January 4 – 24, 2008

“We complemented one another,” director Werner Herzog once said of the late actor Klaus Kinski. “I needed him, and he needed me.” It’s a touching, significant admission, one that cuts straight to the heart of perhaps the most intense love-hate relationship in cinema history. Both maniacal in their own ways, Herzog and Kinski collaborated on five extraordinary films, and probably tried to kill each other at least as many times. Despite their early, violent-prone troubles—fascinatingly explored in Herzog’s documentary tribute MY BEST FIEND—and against all better sense, the filmmaker continued to cast the highly volatile actor in his movies, finding in Kinski’s explosive presence (to say nothing of his inimitable face) the embodiment of expression.