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My Best Fiend
Mein liebster Feind
1999 · Film · documentary · 99 min
Directed by Werner Herzog
A film that describes the love-hate relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, the deep trust between the director and the actor, and their independently and simultaneously hatched plans to murder one another.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
If you want to see the extent of his respectfulness and depth, with his courage for self-analysis added on top, My Best Fiend would be my choice. It's a documentary about his relationship with Klaus Kinski, who was a pretty unhinged actor. It's fascinating to watch Herzog hold his own with Kinski, and to observe the strange mental space Herzog is in, somewhere between crystal-clear vision and complete madness.
Pretty good ones:
Hearts and Minds (great Vietnam War documentary) - https://play.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GXk3jwwTEBZ4_wwEAAAac?action=play
My Best Fiend (Klaus Kinski biography/documentary by Werner Herzog) - https://watch.plex.tv/movie/my-best-fiend?autoplay=1&utm_content=628fe4442b55597104c4d2be
I also recommend his documentary on his contentious relationship with his long time collaborator Klaus Kinski: "My Best Fiend". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Best_Fiend
Kinski was a very, shall we say, capricious actor (also, a psychopath and as, it turned out later, child molester) whose intense acting had a big part in the success of Herzog's earlier movies (Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, Nosferatu). During the filming of Aguirre (in the middle of the jungle), Herzog supposedly forced Kinski to fulfill his contract at gun point. The natives which were hired to help and act in the film also offered to kill Kinski for Herzog because he was such a maniac.
Werner Herzog has made a number of excellent documentaries. Here are a few of them with brief summaries.
Lessons of Darkness: the aftermath of the first Gulf War in Kuwait.
Little Dieter Wants to Fly: A young German emigrates to the USA, become a Navy pilot, and is shot down in Vietnam. He escapes and lives to tell the tale. Herzog later re-made this as Rescue Dawn, but the original version is better.
Encounters at the End of the World: Herzog travels to Antarctica.
My Best Fiend: Herzog recounts his movie-making with Klaus Kinski. (For the counterpoint, read Kinski's autobiography, "Kinski Uncut.)
The White Diamond: an experimental zeppelin flies over Guyana.
Grizzly Man: Bear aficionado gets too close and is eaten. Herzog assembled this one from the aficonado's footage and narrates.
Out of all of these, I'd rate "Dieter" as the best.