A video on one of the greatest cinema actors of the XXth century, who played the principal parts in such famous films as Agirre Wrath of God, Nosferatu: the Phantom of the Night etc.TranslationWerner Herzog:Klaus used to say that there was nothing more fearful than English captivity. At that time any day for him, a German soldier, could become the last one. He was captured soon after he was taken to the army, a young boy, 18 years old. There was so little room in the cell that it was impossible even to turn one's face away from the stinking mouth of another prisoner. For 5 years they were fed with some rotten stuff. I saw this fear, a fear of desperation in his eyes when he put on the Nazi uniform once again, for this time only for a movie. He believed that a real actor must take out all his nightmares from the depths of subconsciousness, and only this way he could play a dramatic part well. This was the first thing he told me when we got acquainted.Speaker:The type of Kinski as an actor: a maniac mixed with a god's fool. He even doesn't need makeup, he has got everything from the nature. An awful, hot and aggressive temper -- he derived it from when he being a child had to defend his half-drunken father from an infuriated mother. Such an actor is a natural born madman and needs no explanations of his task. He's a strange person, Klaus. Some call him an actor by God's mercy, some say: by the Devil's. It was for these qualities that he was chosen to play the part of Agirre in the film "Agirre, Wrath of God". A Spanish conquistador searching for Indians' gold. Nobody else could play the role of an insane conquistador the way Kinski did. Nobody else was offered it, though. Werner Herzog:"There are only two things worth living for: wealth and glory". That's what Agirre cries to his companions. Kinski invented the words himself. Then, in 1971, he was the conquistador. In order to enter into this character he even walked with a curved spine for several months. Doctors had difficulty recovering his normal bearing. During the shooting process we quarreled with him for many times, and after the release of the film we had no relations with one another for six years. But I believe that this is our best film.Speaker:A genius Klaus Kinski. In the early 1970s rumours on the arising of a new cinema Devil spread through all bohemian world. As nectar attracts insects, in the same manner these rumours attracted women to Kinski. Thousands of orgasms the actor was proud of like some war booty, tens of thousands of women that craved for experiencing it with him. Kinski was even said to have had intercourse with his daughter. "A devilish creature", they whispered behind him. "A genius", sounded like an echo. Damned, hated and burning with a hellish charm, Kinski plays a part in a Herzog film again. And only his little son isn't afraid of his new character. During the first show of the film "Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night" the child cries: "Daddy!" with the daddy being a grey-faced vampire saying: "You can't imagine how hard it feels, to live without love". Werner Herzog:Together we made as many as five films. I tried a lot of actors for principal parts, but no one could overplay, or rather overllive Kinski". He was miraculously organic. My acquaintances used to ask me: "how can you work with him, he's just crazy!". I answered: You don't know him. He is like an animal that cannot be good or evil. He just is.Speaker:Kinski's face. Some psychologists assert that one's look is not only an amalgam of genes but is the essence of one's I. Severe, animated, stony, empty... The face of Klaus Kinski -- what is behind it? Insanity? No, it's too simple. After a divorce with his first wife he said that he saw in his reflection a universal loneliness. He didn't look for, but was afraid of it. Kinski was not a good lover: he either drowned the partner in his passions or drowned himself. And it brought no good results: quarrels, adultery, divorces... and big roles that a "mad" Klaus Kinski was offered by many great film makers: Fellini, Spilberg, Coppola... But he was ready to work with only one person: he was able to be faithful like a beast. Werner Herzog:I remember him approach and say to me one day: "Thank you" -- said he and left. This happened here, we were shooting "Fitzcoraldo". Just a second ago he had been an incarnate panopticon, and now... I hardly kept from bursting into tears, so touching it was. It seems to me that I still haven't realized who Klaus Kinski was, although in every film I was trying to bring out his inside. I was making him to become someone who I myself wanted to be but could not on account of some kind of bourgeois cowardice. Now I watch footages, walk about in these places, think and try to understand my friend. I want so much to understand him, because he understood me better than anyone else.

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