In the 1999 documentary ***My Best Fiend*** (*Mein liebster Feind*), the main character is the director himself, **Werner Herzog**. The film serves as a retrospective on his volatile yet legendary professional and personal relationship with the late actor **Klaus Kinski**, who died in 1991.
### **The Main Character’s Goal**
Herzog’s goal in the film is twofold:
1. **To document and reconcile their legacy:** Herzog attempts to create a definitive posthumous portrait of Kinski that captures both his "genius" and his "madness." He seeks to understand how two men who frequently threatened to kill each other managed to produce five of the most celebrated films in German cinema history (*Aguirre, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo,* and *Cobra Verde*).
2. **To separate fact from fiction:** Kinski published a highly inflammatory autobiography (which Herzog calls "highly fictitious") filled with vile expletives and insults directed at Herzog. In the documentary, Herzog's goal is to set the record straight, showing that their bond was a "psychic connection" where they were "ready to go down together" for their art.
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### **Specific Obstacles**
The primary obstacle Herzog faces—both in making the films discussed and in the documentary itself—is **Klaus Kinski’s extreme, often violent personality.**
Specific obstacles detailed in the film include:
* **Unpredictable and Violent Rages:** Herzog showcases Kinski as a man incapable of containing his fury. The film opens with footage of Kinski’s "Jesus tour," where he screams at his audience and physically assaults anyone who interrupts him. Herzog recounts an incident from their youth where Kinski locked himself in a shared bathroom for 48 hours and smashed every fixture into pieces "so small they could be sifted through a tennis racket."
* **Physical Danger on Set:**
* **The Gun Incident:** During the filming of *Aguirre, the Wrath of God*, Kinski threatened to leave the production in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Herzog famously told Kinski he had a rifle with eight bullets: seven for Kinski if he tried to leave, and the eighth for himself. Kinski stayed.
* **The Rifle Shot:** During *Fitzcarraldo*, Kinski became so enraged by the noise of indigenous extras partying that he fired a Winchester rifle into their tent. He shot the fingertip off one man; Herzog notes it was a "miracle" no one else was killed.
* **The Sword Attack:** In another scene, Kinski struck an extra over the head with a sword so hard that the man suffered a permanent head scar despite wearing a protective metal helmet.
* **Hostile Production Environments:** Many of their collaborations took place in the Amazon jungle, which acted as a catalyst for Kinski’s instability. Herzog faced the obstacle of managing Kinski’s fear of insects, heat, and "green lushness" while trying to film massive feats of engineering, such as dragging a real 300-ton steamship over a mountain.
* **Mutiny and Threats of Murder:** The tension between them was so high that Herzog claims a local indigenous chief offered to kill Kinski for him "in all seriousness" because they could no longer tolerate the actor's behavior. Herzog also admits in the documentary that he once planned to firebomb Kinski's house, a plan only thwarted by Kinski's vigilant Alsatian shepherd.
* **Psychological Warfare:** Throughout the film, Herzog struggles with the paradox of his "best fiend." Even as he recounts Kinski’s monstrous behavior, he has to overcome the obstacle of Kinski’s absence (as he is dead) to find moments of tenderness—like a rare clip of Kinski calmly playing with a butterfly—to prove his thesis that there was a "great human warmth" beneath the rage.