My Best Fiend (Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski) (1999)
Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 25
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 4/5
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To say the working relationship between director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski was often stormy strains the boundaries of understatement. Kinski's tirades against Herzog are the stuff of legend -- Kinski's scabrous autobiography All I Need is Love features a number of venomous rants against the director far too foul to recount here, while Herzog had to threaten Kinski with murder to get him to complete his work on Aguirre, The Wrath Of God. However, the collaboration between these two
Oct 7, 1999 Wide
Sep 5, 2000
New Yorker Films
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All Critics (30) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (21) | Rotten (5) | DVD (6)
My Best Fiend is about two men who both wanted to be dominant, who both had all the answers, who were inseparably bound together in love and hate, and who created extraordinary work -- while all the time each resented the other's contribution.
Top CriticWhat's the difference between artistry and bravado? This isn't a question I generally feel inclined to ask, but I'm compelled by the work of Werner Herzog, who scrambles the two until it's difficult to tell which is which.
Herzog offers some evidence of Kinski's great human warmth, somewhat more of his rage of unimaginable proportions, and a good demonstration of Kinski's uncanny capacity to corkscrew his way into the frame.
While My Best Fiend -- does a splendid job of chronicling the high drama and creative pinnacles of their work together, it emphasizes the most public and bleakly amusing aspects of their story.
With generous clips from Herzog and Kinski's collaborations, My Best Fiend is one of the great portraits of artists fighting, even with murderous rage, to reach the sublime.
A thoughtful and clever examination by the director of his longstanding friendship and creative partnership with the late Klaus Kinski.
Herzog's and Kinski's collaboration was one of the strongest in cinema, and the movie does justice to that energy.
Herzog reveals the genius and madness of his best fiend Klaus Kinski.
It feels a lot more like a cheap shot than a tribute.
Kinski's egomania is offered up by a quote of his that the only interesting landscape on earth is that of the human face.
The pairing of the director and actor invariably resulted in extraordinary creative collaborations. These men -- arrogant, ambitious, sadistic, fanatical, and in Kinski's case, probably insane -- certainly deserved each other.
My Best Fiend is Herzog's contentious remembrance of the late actor but, while fascinating, it really doesn't add up to much.
Kinski wasn't the wrath of God, but he was a damn fine actor, and this documentary so entranced and informed me, that I plan on going out and seeing every one of his films again.
As documentaries go, this one is second-rate, consisting of almost nothing but Herzog sitting in locations at which he and Kinski once filmed and reminiscing.
Klaus Kinski was one helluva showman, and no filmmaker was better able to capture the explosive talent of his favourite fiend than the director of this fine documentary, Warner Herzog.
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Foreign Titles
- I Need Love (Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski) (DE)
- I Need Love (Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski) (UK)
