Dir: Klaus Kinski
Star: Klaus Kinski, Debora Kinski, Nicolai Kinski, Dalila Di Lazzaro

“Everyone knows what a pig he is. The whole world knows what a dissipated life he leads. It’s disgusting. His only interests in life are… money and, of course, women. The younger, the better, and if possible, underage. He’s obsessed with sex.”

The above lines are spoken at the beginning of the movie, by two priests on their way to Paganini’s house where the musician is dying, in an effort to administer last rights and save his immortal soul. But, obviously – and in the light of subsequent allegations, unfortunately – they are intended to be applied as much to Kinski himself. Klaus clearly sees himself as a spiritual descendant of Paganini, and even referred to himself as Paganini reincarnated: a great artist, whose genius is misunderstood and derided by his critics, but who is capable of touching the hearts of his audience directly. Quite how accurate he is there, could politely be called a topic for debate, but let’s face it: he had a one-man show in which he played Jesus Christ. No-one had a higher opinion of Klaus Kinski’s talents than Klaus Kinski.

However, it’s clear that whatever skills he had on the stage and in front of the camera, did not translate in any way to writing and directing. For the result is a complete mess, and an utter failure in terms of providing any significant insight into the life of Paganini. As an insight into Kinski’s self-image and psychological identity, on the other hand, there’s enough material here to keep an entire Las Vegas convention of psychiatrists happy. As disasters go, it’s a glorious, fascinating one, a misconceived project from beginning to end.

Werner Herzog says Kinski repeatedly asked him to direct the film, but Werner turned it down. When a man who dragged a full-scale boat over a mountain for his movie, calls your script “unfilmable,” it’s probably best to rethink it a bit. Klaus, naturally, had no such second thoughts, instead opting to direct it himself, and the result is the most batshit-crazy biography ever of a classical musician. And considering this field includes the likes of Ken Russell’s Lisztomania, that’s some gold standard for insanity.

It’s the kind of film which breeds urban legends, of varying credibility. There’s rumors of a 12-hour version. Or that the film contains so many long shots, because this allowed the crew to stay out of range of Kinski’s wrath. Before going on, I should mention the review is based on the director’s cut version, which runs 94 minutes. The producers, when they saw what he had delivered, were apparently appalled, calling it “pornographic”- not without reason – and suing Kinski. Their version, which received a minimal release, runs 80 minutes, although one presumes, is no more coherent. 

For there is little or no effort at any kind of narrative structure here: what you get is a series of montages, approximately 50% of which involve sex (or perhaps it just seems that way), and most of those involve Kinski. But not all. In one of the film more notorious sequences, Di Lazzaro, playing noblewoman Helene von Feuerbacha, is overcome in her carriage with lust at seeing a stallion servicing a mare, and begins masturbating furious while thinking of Paganini.

This is, it appears, perfectly normal. For another early montage shows Paganini on stage, while the (young, attractive) women in the audience are virtually orgasming in their seats, and generally reacting in a way that recalls Beatlemania at its height. There’s a lot of this kind of thing, unsubtly suggesting he is entirely irresistible to women: later on, one of his conquests goes on a self-abasing demand that he make love to her again, mere seconds after he has dismounted. “He is an animal!” it is bemoaned. “Given the chance, he would rape every girl he meets. Especially the ones underage!” Again with the benefit of hindsight and future events, an unfortunate choice of sexual predilection, not apparently rooted in biographical accuracy. Though one of the film’s themes appears to be how the legend of Paganini was exaggerated to malign him by his enemies, which could conceivably apply equally as much to Kinski and his legacy. Here, Paganini certainly doesn’t need to rape anyone, his partners are all entirely and enthusiastically willing.

In between the sex, you get footage of Paganini stalking the streets of Venice in slow-motion, violence to both a chicken and a goat, and scenes of family life, with his wife Antonia Bianchi, played by Debora Caprioglio. The two were having a relationship, even though Caprioglio was one-third Kinski’s age, and credited as Debora Kinski even though she was never actually married to Klaus [curiously, she also played the wife of his character in their other film together, Grandi cacciatori] Extending the familial feel, Nastassja was supposed to have been involved, but it’s reported, “after three days she fled from the set in tears, never to return”.

Instead, we do have Klaus’s son Nikolai, by his third wife, Minhoi. It’s actually kinda touching, because the affection between father and son appears entirely genuine on both sides. This also leads into the film’s best sequence, with Paganini playing the violin with increasingly berserk passion, as his son watches, entranced and holding a kitten. Which is a good place to laud Salvatore Accardo, whose performances provide the music for the film, and is awesome. If nothing else, he was apparently satisfied with Kinski in the role, saying, “Paganini has finally come back to us through you, Klaus.”

Mind you, that comes from the film’s website which says, almost proudly, “Just as Paganini didn’t need to tune his violin because he could play his unique music anyway, so Kinski doesn’t need to prepare, repeat or rehearse the scenes – he just does it. Also as the director, he doesn’t rehearse or repeat – he just shoots.” If having the ring of plausibility, this is probably the movie’s biggest problem: it’s no coincidence that the quality of Kinski’s performances appear almost directly related to the degree any given director was prepared to butt heads with him, e.g. Herzog. Here, there wasn’t apparently anyone with the courage to stand up to Kinski and rein in more self-indulgent ideas, such as apparently insisting on everything being shot with natural light [though this may partly be an issue with the transfer of the director’s cut].

This was described by one viewer as “very possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” and while I don’t agree, that isn’t an assessment with which I can find enormous fault. The review did continue, “on that score alone it’s clearly a must-buy,” and that does illustrate the conflicting emotions the film generates, much like the man himself. Yes, it’s a complete mess and abject failure, on just about every level. But as complete messes and abject failures go, it exerts an almost-hypnotic fascination, and I’d far rather have something like this, which takes the art of cinema and twists it into something bizarre, than another bland biopic. Klaus’s sole directorial credit is absolutely everything you would want or could expect from that, illustrating once more how thin the line is, between genius and insanity.