monologue A spotlight rips a lonely man's scene out of the pitch darkness. In a funny shirt in peas and jeans, he furiously conveys his gospel to audiences who do not want to listen to him. Periodically breaking into fits of rage, he tries to open his eyes to the real image of Christ, washed away, as it seemed to him, by the thousand-year-old church zombification, presenting either his Savior, or himself - his incarnation. It is 1971 and the Deutschlandhalle Concert Hall. This is Klaus Kinsky, who by then had become both Great and Terrible. 30 pages of text, for which 5-6 centuries ago it would have been burned on the largest pyre, and then just tried to spit. The text is largely blasphemous, in which Jesus appears as a rebel and revolutionary, not a dead figure on a plaster cross, humbly accepting the wet kisses of believers for thousands of years. “I’m not the crooked girl you turned me into, I’m not your Superstar,” Kinsky says from the stage. His rebellion is very provocative, it is clearly designed for a reaction, for some response from others, and it is quite expected that this response has become negative.
For Kinsky, this image was more than just an acting performance. At that time he was so raving about this monologue that he almost considered himself the embodiment of the Savior, his messenger. In 18 years, at the end of his life, he will consider himself the incarnation of Paganini, having made an erotic film about the great master called by many critics “pornography”. And here it is really very difficult to draw a line between his madness, incredibly huge conceit and Klaus-artist, who seeks to shock, always maintain the reputation of a person with completely absent behavioral norms. It is even possible that in this canonical image he found himself – a man torn from all sides, a person who rises above all, rather than striving to be on the same level with the crowd. Within the frame, the face of the actor looks like an angel descended for one evening to people, he reaches a level of skill when it is impossible to understand what is happening on stage: foolishness or skillful acting. What is it: trolling or self-obsession?
At a certain point in the performance, the artist’s morbid self-centeredness, often spoken of by those close to him, enters into battle with his pride. Kinski is an egomaniac, he painfully needs the attention of others, but at the same time very difficult to tolerate ridicule. And it should be said that part of the audience gathered that evening in the hall, morally attacked the artist from the first minutes of the performance, shouting offensive remarks and caustic remarks, provoking a man famous for his outbursts of anger. Kinsky insults them in response, calling them pigs and Pharisees, just as he prevented them from speaking to the Savior. After incessant clashes, he leaves the stage. Leaving once. He returns to the stage and begins the monologue again. Leaving a second time. But he cannot easily see that during his absence some spectator has come on stage and dares to speak his arguments into the microphone. He returns and kicks the microphone stand, kicking the speaker out. No one else, no one can hold the viewer's attention while he, the great Klaus Kinski, is here. It is an obsession with its viewer, it causes admiration and pity. A brilliant arist lives like this. A brilliant artist dies like this every time he leaves the stage. You can talk as much as you like about the painful majestic conceit of self-taught Kinsky, who in public called his skills and acting “by nature epochal, monumental, divine”, but it is enough to recall the words of Werner Herzog, who lived with Klaus in the same apartment, about those endless days that the artist spent on obsessive improvement of his skills, perfectly realizing that the ideal can only be achieved by work. Of course, he never said that in public. Why? People want to laugh at the next trick of an actor demanding to fire another poor guy who served him cold coffee; in each interview, he declares his divinity and genius.
After an attempt to finish the monologue to the end, Kinski kicks all the audience out of the hall. "I can't work like this." 50 people left in defiance of his orders, and crowded near the stage, listen to the performance of a tired artist wandering right among them. And although his blue eyes still hypnotically do not blink, but the voice sat down and there is no strength to even swear. Jesus must finish his Sermon on the Mount. For those who want to hear. Someone will call him a blasphemer, someone will say that this is the pinnacle of reincarnation, the peak of acting, Klaus’ entire life consisted of such a duality, and after death he does not cease to attract attention. Like a genius, like a monster, like an artist.