Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski

By Klaus Kinski

Book Overview

An international bestseller, Klaus Kinski's memoir has become a cult classic, telling the story of his fascinating life, from his tortured, poverty-stricken childhood in prewar Berlin to his rise to international stardom as a film actor. Probably the most outrageous autobiography ever--less a memoir than a hyperbolically pornographic performance piece.--Newsweek. photos.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140255362
• ISBN13: 9780140255362
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.7" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

The most debasing autobiography ever written

Kinski Uncut is nothing shy of probably the most shameless life ever described on the page. For Kinski there is no humiliation is saying that he is a machine who has done every actress or female he has met, giving them babies and just then walking away. Kinski demeans everyone about him including his family and degrades society to a monstrously outlandish category of stupidity. Kinski describes himself as simply genius and naturally talented as an actor in demand who has been ever chased by the government for not paying taxes. Between bouts of prison on tax evasion charges and how he can have any role he pleases, he boosts of everything in a skirt which he has touched including mothers and daughters at the same time... while even contemplating grandma. Kinski Uncut is filth. The man is walking defilement. He is emotionally impaired. He is an adulterer and corrupt, driven by an unparalleled egomania. This novel reads like an embarrassment. The indignity of this man and his pride knows no bounds. Most of the pages are very uncomfortable and unsettling. Yes hysterically funny at times and the descriptions are up there with the likes of Kafka or Poe but we are still mortified by the fact that this is a man who was considered a very fine actor who when paired with the art house director Werner Herzog brought genre defining epics to Cannes. The key here to understanding Kinski Uncut is to also see "My Best Fiend" by Herzog, a documentary about his pal Kinski who passed away in 1991 from heart failure, in which he tells us some important things about Kinski. Kinski is a liar. In short "Kinski Uncut" is probably 95% fiction except for the parts Kinski couldn't lie about, there are wives mentioned who do not exist and actors and actresses who do not exist either. So the question is why did Kinski leave such writings behind him? Why defame himself with such open barbarity? Why offend us? The truth is simply this... it made Kinski feel big. Hell it made him feel like a giant to shock us all with his smear campaign against God and humanity. Everyone else was a load of stinking brown smelly stuff, open to criticize and as for those he could get something from, they were his for the taking... and he took. Kinski is all about himself. It did not matter what he said or did as long as it was about him. So here we find ourselves reading trees killed for layers of lies because the man wanted our attention from beyond the grave. While it isn't exactly encouraging to know that this is a work of fiction, this is still for Kinski or Herzog completists. If you like Kinski's work or Herzog then don't stop and get this today. You will enjoy it. However "My Best Fiend" is heaps better.

Read it if you dont believe

Klaus Kinski one of the world's and Germans greatest actor of all time, his sexual drives, pain of life, sorrow his obssession about his wife and kid..... everything is greatly narrated in his Autobiography "Kinski Uncut." First, when I get to know about the book I thought for a moment "somebody's biography how boring it will be." I was wrong and the book proved me wrong. Starting right from his childhood till death the book tells all the stories. His charm of mesmerizing females and sexuality power to attract every woman he met is one the greatest traits he had. The way he spends his earnings and how he is perpetually broke after every income... it all can be read in this book. Not only for knowing someone through his stories but for all those who want to learn and explore life this one is definitely the choice. Its worth reading in all aspects.

The Van Gogh of Acting.

Want to become a movie star? Go to coffee houses around college campuses, stand on a chair and recite the poetry of Francois Villon; the medieval (1431-1463) student who killed a priest in a tavern brawl, was subsequently acquitted but still had to flee Paris and live a life of crime among outcasts.As you pass the hat you find that you're doing such a magnificent job that soon you'll be able fill entire sports arenas with Shakespeare's solliloquiess---Performing them that is; you'll do Richard the Third, and then the audience will wait breathlessly while you change costumes and come back in character as Hamlet. Repeat with Othello, etc.See how easy it is? Now do it.-----------------------------------------------------------------To say Kinski was talented, or that he lived on the edge, or that he was a bit too intense for his friends or wives is, of course, an understatement. Nor did fame and money do much to quench the anger or appetite of this outcast. One of his wives, as she entered the hospital to deliver their child, wondered why all the prostitutes on the street waved at them and seemed so friendly. Herzog, despite plotting Kinsi's murder, kept using him as his leading man. Yet the greatest tribute may be not Herzog's but the fact that, during his lifetime many fellow actors spoke about how kind Kinski was to work with--a true accolade to a narcissistic egomaniac who apparently never lost his humanity by the expedient method of never being able to stop being hurt by life. As he put it, he never allowed his wounds to fully close. Though the reader might conclude that he was unable to have his wounds close, no matter how much he tried.Speaking of method, Kinski slams 'method acting' in this book:'These morons go into a sort of St. Vitus dance as an exercise before performing' and 'What is this idiocy? As if a school could teach me how to feel'Less credible is his slamming of Herzog: 'A megalomaniac' and 'I kicked him... Herzog groveled' Especially when one considers that his most memorable performances were in Herzog's films.Kinski opens his autobiography with a quote from one of his idols, Van Gogh. Too lengthy to repeat here but the essence of it being that all artists are cripples trying clumsily to express what was expressed only once-- by Jesus Christ. Unsurprisingly, Kinski also toured Europe late in his life, reading from the gospels and insulting some audience members who did not share his view of Jesus as a criminal hunted down by society, while hugging others who shared his 'outcast' faith.Kinski also wondered if he was the reincarnation of Paganini, arguably the most proficient techniqual violinist of all time, and, of course, an intense womanizer. Kinski did not spend much time doubting his sanity, it seems he considered it a rather futile endeavor in a world where it was self evident that everybody was mad. However, neither did he glamorize lunacy as a standard, there is nothing romantically sophomoric in his descript

As tortured and raw as the man himself

Kinski Uncut may be the only actor's bio worth reading. Kinski, one of the world's greatest actors, wastes no time psychoanalyzing his sex drive, his fanatical obsession with his son, or his need for a fast buck and material goods. He plunges the reader neck-deep into his depraved lifestyle, and doesn't let up -- literally -- until his own death. The book is one long sex act, but Kinski's writing is so good, his soul so graphically exposed, that the pornography never grows tedious. Kinski was in every sense of the word a whore, so it's no wonder that he loved consorting with whores. Each encounter truly grows out of Kinski's need for human love and contact; his Casanovian behavior was, in a way, Kinski's only real emotional outlet, since acting was no more than a means of funding his sexual activities. And the span of his life is breath-taking; Angela's Ashes takes a back seat to the first 40 or so pages of this book! As for his films, Kinski did them all for money, and there's never any indication of how he really felt about them. (Ironically, in his quest for fast money, he turned down a role in Raiders of the Lost Ark because the script was "shitty"!) By far the most achingly bizarre and personal book I've ever read; it was exactly what I'd hoped for.