Gaze into the Face of Madness! | Cinema Sojourns

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The critically acclaimed but notoriously difficult actor Klaus Kinski in a photograph from his early years as a stage and film actor.

I’ve always thought that you had to be a little crazy to be a great actor and Klaus Kinski was more than a little crazy. If you don’t believe me read his purple prose autobiography Kinski Uncut which was also published under the title All I Need is Love in 1988. Or watch Werner Herzog’s 1999 film biography Mein liebster Feind (My Best Fiend-Klaus Kinski) about the German director’s volatile relationship with the actor. Better yet, try to get your hands on Paganini (aka Kinski Paganini), the actor’s only directorial effort and his final film, which was released in 1989. For those with all-region DVD players, you can still find PAL copies of it on Amazon’s German web site in a double disc release from SPV Recordings. If you thought Ken Russell’s film biographies of Tchaikovsky (The Music Lovers, 1970) and Liszt (Lisztomania, 1975) were excessively over-the-top and in flamboyant bad taste, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Paganini also features supporting roles for French actor Bernard Blier (Les Miserables, 1958), Dalilia Di Lazzaro (Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, 1973), Eva Grimaldi (Joe D’amoto’s Convent of Sinners, 1986), Marcel Marceau as – big surprise – a pantomine artist and Kinski’s wife Debora Capriolglio in her first lead role.

Kinski imagines his muse as a rock superstar of his era – think Mick Jagger with a violin in the 19th century and the film reflects Kinski’s own fantasies of himself as much as it does his passion for Paganini’s music. But be forewarned: Paganini is so out of control you may not be able to get through it in one sitting. Sensory overload. Watching it in one viewing may result in an epileptic seizure.

Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini (Klaus Kinski) drives the audience crazy with his live performances in the 1989 biopic PAGANINI.

The film is no typical period biography but a non-linear, stream-of-consciousness fever dream that might be the most egotistical and obsessive star vehicle ever made. Or maybe it’s a work of genius and we just aren’t ready for it yet. Werner Herzog would disagree. He refused to direct it after Kinski requested his services. This anecdote emerged during a dinner with Herzog, Atlanta’s High Museum film curator Linda Dubler and friends in 1996 for a revival showing of his Aguirre, Wrath of God. Herzog rolled his eyes at the mention of the biopic, calling it "terrible." He said that Kinski saw himself as Paganini, irresistible to women and a genius but that he couldn’t even frame a simple shot or tell a coherent story without his ego sabotaging his every creative impulse.

In the 1989 biopic PAGANINI the focus is always on the famous musician and no one else as seen here with Klaus Kinski stealing the scene from his co-star and wife Debora Caprioglio.

He has a point. Kinski is in almost every scene, chewing up the scenery and his co-stars with wild abandon. If you think he looks wild-eyed and possessed by the devil as the legendary violin virtuoso, you need to check out the behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of Paganini because that is proof that he really was the wild man he often appeared to be. Aguirre, Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Jess Franco’s Count Dracula with Kinski in a wordless performance as the crazed Reinfield, and the villains from his spaghetti westerns, Edgar Wallace thrillers, and cheap genre horror and sci-fi thrillers: These are all aspects of the off-camera Klaus you’ll see in the Paganini supplements (Please note that only the main feature is offered as an English audio option on the DVD, the extras do not come with any English subtitles or audio options but you hardly need them).

Klaus Kinski directs himself in the over-the-top biopic of the famous Italian violinist PAGANINI (1989).

Better than any reality show, more hilarious than any recent so-called outrageous Hollywood comedy, the Paganini extras are worth their weight in gold for any Kinski addict. He’s certainly more fun to watch than just about any other actor I can think of but I also appreciate the fact that I’m not in the same room with him and can view him from the safety of my living room couch.

Polish actor Klaus Kinski directs and stars in the 1989 biopic PAGANINI, which was the actor’s final screen appearance.

According to Gregory Avery’s excellent overview of Paganini at the Nitrate Online website Kinski turned the movie into a family affair, casting himself as the legendary violin virtuosi of the 19th century, his young wife Debora Caprioglio as Paganini’s wife Antonia, his son Nikolai as the musician’s beloved son Achille, and his daughter Nastassja in a key role, but she walked off the set after three days, never to return (Ever since he divorced her mother and she became an international actress on her own, they had little contact by Nastassja’s...