Klaus Kinski | Jesus Christus Erlöser Tour 1971 | English Subtitles

Here is the legendary performance at the Sportpalast in West Berlin from back in the days when Kinski clashed with an audience full of anarchists, crazy people and religious freaks. It was a different Berlin back then.

Electric Sheep: “At the height of his career, Klaus Kinski was Germany’s favourite fiend. On November 20, 1971, the iconic actor took to the stage of Berlin’s Deutschlandhalle to perform a very personal reinterpretation of the New Testament, a theatrical monologue about ‘a man who would rather be massacred than continue to live and fester’. Only moments after Kinski entered the spotlight to begin his recitation hecklers in the sold-out auditorium started hurling insults, deliberately provoking Kinski into a rage until he stormed off. However, he returned to the stage time and again and eventually what was meant as the prelude to a planned world tour turned into spectacular tumult and chaos.

Scenes from this evening were very briefly featured in Werner Herzog’s Kinski film My Best Fiend. But now his biographer and estate administrator Peter Geyer has made a full-length documentary out of the previously unseen 16mm footage, which offers a scrupulously precise reconstruction of Kinski’s legendary defiant stage performance, and the hostile audience’s reaction. ”

At Electric Sheep: JESUS CHRIST SAVIOUR: INTERVIEW WITH PETER GEYER

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