klaus kinski Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Quick List: Five Of The Scariest Stares
Filed under: Fandom », Lists »
I had every intention of seeing The Men Who Stare At Goats this weekend, but time gets away when you're doing laundry and scrubbing dogs. So I turned to Netflix and decided to do a double feature of Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Cobra Verde. Yeah, I'm not sure why I do these things to myself either.
But the intense eyes of Werner Herzog's best fiend inspired a little list of the actors and actresses who inspire you to shift in your seat with just a single gaze. The list is long and extremely difficult to narrow down to just five, and is unfairly biased towards the menfolk. While a very honorable mention goes to Clint Eastwood's squint, in the interest of variety and equality I decided to honor five others that were equally as terrifying. I hope you dig deep into your fears, and offer up your own picks of a stare that might not be able to kill goats, but that you don't ever want staring into your soul ... or at least across your work desk. (It is Monday after all, and what would your employers do if they caught you having fun with us instead of filing those TPS Reports?)
Head below the jump for the quick list ....
A Small Collection of Klaus Kinski Outbursts
Filed under: Fandom », Trailers and Clips »
One of the best things about YouTube is that you can find bizarre treasures that fans have lovingly transferred from VHS or Betamax for your viewing pleasure. One of the most fascinating crazycakes actors of all time, Klaus Kinski, is in full effect on YouTube, so I've gathered a few of his most fabulous outbursts for your viewing pleasure. Author Dennis Cooper has also excerpted on his blog some of the more choice quotes he found online from one of Kinski's books, All I Need is Love. He certainly wasn't lacking for sex, since Kinski, despite his looks and batty tendencies -- or perhaps because of them? -- had a way with the ladies. But I digress. If you think Abel Ferrara's choice words for Herzog, Kinski's frequent collaborator and frenemy, was bad, check this out:
Now I absolutely despise the murderer Herzog. I tell him to his face that I want to see him perish like the llama he executed. 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 his throat open with their claws, that would be too good for him! No. Big red ants should piss in his eyes, eat his balls, penetrate his asshole, and eat his guts! He should get the plague! Syphilis! Malaria! Yellow fever! Leprosy! In vain. 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!YouTube crazy time after the jump!
RvB's After Images: Nosferatu, The Vampyre (1979)
Filed under: Horror », After Image », Columns »
The image of Lugosi's Dracula is heavily copyrighted; Nosferatu is, by contrast, an open source vampire; you could tell that from his cameo a few years back on Sponge Bob Square Pants. The silent classic was originally a bootleg version of Bram Stoker's novel. When Werner Herzog went to work on a remake of F. W. Murnau's 1922 vampire film, he could call his creature Count Dracula, thanks to public domain laws. Herzog preserved much of the original's style out of admiration for Murnau and "the most important film ever made in Germany" (maybe so...any other suggestions?).
But Herzog's skeptical, neo-documentary approach--seen this summer in Rescue Dawn--wouldn't permit him to use Murnau's mistier plotting. He took pains to see how Nosferatu works. Why has no one burned the evil castle down in daylight? Simple: it doesn't really exist except in ruins, "except in the minds of men" who are tricked by the darkness of night. How does the vampire beat Harker home? There's a line about how the sea voyage is faster than heading back from Transylvania overland. (Unlike the book, this is set about the time Murnau set his version, 1838; there are no railroads yet in Central Europe.)
Review: Aguirre, The Wrath of God
Filed under: Action », Classics », Drama », Foreign Language », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
December, 1560. Gonzalo Pizarro leads his band of explorers-cum-treasure-hunters-cum-soldiers out of the Peruvian Andes. Weighed down by the out of place trappings of modern warfare and ludicrous luxury items, the tiny band is dwarfed by its surroundings and chillingly out of place. On the fringes of the group stands a man wearing an incongruous bright pink shirt, a battered helmet, and a strange set of armor that seems to consist entirely of studded leather straps. When he moves, he leans backwards and walks stiffly, his body clearly ravaged by a difficult, violent life. Mostly, though, he watches, his enormous green eyes taking in the fear, malleability and desperation around him, while his impossibly broad, feminine lips embrace their permanent sneer. Like he does, we knew immediately that his time will come.
This man is Don Lope de Aguirre, the title character of what is arguably Werner Herzog's greatest film. Played by the inimitable Klaus Kinski, Aguirre dominates the film in every way, effortlessly manipulating the men around him by quietly turning his own ambitions into theirs. Despite Kinski's wild eyes and the character's eventual eruption, there's a surprising subtlety and intelligence to Aguirre, who grows in complexity with each viewing. Though at first he appears to be nothing but a terrifying, ambitious madman (the film's title, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, comes from Aguirre's own description of himself), repeated viewings reveal much more about the character, and shed further light on his companions.
Walking across Europe, camera in hand
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Cinematical Indie »
Werner
Herzog, everyone's favorite mad genius, is not what you would call a conventional filmmaker. Among other things, his
path to direction involved welding, a harrowing childhood cohabitation with Klaus Kinski, and a walk from Munich to Paris, so it's not exactly
shocking that he believes "film students could learn more about cinema by walking 5,000 kilometers alone than by
sitting in a classroom." What's perhaps a bit more surprising, however, is that someone is actually giving it a
shot.Lee Kazimir, a 24-year-old filmmaker from Chicago, is currently about a week into his planned trek from Madrid to Kiev, a solitary voyage that he (of course) is documenting with a small HD camera. Though the trip has been partially funded by donations to his website, Kazimir plans to travel on the cheap, sleeping mostly in a tent (which he's also carrying) or on the couches of friendly folks he meets while on the road.
While More Shoes, the film Kazimir hopes will come out of the trip, could potentially be great, doing something weird doesn't guarantee him either good footage or the talent to make people care. At best, the film could be like something by Ross McElwee: both self-aware and self-effacing, and smart without being cloying. At worst, however, it'll be a precious vanity project that no one not related to Kazimir can sit through. (And, based on the film's trailer, I have to say I'm sort of worried.)
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
_thumbnail.jpg)
