Werner Herzog: Ecstatic Fictions, a retrospective dedicated to Werner Herzog's fiction filmmaking, will be running on Mubi in the United States from May 28 - July 29, 2016.My Best Fiend: A metaphor for...something "It’s a great metaphor,” Werner Herzog declares proudly towards the end of My Best Fiend, his autobiographical reflection on fifteen years of cinematic collaboration with actor Klaus Kinski. The metaphor in question is visual. Herzog and film set photographer Beat Presser are looking at a black and white photo hanging in Presser’s apartment. It’s a striking tableau and gripping enough that it would become the poster image for Herzog's 1982 collaboration with Kinski, Fitzcarraldo. The titular character stands in the foreground, yet with his back to the camera. His emotions are unavailable, but he is undoubtedly preoccupied with the 300 ton steamboat high above him at an impossible 90 degree angle, as it disappears up...
- 6/3/2016
- MUBI
Klaus Kinski Was a Man's 'Best Fiend' / Werner Herzog's docu traces a symbiotic bond with the volatile actor
In fading archival footage, German filmmaker Werner Herzog and one of his key colleagues, the late actor Klaus Kinski, are seen at the Telluride Film Festival, locked in an embrace. In voiceover, without a trace of irony, the director says, "I had only shortly before given up my plan to murder him."
There are several startling bursts of candor in the riveting, frequently remarkable "My Best Fiend", Herzog's documentary essay on art and movies, friendship and betrayal. The movie explores the deeply symbiotic relationship between these two proud, defiant and fascinating figures of the New German Cinema. Through a skillful melange of documentary footage, interviews, photographs and extracts, Herzog makes explicit the connection between artist and collaborator, provocateur and psychopath.
Given the attention the film has generated at festivals in Cannes, Telluride, Toronto and now in Chicago, New Yorker Films should strike gold in key specialized markets, especially where the invocation of their names summons deep regard for their work. The force, visionary power and transcendent shape of Herzog's movies depended to great extent on their emotional connection to Kinski. What made their artistic allegiance so powerful was the fact Kinski embodied the qualities and themes Herzog's movie were built on -- power, greed, ambition and madness.
Beginning with 1972's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", Herzog and Kinski made five films together. From the start, their working relationship was contentious, difficult and inherently at odds with one another. "My Best Fiend" attempts to explicate the tormented and volatile personality of Kinski, an actor alternately praised and feared for his volcanic temper and mood shifts, but especially his monumental ego that insisted he be the center of artistic expression and thought.
The film is Herzog's attempt to work out his inchoate feelings and attitudes about Kinski, who died in 1991. "My Best Fiend" is fundamentally about the nature of friendship, the dark side of attraction and what compelled the two men to return working with each other. Drawing on interviews with actors Ewa Mattes and Claudia Cardinale and photographer Beat Presser, Herzog paints a purely disturbing portrait of the artist as madman.
The organizing shape of the film is Herzog's travels to the remote Brazilian jungles where the director filmed his last major feature, "Fitzcarraldo", in 1982. Herzog is very good at analyzing Kinski, but if there's a weakness to the film, Herzog doesn't go deep enough to examine his reasons -- personal or artistic -- in maintaining his connections with the actor.
In returning to the past, Herzog animates a fascinating, revealing moment in film history. It is unexpected, shocking, witty, sad, profane and quite moving.
-- Patrick Z. McGavin in Chicago
MY BEST FIEND
A New Yorker Films release
A co-production of Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, Cafe Prods. and Zephir Films, for the BBC in collaboration with WDR, Arte, BR, YLEand the participation of the Independent Film Channel
Credits: Director-narrator:Werner Herzog; Producer: Lucki Stipetic; Executive producers: Andre Singer, Christine Ruppert; Production manager: Ulrich Bergfelder; Camera: Peter Zeitlinger; Sound: Eric Spitzer; Editor: Joe Bini; Assistant director: Herbert Golder; Music: Popol Vuh. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 95 minutes.
In fading archival footage, German filmmaker Werner Herzog and one of his key colleagues, the late actor Klaus Kinski, are seen at the Telluride Film Festival, locked in an embrace. In voiceover, without a trace of irony, the director says, "I had only shortly before given up my plan to murder him."
There are several startling bursts of candor in the riveting, frequently remarkable "My Best Fiend", Herzog's documentary essay on art and movies, friendship and betrayal. The movie explores the deeply symbiotic relationship between these two proud, defiant and fascinating figures of the New German Cinema. Through a skillful melange of documentary footage, interviews, photographs and extracts, Herzog makes explicit the connection between artist and collaborator, provocateur and psychopath.
Given the attention the film has generated at festivals in Cannes, Telluride, Toronto and now in Chicago, New Yorker Films should strike gold in key specialized markets, especially where the invocation of their names summons deep regard for their work. The force, visionary power and transcendent shape of Herzog's movies depended to great extent on their emotional connection to Kinski. What made their artistic allegiance so powerful was the fact Kinski embodied the qualities and themes Herzog's movie were built on -- power, greed, ambition and madness.
Beginning with 1972's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", Herzog and Kinski made five films together. From the start, their working relationship was contentious, difficult and inherently at odds with one another. "My Best Fiend" attempts to explicate the tormented and volatile personality of Kinski, an actor alternately praised and feared for his volcanic temper and mood shifts, but especially his monumental ego that insisted he be the center of artistic expression and thought.
The film is Herzog's attempt to work out his inchoate feelings and attitudes about Kinski, who died in 1991. "My Best Fiend" is fundamentally about the nature of friendship, the dark side of attraction and what compelled the two men to return working with each other. Drawing on interviews with actors Ewa Mattes and Claudia Cardinale and photographer Beat Presser, Herzog paints a purely disturbing portrait of the artist as madman.
The organizing shape of the film is Herzog's travels to the remote Brazilian jungles where the director filmed his last major feature, "Fitzcarraldo", in 1982. Herzog is very good at analyzing Kinski, but if there's a weakness to the film, Herzog doesn't go deep enough to examine his reasons -- personal or artistic -- in maintaining his connections with the actor.
In returning to the past, Herzog animates a fascinating, revealing moment in film history. It is unexpected, shocking, witty, sad, profane and quite moving.
-- Patrick Z. McGavin in Chicago
MY BEST FIEND
A New Yorker Films release
A co-production of Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, Cafe Prods. and Zephir Films, for the BBC in collaboration with WDR, Arte, BR, YLEand the participation of the Independent Film Channel
Credits: Director-narrator:Werner Herzog; Producer: Lucki Stipetic; Executive producers: Andre Singer, Christine Ruppert; Production manager: Ulrich Bergfelder; Camera: Peter Zeitlinger; Sound: Eric Spitzer; Editor: Joe Bini; Assistant director: Herbert Golder; Music: Popol Vuh. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 95 minutes.
- 10/26/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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