Herzog & Kinski & collective chaos.

Had no idea who Herzog & Kinski were, but since collective chaos, a Bangalore based forum for all those any way interested in film-making, was screening a few of their movies, and it seemed curious enough, I ended up checking out what they were all about.

Not an outright difference but, yes the crowd is a little different here; the clothes they are wearing are, a little more towards grungy than towards normal. The hall is good enough to seat 80 odd people, a roughly 12 square feet stretch that could be a make-do stage, I guess.

I had done a quick background check on who these guys were, what was not to be missed etc. But my prime source of information regarding these guys was none other than collective chaos’ links, so the only thing I know and am wowed by is that Herzog has made some strong statements like;

"You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates"

"Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film"

"It is my firm belief, and I say this as a dictum, that all these tools now at our disposal, these things part of of this explosive evolution of means of communication, mean we are now heading for an era of solitude. Along with this rapid growth of forms of communication at our disposal— be it fax, phone, email, Internet or whatever— human solitude will increase in direct proportion"

…and the fact that Herzog & Kinski seem to have made a lot of movies together despite Kinski’s non-cooperativeness and due to Hrzog’s surprising persistence.

So on the first day I am able to catch only the last on the list, “My Best Fiend”. A documentary by Herzog, on Kinski. Although it didn’t fit in with my ideas of conventional documentaries by BBC or discovery. This seemed to me more like a personal, emotional journey back in time in order to relive the memories of this close association that you form, something that one does mentally a lot of time, but here Herzog used the tool that he knew best, o preserve it, to enliven those memories and trap it in a film. It is a very delightful personal indulgence; he actually travels to the god-forsaken inner recesses of the forests, to the house where they lived together. Through the film Herzog talks of Kinski, his eccentricities, his ravings, his egomania, and a lot of incidents just highlighting his madness or all bordering on his egomania. Their relationship was apparently a very confusing and stormy one, although their were clips shown of them in which they have those relaxed moments, but all of them seem to be in front of the press, and Herzog tries to affirm this twice or thrice in the movie but he doesn’t seem to have much to support it. There is one shot in which he stands in front of a photograph of them with the photographer and says, “see, we had our relaxed moments too”, when the photographer adds in,” and, Yeah at the next second he was screaming and shouting “.

There are a lot of interesting stories throughout the film, clips of Kinski’s ravings, his tantrums on the set, interesting incidents narrated in interview with different people, of Indians who offered to kill him. Also, anecdotes by the actor who almost had his skull fractured by Kinski, and by his co-actress in Woyzeck.


Day 2: There are a lot of people around me, I don’t how but I find myself being a part of one of those pointless discussions. Net result, I learn nothing, and have been successful in offending a very respectable member of some art patronizing organization, and the third one gets the satisfaction of having said all she wanted and nobody even heard her. Lights fade out for the first one, and I here her making a conclusive statement marking the end of discussion, which again I don’t think any of us heard.


... and now why i dont worship Kinski
“Aguirre” and “Cobra de Verde” is all I could catch, hate having missed Woyzeck, I loved the story and whatever clips he had shown yesterday seemed interesting. Aguirre, has an intentional crudeness to it, in the opening shot itself you can see it, it is a 2-3 minute long continuous simple shot of following a line of explorers down a mountain. In Aguirre, you don’t even see Herzog resorting to any lightning techniques or sounds or color filtering. I guess that is what appeals to the fan of Herzog, but one definite eyesore to me was Kinski. I don’t know, had I taken an unreasonable dislike to him, but every shot that he is there, I can almost sense the discontinuity, as if somebody just screamed, “and cut” and there he went……….. nope, nope I go over all his shots in my head and nowhere do I find him acting well enough. I couldn’t help but wonder over Herzog’s obsession over him, the character is no where of a acting genius that he seems to be making him out to be, or the reason that he stuck to him despite all the possible threats he posed to the crew’s dissatisfaction, the continuity and the smooth progress of a movie. I guess what is the most unique part of Herzog’s movie-making was actually doing it the way they did it, I don’t know how else would you explain that he tried to haul the hugest boat over a mountain cause the subjects in his movie had done the same, and weathering the most hostile jungles for the sake of a movie.

In the very opening of My Best Fiend, Herzog stamps the fact onto audience that Kinski was an outright genius of an actor, he describes his never-ending speech practices, he discusses a scene, which particularly stuck, in his memory. There are fans who claim him to be the greatest actor, I guess I don’t even have to explain where Kinski stands, he commands idolization and the respect as an actor of countless, and I find myself at loss as to why could I not sense the apparent brilliance, or “haunt in his looks” or dazzle of his acting. I guess I might just go over Woyzeck and Nosferatu , maybe portraying a different character might help me see it, or maybe never.

That is what is the trouble with the artistic stuff, some hail it some snub it. Sometimes a whole generation goes around mocking it and the next one comes and embraces it, places it on a pedestal and overdoes the idolization in order to make up for the previous lack of it.

I guess that goes also for the immediate adulation a work of art receives here a little above what its merit calls for, because of it broke the convention, by bringing in a subject that should have been talked of long back.

Turn the Knife.

Vernon God Little: Lets not talk about the plot, its ok in the beginning because there is not much of it and the beginning is always easy, it always brings the promise of something different which is almost always not there, which happens in the case of Vernon God Little as well. While reading this one I had that same sense of bewilderment as I had while reading, "To kill a mocking bird". It is like when you are reading to kill a mocking bird, you cant help but marvel at the clarity and ease with which the story unravels from a child’s point of view, bringing out the irrationality of grown-ups’ behavior which we come across as a child and kept wondering why don’t they understand, how could they not see it in the simple logics of a kid’s mind, isn’t it simple? They just have to remember…. weren’t they kids once?

So I guess the prime thing is when an author goes down the memory lane not just to relive an incident from the compassionate or amused eyes of an adult, but justifying, sensing and reasoning everything as a child or a teenager like in this case. This method of storytelling is refreshing, nostalgic, and very rare no doubt because it is highly demanding for the memory cells not just in remembering the facts but in accomplishing the superhuman tasks of narrating from a child’s rationale with the language commands of an adult. Though this quality stands way unprecedented (as far as my reading forays are concerned) in case of mockingbird in comparison to Vernon.

The other two things, which distinctly mark it out, are: Firstly, how Vernon compares an emotional bond to a knife, and the leisure with which this analogy is explained not in one go but in bursts, talking about it every now and then in context with the plot, especially by the end when Vernon watches a newborn playing with its Mom, he points it out as "the knife" has been planted. This analogy depicts the profound woe & confusion of a teenager who just realized all the transitory-ness and turbulences in relationships.
The second thing being the funny but situational substitution of Vernon’s middle name, from Vernon Gonzalez Little, to Vernon Godzilla Little, to so on.

VGL is a humorous insight into the mind of a teenager who is coming to terms with reality in a rush, which is triggered by unfortunate incidents happening around him. Vernon is depicted as teenager who has been fed too high on media, Van Damme movies and consumerism, shown in the book by the fact that his every other thought runs to his Nikes or, a bewildered comparison of what was happening around him, to what it would have been like in a movie.

What about these songs?

Nothing compares to what you feel, when you just stumbled upon a song you absolutely just discovered and are going to enjoy for days to come. It started with Bob Dylan, Tambourine man brought me close to tears, I still cant say what it was, because I just would not call me a person who needs a little musical delight every now and then. I have enjoyed numerous songs, sang along at the top of my voice with my eyes closed, found myself short of sighs for few, gotten nostalgic, but the fact remains I cant figure out when would I need it, cause I have listened to it when I have a highly-critical need for it and what defines it, I have no idea.

Well, anyway while I was at it, Bob Dylan was the only one who made sense in the world; rather I was thankful that he existed and he wrote these songs otherwise I might just have drowned. Since I had been on the terrain of musical exploration which truly delights the self, I guess I added it to my list of basic needs now, just like other needs which we develop after a little familiarity with materialistic objects, it could be the longing for a certain cuisine, or the longing to be clothed in certain fabric. So every now and then over the past few months I would find myself band-hopping, seeking God only knows what, from Bob Dylan to Simon & Garfunkel to led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd to Bruce Springsteen. I would not be able to describe how great musicians they were, who a better drummer or a Congo player, I remember them and think of them as the emotions they evoke, as the rhythm they create, as to how pain-wrought or laze ridden the voice was. There was a certain fashion in which the words, the rhythm, the melody and the instrumentals would blend to create trademark music.

Feel like as Somerset Maugham said somehitng like, a fool who is moved by a work of art but does not know how to finger the techniques which bring to such heights.

We Don't Live Here Anymore

"Half-baked insights into the soul of the man you never understood" from the movie, "We don’t live here anymore".

I just cant forget this scene, when Jack lashes accusations on to Terry, his wife, Terry crouches and Jack flashes his brilliance by saying "Don’t give me half-baked insights into the soul of a man you never understood", and wow you think … man this one is it, he has won the argument, when Terry starts repeating what he just said, each time a lil louder and starts lashing back at him and whizzz you just don’t realize how could she beat that.

And so on go the numerous domestic squabbles in life, you know that the arguer has a point but somehow for the sake of argument, certain words were substituted for harsher words, certain incidents were re-sketched with nastier shades and recalled for argument’s sake.

A story of two married couples and the infidelity, which permeates their life, keywords: startling and realistic. The dialogues are powerful and instrumental in bringing the story across, dialogues, which add zing to the riveting confrontations between two of the characters. Character sketches brought to life by brilliant acting, were a delight to watch, especially Terry the accusing, suspicious wife, a disaster as a homemaker, whose life is in a mess because of the nagging doubts regarding her husband’s devotion to her.