 Many of the scenes depicted in the film were unrehearsed and  unstaged, and the dividing line between the cast acting in character  and simply reacting to their situations as people became very  blurry. For example, in one of the opening scenes, when the carriage  holding Aguirres daughter tips over and threatens to collapse, a  hand comes in from the right side of the frame to assist the actors  in steadying their hold. That hand belongs to director  Werner Herzog (qv).