Sightlines · reception
How My Best Fiend was received
1999 · Werner Herzog · My Best Fiend on Sightlines
The arc
Warmly received at Cannes 1999 as the definitive account of cinema's most volcanic director–actor feud, it now reads differently: Pola Kinski's 2013 revelations about her father made the 'lovable madman' framing feel far darker in hindsight.
What’s debated
Fans endlessly debate how much to trust it — it's Herzog's side of the story, told after Kinski's death, by a director who cheerfully admits to preferring 'ecstatic truth' over the factual kind.
Its footprint
The go-to reference point whenever a toxic director–actor collaboration comes up, and the source of endlessly-shared anecdotes: the trashed bathroom, the on-set death threats, and the Peruvian chief who quietly offered to kill Kinski for Herzog.
Where it stands
An essential companion piece to Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo and a Letterboxd documentary favorite — the film that turned the Herzog–Kinski legend into canon.
Did you know? Herzog claims in the film that he helped Kinski write the vicious insults about him in Kinski's own autobiography, because they agreed pure venom would sell more copies.