Werner Herzog's My Best Fiend
The Madmen Klaus Kinski and Herzog and how They Created Great Cinema
Sep 12, 2008
Summary
My Best Fiend is Herzog's personal exploration of his relationship with actor Klaus Kinski. An actor with which he worked with on numerous films. What makes this relationship so interesting is the insanely passionate manner of both Kinski and Herzog. The audience watches from set to set, in some cases looking at actual footage from the film, in others watching behind the scenes. Herzog is using the film footage to establish Kinski the actor, as he delivers his lines and portrays the characters. The behind the scenes footage is where Herzog makes his case of the "fiend". In one example he provides footage from the set of Fitzcarraldo showing Kinski in a heated debate with the production manner over the food being provided. Kinski is raving and ranting like a madman, while Herzog just sits back calmly and lets it all happen. Herzog doesn't imply that all the crazy behavior is Kinski's, he states right out that he is just as insane as Kinski, if not more! Herzog explains that during the shooting of Fitzcarraldo Kinski threatened to leave the set. As he was preparing to leave Herzog told him point blank that if he tried to leave that he would shoot him. Both he and Kinski knew that if he left, Kinski would have been shot.
Herzog uses these examples of their eccentric behavior to provide a backdrop for the viewer to see their love/hate relationship. He explains that it was the only way they could work together but that it worked for them and ended up providing for some excellent film.
Objective vs Subjective
Herzog's documentary film My Best Fiend is one of the more interesting documentaries available. From the passive footage of Herzog exploring Kinski's history to the erratic and sometimes violent displays by both Kinski and Herzog we get a very colorful picture of their relationship. All this on top of the fact that Herzog is also directing the documentary. This does a good job to blur the lines between the film as a documentary and the film as a personal, subjective memoir. This ofcourse plays directly into the very appropriate title My Best Fiend. The film will certainly be biased to a large extent because it is the relationship that Herzog had with Kinski that is being explored. More than this though Herzog is trying to show that with all the heated arguments and tantrums that the two of them had a very close relationship and that it is something that Herzog treasures. Kinski truely is Herzog's best fiend.
My Best Fiend sets a standard
This particular film is interesting on many levels. The interplay between the supposed objectivism of a documentary to the obvious subjectivism of Herzog's film about himself, My Best Fiend is a film that puts an interesting spin on the documentary. It is one in which the common method of labeling doesn't quite apply and by analysing it in a different manner we can gain new appreciation for the possibilities of documentaries and future films of this persuasion.
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