Berlin’s Deutschlandhalle on 20 November, 1971. The lonely figure of Kinski appears in the spotlight on an empty stage to recite his own text, Jesus Christus Erloser. The performance marks the realisation of a project which had preoccupied him for more than ten years. This is the age of the hippy movement; the musical Jesus Christ Superstar is a sensational success. But Kinski’s Jesus Christus Erloser is no hippy happening. It is intended as an intensely emotional reading, concentrating purely on the actor’s voice. A document, not just about a generation that was questioning authority, that had a difficult relationship to art ‚ but also about an artist at a particular point in his career.
