William R. Katovsky: Klaus Kinski's FINAL INTERVIEW A PERSONAL TRIBUTE Seite 4/6 With monetary backing from an Italian production company, Kinski, who played the composer, filmed Paganini in 1988. A finished cut has been shown in Europe, including a premiere at the Paris Opera House, but the movie was blocked from being commercially distributed in this country because of some sort of legal snafu between Kinski and his Italian money men, whom he characterized as the "mafia." Kinski needed $600,000 to buy the film distribution rights. He'd never allow himself to be extorted. "I told them to fuck off!" Even when presented with the opportunity to screen Paganini, Kinski was extremely selective in his choice of venue. Though he once hosted a private screening at Lucasfilm, he had recently turned down the Mill Valley Film Festival because the theatre lacked Dolby sound equipment. "Paganini can only be appreciated in Dolby," he insisted. "It can't be experienced any other way." Kinski viewed FRISKO as the ideal vehicle to call attention to Paganini, which he also thought was his greatest acting triumph. Because I never questioned his total indictment of celebrity journalism and because I practically agreed with everything he said, he decided to work with me. In the business world, it's called a win-win situation. Kinski would grant me an exclusive interview, while I would be responsible for assembling a multi-page cover story on the making of Paganini. Our mutual project would go forward; our destinies would intersect. My only fear: throughout most of his acting career, Kinski was notorious for being difficult to work with. His repeated falling-outs with film director Werner Herzog were legendary, including a near gun duel on the set of Aguirre. In his memoir, Kinski wrote, - "I absolutely despise this murderer Herzog. He should be thrown to the crocodiles alive. An anaconda should throttle him slowly. The sting of a deadly spider should paralyze him. His brain should burst from the bite of the most poisonous of all snakes. Panthers shouldn't slit him open with their claws, that would be too good for him! No. Big red ants should piss in his eves, eat his balls, penetrate his asshole, and eat his guts! The more I wish the most horrible of deaths on him and treat him like the scum of the earth that he is, the less I can get rid of him." I certainly didn't want Kinski to someday turn against me. Nonetheless, we arranged to meet over lunch the following week at Piazza D'Angelo in Mill Valley. "I can't eat in an Italian restaurant if it's not owned by Italians," he said. "You have nothing to worry about," I replied. "The two owners, Paolo and Domenico, are from Calabria." I was seated at the bar taking the first sips of a Moretti beer when a disheveled-looking, white mop-haired elderly man walked into the restaurant. Dressed in a Eurostyle leather bomber jacket, a pair of unfastened jeans opened at the waist, and a white T-shirt, he seemed disoriented by something. He was talking animatedly to Paolo, who was standing near the entrance. It took a few moments for me to register that this stranger was Kinski. Should I have been expecting Aguirre himself in l6th-century full body armor, with a sword at his side? This Kinski looked like a cross between Andy Warhol and Rutger Hauer. I slid off my bar stool to greet him. He exploded into a smile, relieved that I had found him and happy to see me. At 65, his deeply lined face bore the signs of a life lived hard, fast and on self-agonizing terms -,a roadmap of private pain. Yet his eyes, radiant and blue like a summer alpine sky, shone with power and intensity. They were the eyes of a fragile, haunted soul, of someone who felt too much and saw too much. © 1992 by William R. Katovsky and Frisko Magazine

Seite

1

2

3

4

5

6

zurück