Herzog's collaboration with Klaus Kinski generated both mutual
death threats and great movies like Fitzcarraldo
and Aguirre: The Wrath of God; his new documentary My
Best Fiend amply illustrates both Kinski's genius and his
psychopathology. Herzog's steely talent for channeling Kinski's
maniacal energies into incomparable performances while preventing
either man from killing the other or allowing Kinski to be murdered
by movie crews and extras outraged by his colossal obnoxiousness,
is undeniable and demands tribute. By comparison Coppola's hellish
struggle to wrench Apocalypse Now from out of the torpor
of the Phillippine jungles and Marlon Brando's sluggish self-satisfaction,
as documented in Hearts of Darkness, seems like par for
the directing 101 course. But at least Coppola's story is told
there by other filmmakers (three credited directors, including
his wife Eleanor Coppola), while here Herzog is essentially offering
a formally drab mix of himself talking to the camera and old footage
of Kinski taken from film shoots and finished movies, with the
partial aim being a kind of self-canonization. An independent
perspective on both Herzog's and Kinski's work together and apart
(as in Les Blank's Burden of Dreams) would have added a
lot. But My Best Fiend is well worth seeing for Kinski
as Kinski, a more compelling force than, say, Jim Carrey as Andy
Kaufman, and Herzog tooting his own horn is more meaningful than,
well, the sidekickiana of Bob Zmuda.