Director Werner Herzog claimed Klausi Kinski’s sensationalistic autobiography “All I Need is Love” was a pile of conflated BS designed to sell books. Was it?
What’s the real deal on this autobiography.BS or not?
Considering what Klaus wrote about his daughter Nastassja in the first draft, I sure as hell hope so.
I probably shouldn’t be posting about this, because I haven’t read it all the way through, but you have to understand that Klaus Kinski wasn’t just “difficult,” or “eccentric,” or stuck in his artistic headspace. The man was a full-blown lunatic who was once committed to a hospital for a few days for trying to strangle his girlfriend. I believe he was diagnosed at the time with some sort of schizophrenia.
I doubt anyone could be sure at this late date, but I’ve got to go with Herzog, if for no other reason that Kinski could serve as the poster child for unreliable narrator.
You know you’re crazy when Werner Herzog seems sane in comparison. I highly recommend Burden of Dreams, the story behind Fitzcarraldo.
I’m not sure anyone could take the book at face value at all. Even read straight, you’d have to conclude that Kinski was a deranged and damaged lunatic. Whether he was lying or honest doesn’t seem quite the right measure in such a case.
I will admit that the book is rather readable, at least in an extremely pulpy fashion.
Honestly, I don’t think you can trust anything about what either of those guys have said about the other. A couple of lunatics in a twisted, co-dependant relationship. But, man, they made great art together.
Is there a book on the experience of filming Aguirre, the Wrath of God?