Kinski Paganini

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Movie
German title Kinski Paganini
Original title Kinski Paganini
Country of production Italy , France
original language Italian
Publishing year 1989
length 81 (Director's Cut: 95) minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Klaus Kinski
script Klaus Kinski
production Augusto Caminito
Carlo Alberto Alfieri
music Salvatore Accardo
Niccolò Paganini
camera Pier Luigi Santi
cut Klaus Kinski
occupation

Kinski Paganini is the last completed film by Klaus Kinski . Kinski, who wrote the script, played the lead role and also directed and edited the film.

Story of the movie

The film is set in Europe in the 19th century and shadowy accompanies the violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini . The starting point is a concert in which the effect of Paganini's music on women is to be made clear. This is followed by a flood of images that mainly deals with Paganini's insatiable desire for women and its slow decline. The acclaimed musician is chronically broke and his lifestyle is a thorn in the side of the church. His inner restlessness drives him from city to city. His only resting point is his son Achille. Filled with sincere love, Achilles remains loyal to him until death.

The film does not proceed biographically. Rather, it shows the representation of the person Paganini from Kinski's point of view.

criticism

The lexicon of international films criticized, "Kinski, who tried in vain to realize the project of his only directorial work for many years, plays and stages the character with excessive expressiveness and exaltation and sets the delirious and unstable over a round and professional staging."

Background and interpretation

The film represents a mixture of elements of the historical person Paganini and autobiographical elements of Kinski. Several central themes of the film reflect aspects of Kinski's own life, such as the search for the audience's complete and undivided enthusiasm for the artist, an excessive sex life and the deep love for his son. It is noteworthy in this regard that Paganini's lover and son were actually played by Kinski's then lover Debora Caprioglio and his son Nikolai Kinski .

Kinski had been interested in Paganini since the 1950s at the latest; apparently he had already considered this project several times before actually tackling it in the late 1980s.

In the documentary “ My dearest enemy ” Werner Herzog tells us that Kinski asked him to direct “Paganini”; However, he refused because the script was "unfilmed".

Completion and Effect

The shooting lasted 7½ weeks. The scenes were mostly played through without interruption and recorded by two cameras at the same time. A total of 45 hours of film were exposed in this way. At the beginning of 1988, Kinski made the first rough cut in five weeks.

This rough cut version of just under two hours was offered to the Cannes Film Festival , but they declined because the film was too brutal, even pornographic, which prompted Kinski to hold an angry press conference on site.

Kinski finally had to bow to the wishes of his producers and create a "playable" version of one and a half hours. But even this aroused little interest; the film was only released in cinemas in Japan. Finally, on December 17, 1989, Kinski showed the film at the Paris Opera at his own expense. The film was finally released in Italy in 1990, albeit at a very inconvenient time (during the World Cup) and without much interest from the distributor.

In 2003 Kinski Paganini was released on DVD. In addition to the theatrical version, the double DVD also contains the original cut (in English and without subtitles); There was only one working copy of it, so the image quality is accordingly.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kinski Paganini. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Source: Booklet for the DVD