March 12 movie: My Best Fiend. My goodness, that Klaus Kinski was a crazy son of a bitch. I hear that Werner Herzog wasn't exactly a paragon of calm rationality himself, but he was the one making the movie so he comes off a little better. The movie was Herzog's elegy to Kinski, and I think he found and interviewed every person in the world who had something nice to say about Kinski's character. Hint: there weren't many. The most telling moment for me was Herzog saying how much he missed laughing with Kinski, with their arms around each other, and then admitting that he wondered if he only thought about it because it was recorded on film. I got the impression from the old footage (largely from Les Blank's documentary about Fitzcarraldo) that there wasn't much laughter between them, on the whole.
my best fiend
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I LOVED that film - and agree, Kinski, wonderful as he is to watch, was obviously a nightmare to work with. But the whole story of their meeting (wasn't Herzog fourteen years old?) is so remarkable and unlikely - and their collaborations produced fabulous work.
Yes I think Herzog said he was a boy living with his mother in the same boarding house Kinski lived in. I'm not sure if I believe that crazy story about Kinski locking himself in the bathroom for two days and destroying all the fixtures -- wouldn't the whole floor have been flooded? -- but it made a great story. In any case they definitely fit the "tortured genius" concept.