Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of the film, just after one of the soldiers is hit in the chest with a spear and falls overboard, there is a shot of another soldier (who is missing teeth) lying dead on the raft. If you look in the top left corner of the shot you can see the foot of a crew member wearing a modern trainer shoe. (01:22:42)
Visible crew/equipment: Towards the end of the film, when a tree branch damages the straw roof of the raft as it passes under a tree, you can see a crew member stood watching filming behind Aguirre and his men who are trying to dislodge the branch. He's wearing a cap, a white shirt and blue pants. (01:22:12)
Visible crew/equipment: Near the beginning of the film, when the whole party is moving through the swamp, there is a moment when the carriage containing the two women almost topples over. If you watch the right side of the screen when this happens you can see a hand come into frame to help steady the carriage. The hand is white and sleeveless (at least to near the wrist) and obviously doesn't belong to any of the soldier's or slave's. On the Blu-Ray commentary track for the film, Werner Herzog states that this is his hand. (00:09:10)
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)
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.