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Released by: Universal/Kinski Estate
Released on: 8/24/2010
Director: Peter Geyer
Cast: Klaus Kinski
Year: 1971
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The Movie:
Directed by Klaus Kinski's autobiographer, Peter Geyer, from footage shot decades before, Kinski Jesus Christ Savior is a documentary that records a 1971 spoken work performance by the actor in front of five thousand people at a concert hall in Berlin called The Deutschlandhalle. No stranger to one man show spoken word performances, Kinski had originally intended to tour with this performance but it wound up receiving one and only one night in front of an audience. Werner Herzog brought the performance to some notoriety when he used a clip from it in the opening sequence of his documentary on Kinski, My Best Fiend.
The set up is simple - the enigmatic Kinski walks out on stage dressed in tight fitting purple pants and a flowered shirt looking every bit a hippy, and begins his monologue which purports to tell the true story of Jesus Christ. You know from his opening words 'Wanted: Jesus Christ, for anarchistic tendencies' that Kinski's spin on the messiah story is going to be an interesting one. Standing alone on the stage in complete darkness save for the light of a single spotlight shining directly on him, Kinski elaborates on his subject but soon becomes increasingly irate when the audience tries to speak over him. As the tension builds between audience and performer, Kinski notes that Christ did not have a big mouth, unlike some of the 'pigs' in the audience.
From here, Kinski goes into a rage and walks off the stage, roughly fifteen minutes after beginning the act. He comes back out moments later and starts again, from the beginning, only to essentially dive head first into more audience push back. It becomes increasingly obvious that the vast majority of people who paid 'ten marks' to get in did so just to cause trouble. The audience becomes increasingly antagonistic towards Kinski, who responds in kind and eventually screams at them and launches a microphone stand off of the stage. He exits, and a promoter comes out and asks the troublemakers to leave. Kinski then returns to a group of roughly a hundred people, and once again tries to deliver his monologue, but it's obvious that the anger he feels is overpowering him and the message he intended to deliver is lost.
As all of this plays out in front of the camera, we feel the political tensions that were brewing in Germany at the time. Kinski is frequently called a fascist by members of the audience, most of whom are younger hippy types obviously rebelling against the far right politics of the generation that preceded them. Kinksi's bursts of anger only add fuel to this fire, and it's fascinating to watch it all spiral out of control and to watch how Kinski's personality completely erodes any Christ-like tendencies he may have initially hoped to demonstrate. For a show that should have preached love, tolerance and compassion, Kinski Jesus Christ Savior turns remarkably fast into a series of hate filled diatribes and outbursts of uncontrollable rage.
Kinski's experience on the stage shows and he's obviously comfortable in front of a live audience, but his fragile ego soon proves to be too easy a target. It's easy to see why the audience would want to bring out Kinski's inner lunatic - it's the same reason people try to by Shane MacGowan drinks before a Pogues concert, they want to see a living train wreck! - but you also have to feel a bit for Klaus here. He does really seem to have been trying to do something different and something unique and it sure seems like he really wanted to finish this performance properly. Much of the blames lies with himself, for his reactions to the audiences behavior, but that doesn't diminish the parts of the performance that he does successfully pull off and which he delivers with great dramatic flair and convincing sincerity.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe transfer was taken from elements that were in surprisingly good shape. Some age related print damage is visible here and there but generally the color reproduction is strong and detail is better than you'd probably expect it to be. Sometimes the stage lights wash out a bit of detail but generally things look really good - you can even see the veins about to burst out of Kinski's forehead as he gets increasingly upset.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound mix is in German, though subtitles are offered in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Italian. This is a pretty simple mix but it gets the job done. There aren't any problems with hiss or distortion and it's all well balanced. The English subtitles are white and sometimes a bit hard to read against Kinski's shirt, also white, but aside from that minor complaint there are no issues here.
Extras are a bit on the slim side but aside from the disc's menu screens you'll find a collection of five deleted scenes and three separate promo spots for the performance. Aside from that, inside the keepcase is a booklet of liner notes that offer up some history for the performance in both English and German.
The Final Word:
A unique and fascinating document of a truly unique and fascinating performer, Kinski Jesus Christ Savior should be considered an essential purchase for anyone with even a remote interest in Kinski's work.