scratch.

In many ways, the film follows the traditional hero storyline. But displays this in a very unsettling and almost deranged manner. The synopsis, according to IMDB, is as follows:

“Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), called Fitzcarraldo by the local natives in the South American rubber capital where he lives, has a dream to create an exotic opera house so that the music of Caruso, and Pucinni, and Wagner can be brought to the wilderness. As he and his girlfriend Molly (Claudia Cardinale), the madam of the top brothel in the city, run to see a local opera performance, Fitzcarraldo manages to get the attention of a local financier Don Aquilino (José Lewgoy) and gets to create a plan to finance his dream. Using Molly’s money, Fitzcarraldo buys a boat and goes up the Amazon River to a jungle inhabited by Indians intent on killing any white men who enter.

Becoming awed and subdued by Fitzcarraldo in his white suit and the music of Caruso, the Indians accept the blond entrepreneur as a god and do his bidding. At this juncture of the Amazon, the river is separated from another of its legs by a few miles of mountains, so the Indians are enlisted to drag the 180-ton ship from the river and over the mountains to the other leg to facilitate rubber transportation. During the task, Indians are used as slaves, with the ultimate goal of building the opera house. As trees are felled, and mountains are dynamited. Fitzcarraldo struggles to realize his obsessive dream to bring opera music to the jungle.”

As usual, Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog would clash all the time on the set of the film. It was one of the reasons why Herzog did not want Klaus in the movie because he thought the actor would go “totally bonkers” if trapped on location in the Amazon during the production’s lengthy shooting schedule. His fears proved to be correct. There are a lot more documented events of them two clashing, with many seeming unreal. Let go over them:

On a particular occasion, one of the crew members would be filming one of Klaus’s infamous tantrums. Although on this occasion, it was not Herzog who would receive Klaus’s fury, but the capable production manager Walter Saxer would be the receiver of Klaus rage. Although they never say why he was in a fit of rage, only saying it was for a trivial matter that Herzog himself did not care about. From there mentioning of food many times in the clip, I am assuming Klaus mad at the food he was eating. The clip would be used in Werner Herzog’s 1999 documentary My Best Friend, a film about his relationship with the actor Klaus Kinski. In the 3-minute and 50-second clip, according to Werner Klaus outbreak on this clip seemed relatively mild.

Werner Herzog also states in the film that Kinski’s violent fits of rage would often scare the natives working on the film as extras. This came to a point in which the native chief would ask Werner if he wanted them to kill Klaus Kinski for him. Werner would deny the request, sighting that he had to get the film finish, and he needed Klaus to accomplish that. But knowing this, Werner would play into this tension and fear in a scene where Klaus is eating his food and being circled by a bunch of natives. It was most likely genuine fear by Klaus in this scene, as he knew the natives were terrified of him and were willing to take great measures to keep themself safe from Klaus. It is also important to note that there is some scrutiny of this story. Later down the line Walter Saxer, the production manager of this film, later stated that Herzog’s story was not true.

If you do know this alright from now, Klaus was extraordinarily self-centered. He needed to be the center of attention all the time, during the production. He would sometimes purposely get into fits of rage so that he could have the attention brought back to him. During one famous incident, while worker were clearing away some brush for the production. One of the local Peruvian loggers was bitten by a venomous snake. He made the dramatic decision to cut off his foot with a chainsaw to prevent the spread of the venom. Werner and the crew rush to aid the men, and as he describes in his 1999 documentary. Klaus seeing he had no attention, would rage over the food. This cause Werner to lash out at Klaus, talking him down, and tell him to stay quiet, which Klaus obeys.

Werner Herzog reportedly got so tired of Klaus Kinski’s attitude and his constant yelling that he went to his tent and grabbed a tiny piece of chocolate he had saved for months. He said that the crew would murder him for the bar of chocolate. He sat down very close in front of Kinski and calmly ate the chocolate. This left Klaus so perplexed that he immediately went silent.

The film was released on 5 March 1982 in West Germany. The film got many glowing reviews from many film critics. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars in his original 1982 review. He added it to his “Great Movie” collection in 2005. Ebert compared it to films like Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey, noting that:

Also, legendary Japanese filmmaker, and one of the greatest directors, Akira Kurosawa, cited Fitzcarraldo as one of his favorite films.

The film won the German Film Prize in Silver for Best Feature Film. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d’Or award for the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Herzog won the award for Best Director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. The film was selected as the West German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 55th Academy Awards, but did not make the shortlist of nominees.

In 1987 (5 years after the filming of Fitzcarraldo), Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski worked on their 5th and last film together, named Cobra Verde. Based upon Bruce Chatwin’s 1980 novel The Viceroy of Ouidah. Herzog had to race to acquire the rights for the novel before musician David Bowie, who also showed interest in adapting it into a feature, would try to get it.

Cobra Verde is the tale of a man named Cobra Verde, who was hired by a plantation owner  to supervise his slaves. But when the plantation owner suspects Cobra of consorting with his daughters he become enrage. He decides not to kill him but rather to send him on an impossible mission to Africa. The mission is to re-opening the slave trade in Western Africa. Cobra decides to accept even though he knows he will most likely not survive. After going through harsh torture and humiliation in Africa, Cobra succeeds in getting the slave trade up and running. His success is a short live, as he falls out of favor with the king. What comes next is a journey of a chaotic struggle as Cobra tries to keep the trade alive and not be captured or killed by his enemies. And ends with his eventually downfall on the beach as the sun goes down.

As usual, Klaus and Werner how legendary personalities would clash throughout the production. With it being the peak of their decade-long chaotic partnership. The film production was significantly affected by the two fighting and Klaus’s irate outburst. The crew was constantly plagued by these frequently by Klaus’s rage. It got so bad that it would famously cause the film’s original cinematographer Thomas Mauch, to walk out of the production. This came after receiving a wave of verbal abuse from Klaus.Herzog replaced him with Czech cinematographer Viktor Růžička. 

Even before filming began, Klaus would fight with Werner and disobey him. One such occasion involves the film’s location, a source of conflict between the two. Werner would show Klaus the photos of where they have the possible location to film in Ghana, Brazil, and Colombia. Klaus found the landscape of Colombia an interesting place to film, but Herzog disagreed. So Klaus would go there with some friends to the remote areas that fascinated him. These places include the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Cape of the Sailing. Which was on the peninsula of La Guajira, Colombia. This would not affect Werner’s decision on location. He would decide to film Villa de Leyva and Valle del Cauca. Klaus would comment on these choices by saying:

Other than those occasions, there is no documented event in which Werner and Klaus would clash in production. But there is an iconic photo of Klaus attempting to throttle Herzog in front of a crowd of African extras. When Werner was discussing the photo with the photographer Beat Presser. Werner believed that Klaus, aware of the camera, would stage a dramatic scene of him trying to kill him. Presser, however, believes that Klaus is genuinely trying to kill him. The photo would later be used as the cover for Werner’s 1991 documentary My Best Fiend. Also, on this film set, there were many occasions, of Kinski tried to attack Herzog with a rock.

The final scene of the film, would also be the final scene they shot in production. By this time the whole crew was exhausted, but during this scene Klaus according to Werner would give it his all, and put his whole soul into it. He would continue by saying that the scene in many way, burnt him out, and after that he lost the spark of his acting. Herzog also exhausted of his time with Klaus would end there collaboration.

The film was released on 3 December 1987. While not much is known about how financial or critically successful it was. It would go on to win two awards. The film would win Best Production and Sound at the Bavarian Film Award. 

In 1991, Klaus Kinski died in his house in California from a sudden heart attack. He was 65 at the time of his death. Eight years later, Werner Herzog reflected on his relationship with his actor Klaus Kinski in his 1991 documentary My Best Fiend.

Herzog, in this documentary, relives his experience with Kinski. From the first time they met when he was just a humble 13-year-old living with his mom, in that small apartment. From all the movies he made with them to their final project together. It takes a deep look into the character and person Klaus Kinski and his friendship with him. Along with interviewing friends and fellow cast members, he paints us a picture of who Klaus true character, and personality. It’s like watching an older man reminisce about the good times. Laughing at all those time he fought with Klaus Kinski when filming his movies. Tackling the lowest points between them and the highest points between the two great artists. It is an outstanding film if you genuinely want to know about their relationship. Currently it is free on youtube movies if you want to watch it.

As much as I talk about how much these two would get into volatile fights while filming. It is essential to understand that they were both friends. They had this odd love-hate relationship. One built off of mutual respect, pure love for film, and willingness to sacrifice everything to the art of film. The best parts of their friendship, in my opinion, come at those little moments. When we see Werner and Klaus meet as humble friends, hugging and laughing with each other. It brings these two men down from what many see as these untouchable wise, but obsessive filmmakers. And displays them as just regular guys who were not too different from us.

We will never have a relationship that will match or be like the one between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski in cinema. Whether it is because their relationship is a product of another time in the film world. One mark by a wave of young, talented, and experimental filmmakers. Filmmaker who would going out in the world, making films. Films no one has ever seen, and doing things that broke the tradition laws of film. It was a lawless time in the film industry, where creativity would flourish. A time where Klaus and Werner can strive in.

Ultimately, the tale of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski is the story of two great artists. Two megalomaniacs whose ego’s, and talents would often collide. It is the tale of pain, and it’s a tale of pleasure, success, and ego. I will close this article with a quote from Werner Herzog. It will sum up their perfectly: