I remember seeing this for the first time at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and Chrissy and I were so overwhelmed. It is a movie about penguins, Antarctica, strange people, chronic wanderers, conservation, Werner Herzog bizarre brain and icebergs bigger than England. It also has weird fish!! I love weird fish.

Thinking about Hosoe and Mishima reminded me of Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog, one of the most legendary director-actor relationships in film history - and also one of the most iconic. Though they were most productive and successful when working together, they despised each other - in fact, on the commentary track of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog says the Amazon Indians offered to kill Klaus Kinski, but Herzog wanted to kill the actor himself.

“My Best Fiend,” a metatextual 1999 documentary by Herzog, explores the director’s feelings towards Klaus Kinski; it begins with this scene from Kinski’s legendary “Jesus Show,” a world tour that had Kinski interpreting the life of Jesus. There was only one performance because Kinski erupted with rage at the end.

“Herzog is a miserable, hateful, malevolent, avaricious, money-hungry, nasty, sadistic, treacherous, cowardly creep…he should be thrown alive to the crocodiles! An anaconda should strangle him slowly! A poisonous spider should sting him and paralyze his lungs! The most venomous serpent should bite him and make his brain explode! No—panther claws should rip open his throat—that would be much too good for him! Huge red ants should piss into his lying eyes and gobble up his balls and his guts! He should catch the plague! Syphilis! Yellow fever! Leprosy! It’s no use; the more I wish him the most gruesome deaths, the more he haunts me.” - Klaus Kinski about Werner Herzog

“People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other’s murder.” - Werner Herzog on Klaus Kinski

touche, gentlemen.