Occasionally, as I think back on various experiences of trying to CREATE in Havre or Missoula, Montana during the 1980s (and subsequently, as well, in Northern Virginia or Seattle)–whether that involved establishing a “beach head” and persona for radio, learning to write/combine criticism and history (and humor), attempting to make music of widely varying sorts, trying to conceive, set up, publicize, and execute public performances, and (perhaps most of all) endeavoring to GOAD myself or others into doing things one knew or imagined we were capable of (if not necessarily inclined nor prepared for up until that moment)–I smile and/or laugh at how goddamned HARD it could seem, and at how IMPOSSIBLE certain persons or circumstances really WERE!
That said, and being the AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD super fan that I am, I find a remembrance like this one from Werner Herzog a bracing reminder that there are always levels of conflict or bizarre creative circumstance untapped/undreamt in even my/our own most severe situations. Perhaps quite fortunately!
On the other hand, my attraction to (and fervent belief IN) periodic severity in the making and consuming of Art may help to explain why I find this particular clip, especially the surreptitiously-taped rant of Klaus Kinski toward Herzog during the making of said film masterwork, to be about as hilarious and exciting and thrillingly MAD as anything I’ve heard in my life. (For me, the slaying instant above even all the others is when Kinski invokes both David Lean and Bertolt Brecht: “….and you’ll do just the same!”)
Thanks to Geeta Dayal for sharing it with us today! And I’d like to especially bring it to the attention of my friends Cory RD and Christopher P Jorry, whom I imagine will enjoy it most of all.
And of course John M. Kappes and Howard Todd Brown, as ever….
– Tom Kipp
