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[Nicholas]

make a movie about a guy who tries to push a boat over a mountain by actually pushing a boat over a mountain and filming it.

That's a lot of what was so incredible in Aguirre. The opening shot of all the people walking up and down the mountainsides, if it were made today, would be all computer generated with fake parrots flying around and shit. Instead, they just had a bunch of people walk up and down mountains and it looks amazing. Same with the rafts on the river.

[David]

Seeing the movie knowing that he actually did it put things in a perspective that is hard for me to wrap my head around. There are so many ways to cheat it without using CGI that I couldn't understand why someone would do it but being it total awe of someone actually saying, "Fuck it. Let's do it the hard way."

I'd recommend reading more about Herzog, and his relationship with Kinski, as you watch more stuff by him. I keep the craziest anecdotes about him in the back of my mind whenever I'm watching something by him. It makes his films seem a bit more intense when you realize what kind of person Herzog is in real life.

[Nicholas]

I enjoyed this bit from Kinski's Wikipedia page:

He turned down a role in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, describing the script as "moronically shitty"

[David]

My favorite Herzog story is that he was shot during an interview but continued because "it wasn't a significant bullet."

[Illinois Smith]

My second-favorite Herzog story is that he bet a young Errol Morris, in order to encourage him, that he'd eat his shoe if Morris ever finished a movie. And when Gates of Heaven got a festival release, he did.