The following is a chapter from Screen Jesus, our regular contributor Rev Peter Malone’s in-depth study of depictions of Jesus on screen, both silver and television, over the history of the cinematic arts. The book is available from Scarecrow Press or from your favorite book retailer. We will be featuring on ongoing series of excerpts from the book courtesy of Rev. Malone.
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Although the film version of Klaus Kinski’s one-man performance of Jesus Christus Erloser was not released until 2008, it belongs in content and style to the 1970s. The stock footage was edited by Kinski’s biographer, Peter Geyer, and premiered at the Berlin film festival in February, 2008.
On November 20th 1971, in Berlin’s Deutschehalle, German actor Klaus Kinski (who was soon to appear Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, The Wrath of God and later in Herzog’s Nosferatu and Fitzcarraldo) presented his thirty page verbal portrait of Jesus. The performance turned out to be disastrous with heckling and interjections, criticism of Kinski as a person and as a rich film star talking about poverty. There were gibes about his career in crime films and, finally, that he was a fascist. People shouted that they wanted their money back (10 marks). Kinski had a ferocious temper and hit back at the audience, inviting critics on stage. To one man who had said that Jesus was patient, Kinski shouted that he also took up a whip to beat people and that is what he would do. Later in the night, another man came to the microphone and quietly denounced Kinski saying that by their fruits you shall know them. Kinski started again but walked off stage a second time. He waited. The management asked those who had come merely to complain or protest to leave. Eventually, at about 2.00 am an exhausted Kinski did his performance for the hundred or so people who remained.
Kinski is said to have worked on this project for a decade. He began it in the 1960s when there were very few Jesus films. His portrait is closest to that of Pasolini’s in Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo. By the time he performed in Berlin, the Jesus movement had led to Jesus Christ, Superstar (Kinski proclaims that he does not see Jesus as a superstar) and Godspell.
It seems generally agreed that Kinski portrayed odd, even mad and obsessed characters on screen, and that he was something like this in real life. For this performance he is dressed oddly in a flamboyant shirt with coloured sleeves and purple pants. He had a frighteningly intense face, always serious. He had a powerful voice and, when he increased his intensity and volume, his rhetoric sounded not unlike Hitler’s.
Kinski opens his description of Jesus as Besugte, “Wanted.” He emphasises Jesus’ revolutionary bent, his social consciousness, even his anarchic behaviour and teaching. He gives a verbal outline, referencing distinguishing features as “scars on his hands and feet.” He names different titles including Son of Man, Messenger of Peace, Light of the World. Nationality: none. He states that Jesus may have been parentless, that his mother may have been a whore and that his father may have been a convict living in a commune. Jesus was a worker and wore no uniform. He welcomed everyone for company, prostitutes, junkies, bums, people on death row and (a category he names several times) Vietnamese mothers. Kinski says Jesus was not a Negro, not a Communist, not of the Christian party, not a Protestant, not a Catholic, not present at party conventions, not a Church Jesus. The Church is people.
While Kinski speaks of love, his emphasis in fact is on Jesus and truth (much like Pasolini). He quotes Old Testament prophets about the blind seeing, the deaf hearing. Listening to and watching Kinski, one does think of Old Testament prophets. Were Amos to have preached Jesus’ message, he may well have looked and sounded like Kinski. He keeps up the attack on the status quo, listing people who claim “Jesus is here.” This includes the Pope who, he says, asks Jesus about following him into eternity. Jesus responds with “Shut up and follow me.” He exhorts soldiers to throw away their uniforms. He also says that anyone who has information about Jesus and his sedition should go to the police.
As regards the Gospel texts that Kinski bases his piece on, they are generally from Matthew’s Gospel. He quotes the Sermon on the Mount especially concerning prayer and fasting, about giving away clothes, about not serving God and money (with some gibes at the Vatican and its treasures and palaces full of priests). He also refers to the story of the rich young man and the text about not worrying what you are to eat, to wear… Needless to say, he draws on Matthew 23 with its “Woe to you…”.
Kinski uses only one parable and it is from Luke. He speaks a variation on the parable of the man who built bigger barns but who was called by God before he could enjoy his wealth. Kinski has the man investing in many offshore banks (his equivalent of the barns).
There are only two encounters that Kinski alludes to. The first is Jesus’ forgiveness of the woman who was a prostitute in the city (Luke 7) and, of course, the woman taken in adultery (John 8). Kinski has been referring to his hecklers as “big mouths” and suggests that the big mouths cast the first stone. He stays with John towards the end and makes reference to Jesus’ sayings during the Last Discourse, especially about eternal life.
Peter Geyer introduces the end credits, but it is not the end of the film. He then shows the last part of the evening where Kinski describes the Passion. The camera focuses more on the reactions of the audience than on Kinski himself. Kinski’s voice is subdued, even reverent. Previously, he had referred to Jesus not exploiting his body on crosses everywhere. Now, he describes Jesus’ suffering and death, Jesus commending his spirit to the Father with questions about the meaning of his death yet his readiness. And that he has been dying for 2000 years.
While the performance comes from the 1960s and 1970s with particular references to wars and changes of the period, Jesus Christ Erloser can still strike many chords today.
