He's also quite repentant that, at one time, he once meditated in 'firebombing' Kinski's house. He is fully guilty of the fact that he once threatened Kinski with a gun just to prevent him from leaving the still unfinished production of "Fitzcarraldo". Judging from Kinski's demeanor, you already have a clue of what has transpired.īut despite of these shenanigans, Werner Herzog, with his all too personal analysis of Kinski's psyche in relation to his own, is subtly elegiac about the whole thing. He also shared a little anecdote involving Kinski, some 45 movie extras and a Winchester Rifle. We also see one of the extras in "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" whose head still bears the scar where Kinski has once hit him with a sword. We are even granted a peek into some rare footages that shows Kinski both at his unstoppably worst (as he verbally assaults a production manager) and at his subtly caring best (as he tends to a wounded cameraman). Returning to the locations of their two most heralded collaborations, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Fitzcarraldo", and even a brief visit to the location where "Woyzeck'" was shot (with a reflective interview with star Eva Mattes), Herzog retraces the path of their insane acts of mutual artistry that's both appalling and fascinatingly magnetic. This is friendship at its most reluctant. This is artistic narcissism matched with mad ambition. This is not your ordinary actor-director relationship. "That makes two of us!" Herzog blurted out when Kinski accused him of being a megalomaniac. In the end, he just wants to eternalize Herzog not as a restless madman but as a serene friend not as a difficult eccentric but someone that could have easily been him in a parallel lifetime. But aside from this notion of reliving Kinski's eccentricity and enigma in a very reflective fashion, this documentary film also serves as a chance for Herzog to analyze and interpret what has been going on inside Kinski's mind all throughout their troubled film collaborations that were often marred by the latter's lengthy diatribes and temperamental unpredictability.Īrmed with an eloquence that's both strangely moving and profound, Herzog probes deep into his professional and personal relationship with Klaus Kinski not just to feed our minds with how things have occurred between them but also as a form of myth-making on his part. It also chronicles their turbulent relationship through strange anecdotes and firsthand stories on set. "My Best Fiend" is Werner Herzog's love letter of a documentary film to his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski.
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