Question: Why did Klaus Kinski try to kill one of the crewmen with a sword prop?
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
1 question
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Del Negro, Helena Rojo, Ruy Guerra
Visible crew/equipment: In the film's final moments, as the camera revolves around the raft, you can see the wake made by the camera boat on the river's surface. (01:32:49)
Don Lope de Aguirre: Perucho, don't you think the cannon might be a little bit rusty?
Perucho: It might.
Trivia: During the filming of one scene in a native village, Klaus Kinski hit one of the crewmen over the head with his sword, almost killing him. The man survived because he had a helmet on.
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Answer: Kinski suffered from mental illness for most of his life. He was given to bouts of unprovoked outbursts and violence. He was eventually diagnosed with psychopathy (antisocial personality disorder). On movie sets, he was notorious for being physically and verbally abusive to the crew, who generally hated him. The sword incident was just one of many. On the production of this film, director Werner Herzog carried a gun on him in the event he had to protect himself or others. It was only because Herzog was a long-time friend that he hired Kinski for acting jobs. Kinski was flat-out crazy. He was eventually unable to get any work as an actor.
raywest ★
Agreed. I forget what film set it was but Kinski also once fired a rifle at a bunch of crew members and blew a guy's finger off. He was unstable.
Jack Vaughan
It was also Aguirre, The Wrath Of God. Kinski was irritated by the noises from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards and, out of anger, repeatedly fired a Winchester rifle into it. One of the bullets took the tip of an unknown extra's finger off.