Udo Kier
14 Oct 1944 – 23 Nov 2025
"I've made over 220 films. Of these 220 films, 100 films are not good, 50 are okay, and 50 are very good."
The German cult actor Udo Kier, born Udo Kierspe, passed on to the movie studio in the sky on 23 November 2025. "Kier was born in Cologne on 14 October 1944, towards the end of World War II. The hospital where he was born was bombed by the Allies of World War II moments after his birth, and he and his mother had to be dug out of the rubble. Kier grew up without a father. In his youth, he was an altar boy and cantor. [Wikipedia]"
He has long been a gay icon, but longer than that he has been a memorable presence in numerous movies, with a colorful career of ups and downs that spans from exploitation and arthouse classics to mainstream Hollywood product to D2V/D2D trash to television series. His always noteworthy presence and thick German accent will be missed.
Although he is in some of our favorite films — the original Suspiria (1977, see Part III) and Mark of the Devil (1970, see Part I) and Flesh of Frankenstein (1973, see Part II) and Blood for Dracula (1974, see Part II) and Iron Sky (2012 / trailer), among others — to date only two films that we have reviewed here at a wasted life feature him: Blade (1998) and Iron Sky: The Coming Race (2019). For that, we now honor him and his amazing career with one of our typically unfocused and all-over-the-place career reviews. Enjoy!
Also go to
Medea
(1988, dir. Lars von Trier)
A Danish TV movie shot on video, Medea premiered in Denmark on 1 April 1988 — a stay-home night for some Danes, or at least it was for those a wasted life was visiting in Copenhagen that week.
As previously mentioned in Part V, Udo Kier met Lars von Trier in 1984 at the IFF Mannheim where they each were presenting a film: Kier, The Last Trip to Harrisburg, and von Trier, Element of Crime. A few years thereafter, in 1987, Udo Kier played himself in von Trier's semi-meta Epidemic (1987). In an interview explaining how he came to appearing in Medea, Kier appears to have forgotten his playing himself in Epidemic: "I thought [Element of Crime] was excellent. We had a beer, exchanged phone numbers — then a few weeks later I got a call: 'I'm doing Medea and I want you to play King Jason. There's one problem: you don't look like a Viking. Don't wash your hair for a month and don't shave.' I looked a bit weird, smelled a bit weird too — and I got the part. That was the beginning of a friendship. He immediately wanted me to be the godfather of his child Agnes, and then we made one film after another. [web.de]"
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Trailer to
von Trier's Medea:
"Trier's Medea, a video production made for Danish TV [is] based, after a fashion, on a script written by Carl Dreyer (3 Feb 1889 – 20 Mar 1968) with Preben Thomsen (22 Mar 1933 – 17 Nov 2006) in the mid-60s, in the hopes that Dreyer would get the money to film it himself. The 46-page manuscript was subsequently translated into English with the help of Elsa Gress and published in a catalog for a Dreyer retrospective [...] edited by Jytte Jensen for the Museum of Modern Art in 1988 — the same year von Trier shot his version [...].* Gress explains in her introduction that the script is based on Euripides' tragedy [found here] 'and follows his conception of the characters in all essentials, while emphasizing the universal human features and reducing the importance of the mythical material and the specifically Greek apparatus.' Dreyer planned to shoot his film in color in Greece, and took a special trip to Paris to meet Maria Callas (2 Dec 1923 – 16 Sep 1977), who agreed to play the lead, but no investors could be found for the project. In 1969, only a year after Dreyer's death, Callas wound up playing the lead in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea — which took a very different approach to the same myth. [Chicago Reader]"
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea (1969):
The plot, as per Pop Matters, which says the filmic visuals of the movie have "a joyous energy resembling that of, say, Dziga Vertov's masterpiece, Man with a Movie Camera (1929): "In order to secure the hand of the King of Corinth's daughter (actress: Ludmilla Glinska; voice: Mette Munk Plum), Jason (Udo Kier) abandons Medea (Kirsten Olesen) and her two sons. Fearing Medea's rage, the King of Corinth (Henning Jennson) threatens Medea with death if she remains in the kingdom. In a passionate, though perversely calculated rage over Jason's betrayal (which the remarkable Olesen captures perfectly), Medea poisons king and daughter, hangs her sons, and escapes, leaving Jason lost in the tragedy of his own making."
Man with a Movie Camera:
"Von Trier shot Medea on video, probably a financially motivated decision but one that aids the film immeasurably. The movie looks as if it were shot on parchment paper. Every image is cross-hatched and stained with age. [...] The rawness of the production is widely evident in the costuming, a reserved, minimalist approach, the set design, and above all the photography. [...] Von Trier uses the natural landscape to heighten the scale of his characters' drama. From overhead shots of flailing fields to the ever-expressive water, to the poison grains that will cut short the time of Kreon and his daughter, von Trier calls upon a Scandinavian tradition to link man's struggle with his land. The result is as naturalistic a film on this subject as can ever be made. [Realm of Cinema]"
Here at a wasted life, we feel one cannot write of the master Swedish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer without recommending at least one film of his as a must-see for fans of cinema macabre, if not film in general: his silent "horror" masterpiece Vampyr (1932), which is arguably the earliest cinema version of Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla, in turn one of the earliest known works of vampire literature. The masterpiece is a visual pleasure that must be seen...
Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr:
Another Way: D-Kikan-Joho
(1988, dir. Kôsaku Yamashita)
Now here, unsurprisingly, is another truly obscure one: Udo Kier has a supporting role in a Japanese anti-war film that premiered in Japan on 17 September 1988, and about which little can be found online. He plays a man named Friedrich Hansmann, who, according to Cinemorgue, is "shot by the Nazis and then hanged".
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An image of Udo Kier, as does one of fellow Eurostars Sydne Rome (of Some Girls Do [1969 / trailer] — her film debut — and Roman Polanski's worst movie, What? [1972 / trailer below]), who plays Lita Garnett, and Robert Vaughn ([22 Nov 1932 – 11 Nov 2016] of Buried Alive [1989]), who plays someone named Mr D, also made it onto the film's poster. Lesser known Euronames that didn't make it onto the poster include Constanze Engelbrecht (6 Jan 1950 – 20 Jul 2000), Ingold Wildenauer (1938 – 27 Apr 2013) and Deborah Epstein, the last of whom is in no way related to Trump's good friend Jeffrey Epstein (20 Jan 1953 – 10 Aug 2019).
Over at imdb is the only plot description of detail that we could find online: "[...] This movie is based on Kyotaro Nishimura's espionage novel, Organ D Intelligence. It depicts the story of Sekiya (Kôji Yakusho of Silk [2007]), a fanatical militarist, who goes from madness to wandering and confusion, and finally recognizes the deep disaster that militarism has brought to the Japanese people. In 1945, the Japanese army was losing ground in the Pacific, and in order to recover from the defeat, the military department decided to develop a special bomb, and for this purpose, the Navy Lieutenant Commander Sekiya was assigned to carry jewels to Switzerland, a neutral country, to buy raw material uranium. The military of the Japanese Embassy in Germany, Yabe, and the journalist Kasai (Hisashi Igawa of Village of Eight Gravestones / Yatsuhaka-mura [1977 / trailer]), who assisted Sekiya, advised Sekiya to stop buying uranium, and that an immediate truce should be promoted in order to truly save Japan. The U.S. Intelligence Agency also contacted Sekiya several times, which finally brought him to his senses. He suggested that the military ministry should immediately engage in peace negotiations, but this was rejected. Undaunted, Sekiya continued to work for the end of the war."
Of note is that the soundtrack for Another Way: D-Kikan-Joho was composed by Giorgio Moroder...
Giorgio Moroder's music to Another Way —
D-Kikan-Joho / Ocean Battle, extended mix by Gilles Nuytens:
Director Kôsaku Yamashita (10 Dec 1930 – 6 Dec 1998) is perhaps best known for Red Peony Gambler (1968 / trailer), which spawned seven sequels. Author Kyôtarô Nishimura (6 Sept 1930 – 3 Mar 2022) wrote over 400 works of fiction and has a museum in his honor.
Jennifer Rush sings
the title track to Another Way:
Between 1986 and 1991, Another Way: D-Kikan-Joho is the only film project that Udo Kier participated in that was not directed by either Christoph Schlingensief or Lars von Trier.
Mutters Maske
(1988, dir. Christoph Schlingensief)
A.k.a. Mother's Mask, this was Kier's third project (see Part V for the first two) with German bad-boy artist, actor, and film and theatre director Christoph Schlingensief, a specialist (per Herbert Achternbusch) of "filth for intellectuals". Written by Christoph Schlingensief and Mathias Colli, the latter someone we know nothing about, the almost (for Schlingensief) typically no-budget-looking flick was released in West Germany on 28 October 1988. Udo Kier plays someone named Herr Schneider.
Behind the scenes of
Mutters Maske:
"Mutters Maske is based on the film Opfergang 1944 by renowned filmmaker of the Third Reich, Veit Harlan (22 Sept 1899 – 13 Apr 1964). Schlingensief remakes the film — a melodrama that sought to imbue Nazi German self-sacrifice with transcendent meaning — as an exercise in extreme parody and pure kitsch. Both films tell the story of a wife's self-sacrifice for a husband who falls in love with a terminally ill neighbour; Schlingensief distorts this narrative, turning it into a soap opera about German society on the brink of self-annihilation and as a parable of the AIDS epidemic. [qagama]"
The NS-tinged Opfergang a.k.a. The Great Sacrifice (1944), BTW, stars Viet Harlan's wife, Kristina Söderbaum (5 Sept 1912 – 12 Feb 2001), the "most singularly representative of the Nazi ideal, [... and] the quintessential Nazi star" [Wikipedia].
Full movies in German —
Opfergang:
Plot: "Upon returning home, Willy von Mühlenbeck (Karl Friederich Mews) must realize that his evil brother Martin (Helge Schneider) has ascended to the head of their industrialist family — and that his ill mother (Brigitte Kausch) is now in the grips of sinister doctors. When he falls in love with their terminally-ill neighbor Els (Susanne Bredehöft), fate takes its tragic course. Schlingensief exposes his source material's dangerous proximity to kitsch and camp by reducing the genre conventions known from Harlan, Sirk, Fassbinder & Co to the level of a daily soap. Rather than being a mere spoof, Mother's Mask is perhaps Schlingensief's purest black comedy. [Filmgalerie 451]"
"Underground cinema post New German Cinema style. [Mother's Mask] takes pro-Nazi WW2 melodramatic kitsch and ups the ante with AIDS epidemic era punk raw camp. If you're not familiar with the film it's remaking and riffing on, Veit Harlan's oddly watchable Opfergang, it's likely to be tough going. The original had Nordic Aryan wet dream and apple-cheeked cherub Kristina Söderbaum wielding a bow and arrow on horseback like some distaff version of the Übermensch, while this one, rather hilariously, gives us Susanne Bredehoff made-up and shot like someone that wouldn't make the podium at a John Waters' Female Trouble (1974)-inspired beauty contest [...] is something out of prime SCTV. While it's likely beside the point, the film technique used by director and provocateur Christoph Schlingensief is rather loose, to the point of seeming slipshod [...]. If you are a fan of the anarchic outré comedy of something like Fassbinder's Satan's Brew (1976 / German trailer), this one might be for you. [Scott Kelly @ Letterbxd]
John Waters' Female Trouble:
100 Jahre Adolf Hitler – Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker
(1989, writ. & dir. Christoph Schlingensief)
"Worthless. [Worldwide Celluloid Massacre]" In this, his fourth project with German bad-boy artist, actor, and film and theatre director Christoph Schlingensief, Udo Kier plays Adolf Hitler for the first time ever. A.k.a. 100 Years of Adolf Hitler – The Last Hour in the Führerbunker (trailer), the (for Schlingensief) typically no-budget-looking flick premiered in West Germany on 18 February 1989. "Schlingensief's work combines excessive B-movie aesthetics with a critique of contemporary politics. He described his films as 'Cinema direct', a label stemming from the Viennese Actionists notion of 'Direct Art' and produced an aesthetic and DIY working methodology that tackled complex themes of nation, violence and Western materialism in a direct and immediate way. In particular, Schlingensief used his films to mobilise debates on the spread of far-right political parties across Europe, the politics of fear after the events of 9/11, and the legacy of the Third Reich in post-war Germany. [qagoma]"
100 Jahre Adolf Hitler is the first film of "Schlingensief's Germany Trilogy"...
Scene from
100 Jahre Adolf Hitler:
"Having finally gone completely round the bend, Hitler (Kier), Goering (Alfred Edel [12 Mar 1932 – 17 Jun 1993] of My Father Is Coming [1991 / trailer] and Roland Klick's Supermarkt [1974 / trailer]), Goebbels (Dietrich Kuhlbrodt of The Golden Glove [2019 / trailer below]), and chums have lots of incestuous sex, make and discuss some (literally in one case) shit art, shout and scream rather a lot, and eventually begin topping themselves, in Schlingensief's provocatively knockabout imagining of the final hour of the residents of the Führerbunker at the end of the Second World War. Anarchic and artless, the film often looks like it was more fun to make than it is to actually watch, but remains, never the less, strangely captivating throughout. [Iain Stott @ An Evening Illuminated]"
The Golden Glove:
"Shot in complete darkness in an original World War II bunker during a 16-hour period, the only light source is Schlingensief's flashlight guiding the camera through the controlled chaos; his cast acting to the point of exhaustion, the banality of evil is exposed in its integral obscenity. [qagoma]"
"This movie there's zero positives. There's nothing GOOD about this ENTIRE movie. [...] There isn't a single character here that is likeable, that has any personality, that has any depth, that acts well, that is in anyway good. There's zero plot in this entire movie, we are just stuck with these 9 people doing absolute nothing and just being weird, screaming, wishing to be chancellors, saying stupid jokes. [...] Nothing in this was funny at all. I was just stuck here just hoping for this thing to end. The only likeable character in this entire movie was the dog [...], and then they decide to ruin that as well, for burning the dog for no reason, and every effect in this movie is cheap as hell. [...] Zero plot, zero everything. [DarkSpotOn @ imdb]"
Blackest Heart
(1990, writ. & dir. Christoph Schlingensief)
"They came as friends and became sausage!"
"Worthless. [Worldwide Celluloid Massacre]" Original title: Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker — which would translate into "The German Chainsaw Massacre". This is Udo Kier's fifth project with German bad-boy artist, actor, and film and theatre director Christoph Schlingensief, yet another one of his typically no-budget-looking flicks It premiered in West Germany at the Hofer Filmtage on 18 February 1989. We here at a wasted life actually saw this one when it came out — with a title like Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker, how could we not? — and remember absolutely nothing about it. Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker is the second film of "Schlingensief's Germany Trilogy"...
German trailer to
Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker:
"Schlingensief conceived the idea for the film after he had viewed bootleg copies of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974 / trailer below) and its sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986 / trailer far below) — which were both banned in Germany [at that time] — and found the second film to be 'superb for its richness in imagery and double entendres'. He wrote the script in a matter of days after the German reunification. [Wikipedia]"
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
"In Schlingensief's alternative vision of German reunification, a group of East German emigrants encounter a West German family of psychotic butchers. As the film's tagline suggests: 'They came as friends and became sausage!' Schlingensief's satirical horror film transposes the basic formula of the slasher genre within the context of a reunified Germany and mixes black comedy and trash aesthetics with his more experimental approaches, exposing the free market economy as the meat market it is! [qagoma]"
"The German Chainsaw Massacre (aka Blackest Heart) resituates the brutality of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the dawning of German reunification. The film announces October 3, 1990, as the day 'it happened,' then immediately cuts to an image of pure carnage. The film may share a namesake and basic plotline with one of the most canonized pieces of American horror [...], but it is strikingly different. [...] The lead character, Clara (Karina Fallenstein of Die Insel der blutigen Plantage [1983, see Part V]), is introduced as escaping an abusive relationship in a bluntly violent manner. Later, after she crosses into West Germany, another abusive lover is waiting for her. Again, immediate violence begets violence. [...] It is shaggy in its production and shrill in its enunciations of sociopolitical volatility. These are both compliments. The film fares better because it is ragged, raw, and loud. (So loud. So much screaming). [Bleeding Eye Cinema]"
"The phrase 'trying too hard' can be accurately applied to Christopher Schlingensief's wackadoo The German Chainsaw Massacre (Blackest Heart). It is a movie that is at once a parody of Tobe Hooper's seminal The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and also some sort of politically-conscious, absurdist metaphor for Germany's reunification period where prejudice feelings about East and West Germans towards each other is exaggerated to comically violent heights. To get anywhere resembling being entertained while watching it, one has to fully accept the lunacy present and turn off all rational comfort zones. At just over an hour long, the film manages to bulldoze you with screaming followed by more screaming and no less than every single character running around like a maniac and screaming some more. There are no good guys; just a bunch of deranged people yammering on, (and screaming), about Germany this or Germany that while liquefying people's heads, raping them, or talking in a silly voice to a skeleton they think is real. Plus other stuff. [Nerd Lists]."
"This film is not disturbing, scary, thought-provoking, or even remotely funny. It's like a mash-up of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 and Pink Flamingos (1972). People run around screaming — not out of fright but rather for no apparent reason — doing and saying supposedly 'outrageous' things meant to provoke shocked laughter. It is just tiresome and extremely boring. The gore is very poorly done, in the H. G. Lewis manner. Animal innards are simply placed on top of the actors to suggest disembowelments and such. The best thing I could say about it is that it is surprisingly polished and professional looking for a one hour 'art' film. [Agent_X27 @ imdb]"
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2:
Europa
(1991, dir. Lars von Trier)
"Priests are a necessary discomfort."
Uncle Kessler (Ernst-Hugo Järegård)
Udo Kier in his third Lars von Trier project, Europa a.k.a. Zentropa, the final film — after Element of Crime (1984, see Part V) and Epidemic (1987, see Part V) — of Lars von Trier's 'Europa' trilogy. Europa had its international premiere in France on 12 May 1991 at the Cannes Film Festival, and, like the other two films of the Europa trilogy, was written by Lars von Trier — at that time, a self-proclaimed "masturbator of the silver screen" — and Niels Vørsel.
Trailer to Europa:
BTW: Europa was released as Zentropa outside of Europe so as not to be confused with Europa Europa, the "tense suspense story, an ironic romance, and a truly black comedy – all driving toward a dark crisis of identity" that was otherwise (as in: outside the English-speaking world) known as the awarding-winning Hitlerjunge Salomon.
Hitlerjunge Salomon:
The plot of Europa a.k.a. Zentropa: "Just after the end of World War II, a young American of German descent, Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), comes to the U.S.-occupied zone of Germany and gets a job with his uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård [12 Dec 1928 – 6 Sept 1998]) as a sleeping car conductor for the railway company Zentropa. Fresh-faced and idealistic, Kessler has come to work in Germany as his 'small contribution to making the world a better place,' but has difficulty adapting to German customs. Kessler meets a young German woman, Katharina (Barbara Sukowa of Office Killer [1997 / trailer]), the daughter of the founder of Zentropa, Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg [8 Nov 1927 – 9 Nov 2023] of I, a Woman a.k.a. Jeg - en kvinde 1 [1965 / trailer]). She points out bodies that have been hanged on trees outside the train, and explains that they are members of Werwolf, a Nazi guerrilla terrorist organization that continues to sabotage the Allied occupiers. Katharina invites Kessler to dinner at her half-bombed family mansion, where he meets her [gay] older brother, Lawrence Hartmann (Udo Kier), and her father, Max Hartmann. Also present is U.S. Army Colonel Harris (Eddie Constantine), who gives Max Hartmann a special survey: if it is found that Hartmann colluded in any capacity with the Nazi government, a near certainty given the scope of his operation, his company will be taken away from him. Harris recruits a hesitant Kessler to keep his eyes open for Werwolf activity on the trains. [....] [Wikipedia]"
Lars von Trier's Europa trilogy "comes together beautifully in Europa (1991). [...] With Max von Sydow serving as narrator — and hypnotist, it seems ('You will now listen to my voice... On the count of 10, you will be in Europa.') — we're taken to a post-WWII Germany, where an idealistic American (Jean-Marc Barr of Nucingen House a.k.a. La maison Nucingen [2008 / trailer]) has arrived with a self-assigned mission to help the country's people any way he can. [...] In terms of von Trier's technical prowess, this is arguably the most impressive of all his movies, and, unlike the other two Europe films, it boasts a storyline that remains compelling from first frame to last. [Film Frenzy]"
"The war is never really over in Trier's Zentropa [...]! Perhaps Trier is saying that no matter who you were in Germany during the worst genocide of the 20th century, you were guilty by association. We are in submerged in the film's hypnotic final scenes and Leopold has no way out. Neither does the audience. [Jerry Saravia]"
"Zentropa is an ambitious avant-garde Danish film directed by Lars Von Trier. [...] Through the use of an erudite narrator (Max von Sydow) and visual flourishes that move from black and white to color, Von Trier wants us to fall under his spell as he educates us about evil, indifference, racism, and American power plays. [Spiritually & Practice]"
"[Europa] has not received its due recognition from the critical community. Part of the reason for this general critical neglect may have been in reaction to the flamboyancy of both the film's cinematics (it features a vast array of visual pyrotechnics) and its director (he added the 'von' to his name in emulation of Josef von Sternberg). More specifically, complaints have focused on Europa's presumed overemphasis on retro-imagery and artificial technical effects (superpositions, distortion, back-projection, mixed black-and-white images with color, etc.) at the expense of a coherent narrative. In my mind, though, Europa, although not flawless, is still one of the all-time greatest cinematic dream rides, and as Leonard Maltin remarked 'makes one feel privy to the reinvention of cinema'. [Film Sufi]"
"An early Lars Von Trier gem, not quite a masterpiece, perhaps due to lack of star wattage, a killer performance from Ernst-Hugo Jaregard and Udo Kier aside. [...] Here [Kier] is an ennui-ridden gay brother of femme fatale love interest Barbara Sukowa, and maybe a werewolf (in the post-war German terrorist sense). Alas, much screen time is eaten up watching dumbkopf American expatriate Kessler (Jean Marc-Barr) mess things up for his exasperated sleeper car conducting uncle. If you're a fan of trains you don't have to know why Kessler expressly requests the sleeper car. Damn is it sexy there. A giant box full of dreaming passengers, careening along through the Hamburg night, it's an ideal mirror to the audience in a dark theater. But Kessler is like that temp you hire only to have to spend so much time correcting his mistakes you may as well do his job yourself in addition to your own. No doubt Von Trier wanted it this way. He considered this a masterpiece and gave the Cannes jury the finger when he didn't win the Palme d'Or. But Americans don't like seeing Americans portrayed as incompetent patsies by Europeans. We hate that they love Jerry Lewis, or maybe just I do. [Acidemic]"
"An oddball confusion of a feature as director Lars von Trier [...] presents a murky post-Second World War Germany of politics, corruption and greed. [...] A noir tale, Europa is more pseudo than profound, obscure rather than engaging, a Kafka-esque take that looks stunning but where even the seduction of Kessler by the Hartmann daughter (Barbara Sukowa) is pure artifice. [An Opinion or Two]"
From Europa — Europa Aria
by Nina Hagen and Philippe Huttenlocher:
(1991)
All online sources say that this documentary on the making of Europa was made in 1991, though we could not definitely confirm any where and when and how. In 2005, however, it was found on disc 3 of the 4-disc European R2 DVD release of the complete 'Europa' trilogy collecting Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Europa (1991). Udo Kier is there both as a talking head and in scenes from the movie.
The full documentary:
My Own Private Idaho
(1991, writ. & dir. Gus van Sant)
Gus van Sant's third feature film after his B&W debut, Male Noche (1986 / trailer), and the critically acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy (1989 / trailer). In 2024, My Own Private Idaho was selected — along with a diverse selection of movies including, among others, Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Chelsea Girls (1966 / 5 mins), Dirty Dancing (1987), Ganja & Hess (1973 / trailer), Spy Kids (2001), Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Uptown Saturday Night (1974 / trailer) and Up in Smoke (1978 / trailer) — for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
"When you wake up, wipe the slugs off your face. Be ready for a new day!"
Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves)
Like many of Kier's projects, My Own Private Idaho more or less fell into his lap: "I go to Berlin and a young man comes to me: 'Hello. My name is Gus van Sant. I have a little movie here called Mala Noche. I made it for twenty thousand dollars. But my next film will be with Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, and I want you to be in the movie.' He got me a work permit and everything. Thanks to him, I came to America [...]. [Anthem]"
Trailer to
My Own Private Idaho:
"This film was the result of three projects coming together. The first was a modern adaptation of Henry IV called Howling at the Moon, about street kids in Portland, written entirely in Shakespearean verse. The second was In a Blue Funk, about two Spanish cousins living on the streets of Las Vegas, who decide to go to Spain after seeing their last name on a Spanish map, and find out about themselves and their family. The third, titled My Own Private Idaho, and was about a hustler who gets picked up by a German auto parts salesman and 'kept' at his house. Gus van Sant had trouble finishing the scripts, so he merged them together. [imdb]"
"My Own Private Idaho is an experimental indie film from the early part of a decade when indie films once flourished. While fairly artsy, bordering on pretentious, and with obvious references to select works of Shakespeare, Gus van Sant's film is easy enough to admire, even if I'm not sure that I liked it. In any case, it's infinitely better than the other gay-hustler film that I've seen, the Best Picture Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy (1969 / trailer), which was nothing more than a homophobic crapfest. [Queering the Closet]"
The plot, per Thoughts from Cinema's Fringes: "River Phoenix plays Mike, a narcoleptic young man who is so estranged from his parents that he only sees his mother in his dreams. He ekes out a living as a male prostitute servicing all manner of wealthy, eccentric clients in Portland, Oregon as part of a loosely assembled group that includes Scott (Keanu Reeves), the estranged son of the mayor (Tom Troupe). Their appointed patriarch is an obese raggedy man named Bob (William Richert) and they use a derelict hotel as a hideout. One day, Mike and Scott decide to head out on a road trip across the USA and then to Rome, Italy. On the way they meet up with such characters as Richard (James Russo) — a man who may or may not be Mike's biological father, a German queen named Hans (Udo Kier) and a young Italian woman named Carmella (Chiara Caselli) who Scott falls in love with."
"It's hard to know which aspect of Idaho is the more self-indulgent: the implausible hustlers odyssey mythos (concentrating on Mike) that constitutes the main plot, or the subtext Henry IV rewrite (Scott = Hal, Bob = Falstaff) that surfaces in overlong passages of mock-articulate, cod-Shakespeherian dialogue — with which the younger performers often audibly struggle. Reeves, in particular, justifies his (often unfairly applied) reputation for woodenness — but this isn't a problem when the spellbindingly oddball [William] Richert (maverick director of 1979's delirious Winter Kills [trailer]) is around to keep things watchable. Performing a similar movie-saving function (albeit in a radically different key) is the one and only Udo Kier, typecast but terrific value in his all-too-brief appearances as the genial but sexually predatory travelling-salesman Hans: his rendition of the Kraut-rock-space-operatic Mr Klein [see Part V] is a camp knockout of a show-stopper. [Neil Young]"
"While My Own Private Idaho was intended to be a film about homosexuality and its alienation, van Sant found something that a straight audience even the disaffected youth of the early '90s can relate to. [...] The film also has elements of a road film and a buddy comedy while it sexuality isn't really about gays in particular but also the view point of how a straight man would feel about homosexuality and its desire for love. Van Sant's screenplay is very potent and filled with some heartbreaking moments, notably the third act where we see the emotional disintegration of Mike. The directing style that van Sant puts out is very diverse and there's definitely an element of Fellini in some of the dream sequences that Mike has as he sees a house falling down or him staring at the road. The ideas that van Sant puts out are very surreal yet very powerful images. [Surrender to the Void]"
The movie's title is an allusion to The B-52s' 1980 song (which peaked at #74 on Billboard's Hot 100) Private Idaho. That song is not used anywhere in the movie. For that, however, van Sant incorporated two obscure new-wave songs that Udo Kier released in 1985: Der Adler and Mr Klein. [See: Part V.] The latter can faintly be heard on the car radio when Kier's character Hans, driving in his car, pulls up alongside Mike, meeting him for the first time. Later, Hans performs Der Adler using a table lamp as his "microphone" — indeed, "[...] his rendition puts his handsome young co-actors in the shade. [Dream Idea Machine]"
Private Idaho:
"Udo Kier is the film's big standout with his European demeanor and performance art charm. [Surrender to the Void]" "Udo Kier [...] manages to be batty even when doing next to nothing, let alone dancing round with a table lamp as he does here. [Thoughts from Cinema's Fringes]"
To ignore Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix and Kier, let's look at some other names of cast. Pretty Italian lass Chiara Caselli has a career and can be found in fun films like Pupi Avati's The American Backyard (2024 / trailer), The Crypt Monster (2021 / trailer), Argento's Sleepless (2001 / trailer), and Giancarlo Soldi's Nero (1992). William Richert, like Udo Kier & River Phoenix — and, someday, you — has died. Manly James Russo's career is as diversely full of "good" and "bad" films as Kier's, though minus the "art" films, but he remains oddly unknown.
Regarding Kier, he mentions in Interview Magazine that after completing his shoot for van Sant: "I stayed with a girlfriend, Anna. I had already packed my suitcase to go back home to Europe and she said, 'Why don't you stay here?' I said, 'No.' [Then] during the evening and after a few glasses of wine, I said, 'Actually, not a bad idea.' And that's 25 years ago. I was very lucky that a lot of casting agents liked [My Own Private Idaho] very much because of Gus van Sant, so I could see a lot of people. [...]"
Udo Kier's performance of
Sitting on a Bullet in the film:
Indeed, one need but look at Kier's oeuvre prior to and after My Own Private Idaho to see how the movie influenced his career. Despite all the art and noteworthy films he participated in, the steadily dwindling number of films he made per year was at a non-rent-paying low by 1991, sometimes with a year or two between projects. In 1992, the first year following My Own Private Idaho, his projects were still limited — but in 1993, he worked on 12 projects, major and minor, and never completely stopped working until the day he died. His relatively modest but pivotal part as Hans in My Own Private Idaho turned him from a cult Euro arthouse fave into an important and well-known character actor who always took a chance, whether for a big budget crowd-pleaser, a D2V/D2D slab of trash, a respectable European and/or arty project, or an independent experiment.
"I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world."
Mike Waters (River Phoenix)
(1992, writ. & dir. Christoph Schlingensief)
The first film released after My Own Private Idaho to feature Udo Kier was another Schlingensief film, a roughly 40-minute long mockumentary that had its premiere broadcast on WDR on 8 September 1992 — it is, to be sure, a far cry from Schlingensief's blood and guts-heavy intellectual trashfests of the prior half-decade. A.k.a. Death of a World Star.
Synopsis: "After suffering a tragic accident on a shoot in Tuscany, world star Udo Kier is about to die. Alfred Edel is sent in to film an obituary. [Club 69]"
While it lasts —
Tod eines Weltstar:
"Tod eines Weltstars is what Christoph Schlingensief titled his 1992 portrait of Udo Kier. Udo Kier hides out if Tuscany from a television reporter (Alfred Edel [12 Mar 1932 – 17 Jun 1993]). A pursuit on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At the time [1992], an ironic allusion to Kier's international comeback and a persiflage of all home stories, today an homage and special memento to their close friendship. [Instagram]"
Death of a World Star includes clips from earlier films featuring Udo Kier, including: Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and The Story of O (1975) [see Part II]; Goldflocken (1976) and The Stationmaster's Wife (1977) [see Part III]; The Last Trip to Harrisburg (1984) and Egomania: Island Without Hope (1986) [see Part V]; and Medea (1988), Blackest Heart (1990) and Europa (1991) [see above].
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"An ironic, pseudo-documentary puzzle, an hysterical homage to a gifted cinema eccentric, a feast for all Kieromaniacs. And they're not facing extinction. [Filmfest Munich]"
(1992 dir. Fabien Baron)
The music video to the first single released from "Erotica [...,] the fifth studio album by American singer Madonna, released on October 19, 1992, by Maverick and Sire Records. The album was released simultaneously with Madonna's first book publication Sex, a coffee table book containing explicit photographs of the singer, and marked her first release under Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company [Wikipedia]"
Udo Kier is one of the party guests, so keep your eyes open (he shows up the first time at 0:56). Other faces you might recognize: Isabella Rossellini, Naomi Campbell, Helmut Berger ([29 May 1944 – 18 May 2023] of Salon Kitty [1976] and so much more) and Joey Stefano (1 Jan 1968 – 26 Nov 1994). The song is a musical ode to S&M, and the video — like the song, the album, and the coffee table book Sex — proved to become yet another scandal in prudish USA. The video was allegedly aired only three times on MTV back then and only after 10 pm. Nowadays, it's easily viewed everywhere on the net.
Madonna's Erotica:
Madonna's "character" in the video, Dita, was inspired by the now long-forgotten German film actress Dita Parlo (born Gerda Kornstädt; 4 Sept 1908 – 12 Dec 1971), of Jean Renior's Le Grande Illusion (1937). Ms. Parlo is also the inspiration behind the name of Dita Von Teese.
Terror 2000 - Intensivstation Deutschland
(1992 writ. & dir. Christoph Schlingensief)
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"After The German Chainsaw Massacre (1990 — a.k.a. Blackest Heart) and 100 Years of Adolf Hitler (1989), the last part of [Schlingensief's] German Trilogy. Hatred, love, sexuality. Germany in the Year 1 after Rostock. A hectic film in hectic times. [Filmgalerie 451]" The movie premiered at Hofer Filmtage on 30 October 1992.
"Performance artist, filmmaker, and all-around mischief-maker Christoph Schlingensief rose to international prominence with his 'German Trilogy,' which satirized his home country's insistence that it successfully turned the page on its Nazi past after World War II. Terror 2000 engages with xenophobia towards Eastern Bloc refugees around German reunification. Schlingensief embraces the style of hardcore schlock to tell this story, using ugly tropes to put revanchist bloodlust to the test. Grand Guignol in the extreme, the film is not for the faint of heart, but provides a fascinating counter to the somber New German Cinema of Schlondorff and Kluge. [BAM]"
Trailer to
Terror 2000:
Plot: "After ex-gangster Bössler (Alfred Edel) and Jablo (Udo Kier)* have found asylum in Rassau-City — the one is the owner of a furniture store now, the other of a little church — they use their forces exclusively to cleansing Germany in the sense of the Rostock pogrom. Only after they finished off a Polish family and a Western German social worker on the ride in the refugee train Rassau, the detectives of the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (Peter Kern and Margit Carstensen [29 Feb 1940 – 1 Jun 2023]) set out for Rassau and get into the vortex of the speeding events: A motorcyclist loses his face to Helmut Kohl. The refugee home management thinks of Treblinka concentration camp. The priest assaults a Thai woman. The shared past of all people involved strikes with merciless impact: The Gladbeck hostage drama. When also the Nazis, a miracle healer and the minister come, Germany shows its true face. [Filmgalerie 451]"
* "Ex-gangster" is a bit of an understatement: Bössler (Alfred Edel) and Jablo (Udo Kier) should actually be — or at least represent — Hans-Jürgen Rösner and Dieter Degowski, the two bank robbers that took a bus hostage during the media circus that was the Gladbeck hostage crisis which, ultimately, resulted in the pointless death of a 14-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman. In real life, the two are now rotting in prison, but in the film, they apparently escaped and are living undercover as Bössler and Jablo. The press and news media did not exactly show shining colors during the events.
The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre rates the film as "Of some interest", saying: "Terror 2000 (a.k.a. Germany in Revolt) — Absolutely insane movie depicting an over-the-top crazy and violent world via re-unified Germany. After a social worker and some Poles go missing, an inspector investigates in a Nazi-run town. The Nazis are typically violent and racist but are accompanied by a demented and perverted priest (Udo Kier), a minister performs empty gestures and is totally useless, the immigrants and minorities are portrayed as stupid and ultimately senselessly violent as well, a healer leads a group of religious loonies and actually achieves something but is still a loony, and the investigator himself turns out to be a complete pervert. In other words, Schlingensief sees everyone as contributing to a screwed up world... anarchy must prevail? Filthy, gory, perverse, energetic madness."
At one point, agent Körn (Peter Kern) sings a classic to his mistress. Here is the original version from 1968...
Springtime for Hitler (1967):
Madonna: Sex
(1992, dir. Fabien Baron)
A one-hour B&W silent documentary: "The photo shoots for Madonna's book Sex were also filmed on Super 8 by fashion photographer Fabian Baron. Many of the photos in the book were film frames taken from this footage. Madonna and Baron compiled an hour of the footage for this film. It premiered during the release party for the book. Madonna also had 100 copies of the film made to give to her closest friends. She and Baron also used some of the footage for the video for her song Erotica. Reportedly, Warner Brothers considered releasing this film along with the book but the idea was scrapped. At some point in the mid-1990s this film leaked out and has been sold as a bootleg. [imbd]"
Also at imdb, r_jayy_dylan gushes: "The 60 minute video for Madonna's Sex book is a great work of art. [...] There is no talking in this film, just 1920s' music, and Madonna is absolutely beautiful. Very rare to find now in days, it's a must have for a every Madonna fan but the quality more than likely will be terrible due to the number of times copying. The video shows Madonna nude most of the time laying on her back against the ocean, riding a bicycle, dancing with Naomi Campbell and kissing and horsing around with then boyfriend Vanilla Ice. It's a lovely companion for the book. Very artistic and creative. Remember this film was never released, only given by Madonna to 100 of her closest friends at the Sex book release party. Somehow the video got out and might be on sell on eBay time and time again."
The video cannot be found in full on YouTube, but is easily located on numerous porn-streaming sites as well as here at the Internet Archives.
Madonna: Deeper and Deeper
(1992, dir. Bobby Woods)
"Beware! Our idols and demons will pursue us until we learn to let them go."
The music video to Madonna's song "Deeper and Deeper [...], from her fifth studio album, Erotica (1992). [...] In Australia and most European countries, the song was released as the album's second single on November 17, 1992; in the United States, a release was issued on December 8. [Wikipedia]"
"The accompanying music video was [...] seen as a homage to American artist Andy Warhol and Italian director Luchino Visconti (of Blood for Dracula [1973, see Part II]), with Madonna playing a character based on Edie Sedgwick, who goes out to a nightclub to meet her friends and boyfriend." Udo Kier opens the video and probably appears the most aside from Madonna; other familiar faces that cameo include Sofia Coppola, Debi Mazar, porn director Chi Chi LaRue and his occasional performer Joey Stefano, and Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn (26 Oct 1946 – 6 Dec 2015). An unrecognizable Stefano is dressed up as (and thus plays) Warhol-era Joe Dallesandro, who had turned down Madonna's request to participate in the video.
Madonna's Deeper and Deeper:
Udo Kier, Part VI: 1993-94 will follow someday...
And now,
a public-service message from a wasted life:
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