Jesus Christ Redeemer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jesus Christ Redeemer is a declamatory recitation by Klaus Kinski , premiered in 1971. The theme is the New Testament , the text presented is written by Kinski himself. Much of the text is taken directly from the New Testament, especially speeches of Jesus are used. The lecture begins with the words “Jesus Christ is wanted”, from the perspective of a police search for Jesus Christ, “accused of seduction, anarchist tendencies, conspiracy against the authority of the state. Code name: Son of Man, Bringer of Peace, Redeemer ”. Kinski changes perspective several times and lets other people from Jesus' environment have their say in addition to Jesus. Critical passages deal with the establishment of the time , churches , parties and the then much discussed war in Vietnam .

The piece is known for its controversial premiere and indirectly for the fact that in 1999 the release of sound recordings of the premiere, which was not authorized by Kinski's heirs, was banned. Excerpts from the recording are shown in the documentary My Dearest Feind by Werner Herzog . Individual viewers provoked Kinski with heckling, came on stage and disrupted the performance. Kinski insulted them and interrupted the event several times in order to start all over again hours later and to perform the monologue in full in front of a greatly reduced audience.

background

Before his international film career, Klaus Kinski was a great reciter and declamator (lecturer) who made the front page of Spiegel magazine on February 22, 1961 : “Declamation Kinski”; several hundred appearances in mostly sold-out halls - in the three years before 1961 in almost always sold-out halls - in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as 30 speech records which he recorded between 1959 and 1962 and which were listened to by "a million Germans".

The Italian film crisis of 1971, the resentment there about his airs, debts and two German offers brought Kinski, who lives in Rome, back to Germany. The 28-year-old filmmaker Werner Herzog was expecting Kinski in Latin America to film Aguirre, the Wrath of God , but before that Kinski was to complete the first part of a large-scale Jesus Christ Redeemer tour planned by the visionary German concert promoter Klaus Berenbrok, who had successfully toured with Juliette Gréco , Udo Jürgens and Gilbert Bécaud in previous years.

For over ten years, Kinski had dealt with the subject of Jesus Christ, the "most fearless, freest, most modern of all human beings," but admirers and critics alike were irritated by Kinski's perceived 180-degree turn of the starring negative characters in Westerns , Crime and horror films, to herald the peaceful message of Jesus.

Kinski arrived with his newlywed wife Minhoï Geneviève Loanic by plane from Munich in West Berlin four days before the performance .

Initially ten events were planned across West Germany from November 20 to December 15, followed by a major world tour with a hundred planned performances - it was to be Kinski's first stage appearance since his last appearance on December 8, 1962 in Vienna. But after the scandalous premiere and the negative headlines that went with it, the atmosphere was poisoned and advance sales for further events became difficult. The organizer Berenbrok asked for release from his obligations on November 26th and filed for bankruptcy a short time later.

There was a second performance on November 27th in the Philipshalle in Düsseldorf , which apparently went without any significant disturbances. The rest of the tour was canceled due to the bankruptcy of the concert promoter Klaus Berenbrok. This second appearance was Kinski's last ever stage appearance and was already carried out by the former employee of the bankrupt concert organizer, Richard Schulze; Kinski entered without a fee or received no fee.

performance

Klaus Kinski performed his text ur on November 20, 1971 in the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin-Westend . 5,000 min ago 43.05 spectators, admission cost 3, 5 or 10 D-Marks , Kinski performed the text as a declamatory monologue . The text comprises 30 typewriter pages min. 77:03 and should be delivered in about 90 minutes. After just five minutes the audience heard the first interjection (“Kinski is not Jesus!”); Laughter, ridicule and other heckling followed ("Asshole!", "You never worked yourself!") - Kinski fell out of the role and insulted ("Shut up so you can hear what I'm saying!") Or addressed his Text loudly with an outstretched finger and staring at those provocateurs ("Remove the splinter from your eye and then watch how you pull the splinter out of my eye!"). He stopped to start the text all over again.

In between he called one of the disturbing spectators from the audience onto the stage ("Come here now, who has such a big mouth!"), Who then spoke into the microphone that he believed Kinski was not the real Jesus Christ perhaps some in the audience were looking because Jesus had been “tolerant” and would have tried to convince others if they contradicted them and did not say: “Shut up!” - handed him the microphone and walked off the stage - “No, he did not say : 'Shut up'. He took a whip and hit him in the face! He did that, you stupid pig! And that can happen to you too! ", Kinski shouted answering into the microphone. He turned back to the audience and shouted: "There are now two options: Either those who do not belong to the rabble throw the others out, or they have paid their money for free!" With these words, Kinski left the stage.

When he came back on stage, he started all over again, but soon more heckling shouted Kinski again, pushed a viewer away who came on stage and “wanted to say something too”, and let him go pushing an employee off the stage ("throw him down"). He threatened to break off the lecture and went off the stage again, this time with the words: "And if there is only one person left who wants to hear that, he'll have to wait until the other fucking rabble has left!" Stage and turned to the audience via microphone and demanded, among other things, an apology from Kinski for "the fascist methods of knocking someone who came on stage peacefully to want to talk off the stairs by his bodyguard". The speaker asks the audience to speak his text to Mr. Kinski, then the audience can speak theirs afterwards.

In the further course, Kinski read the text with repeated interruptions (about an hour), again there were interjections (“Phrasebreaker!”, “You spread hate, we are enlightened adults!”), To which Kinski partially replied (“Would you but hot or at least cold, but you are just lukewarm, and I'll spit you out! "," Who of you not only has a big snout, but is really sinless, throw the first stone "). Then he asked "one for the other of these idiots" on stage to speak for them; Kinski left the stage. The viewer summarized that “Mr. Kinski failed to be able to explain himself to the important, presented message through his actions. [...] 'You should recognize them by the works'. "Kinski stormed onto the stage, grabbed the microphone (" Since the performance is over ") and threw it aside with the stand and disappeared behind the stage. Some viewers chanted "Kinski is - a fascist".

There was heated discussion in the hall between the spectators and with the organizer, overlaid by announcements that “the troublemakers and provocateurs have to leave the hall so that Mr. Kinski can continue speaking”. Kinski discussed with police officers and journalists. Kinski took the stage again and announced that he was really sorry for the other people, but that the performance was really over. Most of the audience left the hall.

Later, around midnightmin. 73:43 , Kinski appeared again in front of the stage in the auditorium, where about 100 to 200 people had remained. He started again at the beginning of the text in a weak voice and without a microphone. He interrupted because of disturbing noises ("It is not even possible that a hundred people are quiet.", "It must be incredibly difficult to be quiet for an hour and a half.") And started a second time, this time he read the entire text, with microphone. The performance ended about two hours after midnight.min. 78:44

Reviews

The press reviews of the next few days were mostly very negative. As it fitted into the usual Kinski cliché, Kinski was judged to be a rioter or joke that was not to be taken very seriously; the provocations of the audience were not mentioned at all. "Shut up for the gospel", was the headline of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Someone like Kinski, who played in Edgar Wallce thrillers and spaghetti westerns, received millions in salaries and enjoyed the dolce vita life to the fullest in Rome, cannot boldly recite Jesus, many believed. The post- 1968 generation distrusted any authority and refused to listen to anyone preaching down on them from the stage without discussion.

After the event, one spectator expressed her incomprehension towards the "stinkers" who, if they had already spent money on the ticket or received the ticket, could sit down and listen to what he had to say, otherwise they wouldn't need it get. Another viewer addressed the discrepancy between the representation of “primitive Christianity”, according to which Kinski, as “primitive Christian”, had to stand above it even with provocative statements. Another viewer stated that after a vote [among viewers?] Most would be willing to hear Kinski; Afterwards, a discussion was taken for granted, which Kinski was obliged to attend.

In the film “My Dearest Enemy”, Herzog accuses the audience of having no interest in a smooth performance, but provoking Kinski because it “just wanted to see him romp”; "He was laughed at, had terrible fits and raged and screamed". After the second appearance in Düsseldorf for the filming of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God”, Kinski was completely absorbed in his role of Jesus and lived on in it, which made it difficult to talk to him because he “answered someone like Jesus ".

In an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk in November 1971, Kinski commented on the turmoil at the premiere. a. on the question of his identification with Christ.

On July 2, 1977, Kinski commented on the disturbances in the premiere on the talk show The Later the Evening and was promptly interrupted by a shout from "one of these people" from the audience, with whom he had further discussions in the course of the course the shipment delivered. Kinski went on to say that it is a matter of upbringing and behavior to stay at home if you have a cough so as not to disturb not only the person on stage but also the person next to you. “With [Maria] Callas and [Renata] Tebaldi , people coughed up the opera. They didn't cough on me because I said that if you don't stop coughing, I'll go home; I already have my money. And they didn't cough with me. ”He is also very nice because he lets the troublemakers out, The Rolling Stones are better organized than him, because they let troublemakers in the audience beat up the Hells Angels immediately , which he thinks is right, since someone who puts on a show is “the boss” and the audience does not have the opportunity to disturb - that is an erroneous assumption in these times [the seventies] that people have the right. “You don't bother the other!” And asks the basic question of whether the 99% who behaved are right, or “that one” (points to the disturber in the audience).

Today "Jesus Christ Redeemer" is seen as a remarkable and informative contemporary document that shows on the one hand a portrait of a driven, eccentric, vulnerable actor who suffered like no other, what he presented and who no longer knew and knew no border between art and life on the other hand, the stubbornness of the immediate post- 1968 generation, the abstruse over-politicization in the early seventies, in which everything had to be discussed, reveals, but also their great possibilities. Kinski's text, which actually fits the sensitivities and anger of a left audience with its criticism of imperialism, the state and the church, is given no chance at all. It is a didactic piece about the art hostility of supposedly progressive forces and at the end an extremely fascinating examination of the subject of Jesus Christ.

Quotes

  • I want to tell the most exciting story of humanity: the life of Jesus Christ. [...] My concern is the most fearless, freest, most modern of all human beings, who would rather allow himself to be massacred than rot away alive with the others. About the man who is who we all want to be. - Klaus Kinski (autobiography): I need love, S9f ... min. 10:03
  • It's like 2000 years ago. This rabble sucks even more than the Pharisees . At least they let Jesus finish before they nailed him. - Klaus Kinski (autobiography): I need love min. 70:28
  • Midnight. / Slowly comes calm. Many have got up from the back seats and huddled in the open space in front of the stage. / Woodstock. - Klaus Kinski (autobiography): I need love min. 73: 3
  • My exhaustion has blown away. I don't feel my body anymore. / It's all over at two in the morning. - Klaus Kinski (autobiography): I need love min. 78:45

music

Samples are used in the song Glaubenskrieg by the German band Feindflug : "I am not the official Church Jesus, I am not your superstar". The Frankfurt DJ and music producer Oliver Lieb also used samples from the performance for the single Jesus ist da . Luke Haines used the same quote in 2009, as did the Christian Oi! -Band Jesus Skins for the song "Religion", which is an interpretation of the song of the same name by Slime . Rex Joswig processes the recitation in his piece Kinski in Dub . In addition, in 2002 the tribute sampler The Kinski Files was produced from the passages . The now disbanded German band daturah , who call their style "Ambient Noise Rock", used samples on the 2008 album reverie . The German rap duo Pimpulsiv also used samples in their song "Minimal Klaus" on the album Hepatitis P from 2010. The German band Phönix aus der Klapse , the two German musicians Sascha Reimann and Swiss (musician) , used a longer sample from the performance at the end of their song "Klaus Kinski" from 2019.

radio play

Bear Family Records published an abridged version in October 1999 as a radio play directed by Volker Kühn ( ISBN 3-89795-662-4 ). This version was published in an edition of 1,000 and was withdrawn in December 1999, due to a lawsuit brought by Klaus Kinski's heirs (Minhoï and Nanhoï Nikolai ). In 2006 the lecture was published again as a radio play: Jesus Christ Redeemer . Live recording of the recitation show. With Klaus Kinski . Double CD .; Edition: Volker Kühn; Bear Family Records CD BCD 16042 BG, 1999

literature

  • Peter Geyer, Kinski specialist and estate administrator, who also directed the later film, published a book about the events in 2006 which, in addition to poems written by Kinski, also contains the original text of the monologue, which was partially changed during the lecture:
    • Peter Geyer (ed.): Jesus Christ Redeemer and Fever - Diary of a Leper . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-518-45813-2 .
  • Klaus Kinski (autobiography): I need love. Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-04579-3 , 496 pages.

Film documentary

On the initiative of Kinski, the performance on November 20, 1971 was filmed live by four cameras on 16 millimeters and released in 2008 as a cinema film, newly cut from 134 minutes of film material. The film shows the available material shortened to 84 minutes; The bonus material contains short recordings of the performance from other cameras and thus points of view. Text passages from Kinski's autobiography I Need Love (1991) are faded in at the moments when Kinski leaves the stage. Kinski used still photos of the performance again and again for record covers or the like, but was reluctant to use the film material because “the pack” would blame him, Peter Geyer would have to do it after his death, because “then they will miss me”.

  • Germany, 84 minutes of color
  • Release date: May 15, 2008
  • Director: Peter Geyer
  • Production: Kinski Productions, Peter Geyer
  • Executive Producer: Michael Dreher
  • Editing: Peter Geyer, Konrad Bohley, Michael Dreher
  • Online: Verena Wütschke
  • Sound: Jürgen Swoboda, Joschi Kaufmann, Stephan Radom, Stefan Kolbe
  • Music: Florian Käppler, Daniel Requardt
  • Award: The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating of particularly valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Peter Geyer: Klaus Kinskis - Jesus Christ Redeemer: “I am not your superstar!” In: Universal Music. September 7, 2009, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  2. ↑ ENTERTAINMENT / KINSKI: Evenings of a Faun - DER SPIEGEL 9/1961. In: Der Spiegel. February 22, 1961, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Jesus Christ Redeemer | Jesus Christ Savior. In: Berlinale. 2008, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c Burkhard Jürgens: 40 years ago Klaus Kinski failed in Berlin with "Jesus Christ Redeemer" | DOMRADIO.DE. In: Domradio. November 19, 2011, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ Redeemer | Dieter Wunderlich: Book tips and more. Retrieved on May 2, 2020 (German).
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jesus Christ Redeemer. In: imdb.com. Accessed April 30, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b Klaus Kinski - Jesus Christ Redeemer (radio report from 1971). In: YouTube. Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b press release of the film distributor (PDF; 299 kB)
  9. ↑ Klaus Kinski Jesus Christ Redeemer complete (from 0:08:01) on YouTube , June 12, 2012, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  10. ↑ Klaus Kinski Jesus Christ Redeemer complete (from 0:38:06) on YouTube, June 12, 2012, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  11. ↑ a b c d e Joachim Kurz: Jesus Christ Redeemer | Film, trailer, review. In: Kino Zeit. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .
  12. ↑ a b c Filmstarts: The Filmstarts criticism of Jesus Christ Redeemer. Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  13. ↑ a b c d Hans Schifferle: "We are looking for Jesus Christ". In: Süddeutsche. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .
  14. ↑ My dearest enemy - Klaus Kinski. from min. 11:36. In: IMDb. Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Klaus Kinski on Jesus Christ Redeemer (1971) on YouTube, April 1, 2017, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  16. ↑ Klaus Kinski, Manfred Krug - The Later the Evening (1977, complete) on YouTube, November 27, 2016, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  17. ↑ Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ Redeemer. 2 CDs read by the author. In: Pearl Divers. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Florian: Failure in the Great - Klaus Kinski's legendary recitation "Jesus Christ Redeemer" on DVD - Mussman see. In: MussManSehen.de. September 2, 2018, accessed on May 2, 2020 (German).
  19. ↑ a b Homepage about Klaus Kinski