heller!

Every petition we entered for a deed vanished at once in the labyrinthine provincial bureaucracy. Our attempts at bribery failed, too. Finally, having traveled to the ministry responsible for such things, in the capital city of Lima, I was told that, even if we could argue for a legal title on historical and cultural grounds, there were two stumbling blocks.

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In order to carry on filming Fitzcarraldo during the war that was raging between Peru and Equador, Herzog forged a 4-page document from the Peruvian president that ordered all armed forces along the Amazon to give his film crew free passage and assistance.

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[He] recounted temporarily halting his shoot on the Peruvian Amazon only after getting shot at by a teenaged border guard. Two days later Herzog returned from Lima with a “beautiful” four-page forgery adorned with three large signatures and an official-looking German stamp that translated: “If you want the rights to this photograph, contact the owner of the copyright.”