Trivia

To perform the scene in which Kaspar learns to walk, actor Bruno S. knelt for three hours with a stick behind his knees until his legs were too numb to stand.

Werner Herzog's said at his Rogue Film School, that the following scenes were shot with a Super-8mm camera: a) The opening scene on the river. b) The montage of landscape shots early in the film. c) Right after the man in black teaches Kaspar how to walk. d) The Caucasus pyramid sequence. e) The caravan in the desert with the old man tasting the sand. Herzog talked about how, for some of the landscape shots early in the film, he mounted a telephoto lens on the end of wide angle lens onto his Super 8 camera. This distorted the edges of the images and created a white/halo effect around the frame. On the DVD audio commentary of this film, he mentions how for the Caucasus pyramid sequence he projected the image onto a screen and then re-photographed the image with a 35mm camera at a different frame rate from the projected speed. He also used this technique with the caravan in the desert sequence.

The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.

Based on true events and recounted tales of the real-life Kaspar Hauser.

Film debut of Bruno S.. He was not a trained actor, in fact, he was a self-taught painter and musician, and when director Werner Herzog saw the documentary Bruno der Schwarze - Es blies ein Jäger wohl in sein Horn (1970) he decided to cast him in this film.