Free Kino by Jürgen Fauth Page B

beast, it was our blood that circulated through its veins, our breath that fanned the flames from its nostrils. We made the creature move and fight. Through the alchemy of Kino, we became the dragon. The dragon taught me the power of the crew, coming together to make a film like the craftsmen who built cathedrals in the middle ages. Everyone's contribution, every single detail, was essential. Inside the dragon, Herr Dokter, we all understood that.
    But Fritz Lang didn't know how to marshal the talent at his disposal. In my version of Die Nibelungen , the dragon would have killed that Arschloch Siegfried and eaten his entrails, but Lang was too stupid and too proud of his silly script to see. He didn't know how to let an idea flourish. Under his rigid dictatorship everything turned into a grotesque, lifeless pageant. Can you understand why the dragon's preordained fate did not sit well with us? It seemed unfair to stage this tremendous battle and not give the creature a chance. Paul Richter, prancing about in his sexy loincloth–it was a lie the monster we had created could not abide. There wasn't a word spoken, but somehow, we reached a decision nonetheless.
    Lang's counting method should have left no room for mistakes–one, two, the dragon's eyes roll while Siegfried jumps left, three, a blast of fire as he strikes, four, five, a whip of the tail, and six, he impales the Lindwurm on his sword. It was during what seemed like the hundredth take of Siegfried jumping from rock to rock and striking at our vulcanized rubber skin that I flung the tail into Paul Richter's leg, a move he wasn't expecting till four or five count higher, and delivered a mighty whack that sent him flying backwards into the pond.
    All ten of us inside the dragon cheered!
    Curses from Lang, laughter from the crew.
    A Dokter , so old he must have served under Bismarck, came along swiftly. Richter had suffered a contusion and would be unable to work for a week. The shoot was now delayed, the production bleeding money, and Lang was raging with anger. Gruber, who had saved me the last time Lang wanted my head, fingered me as the one responsible. I swear I saw him reach for the gun he kept inside his vest. But Thea was back at Lang's side, reminding him that I provided the Zement . In the throes of hyperinflation, I was the one who kept the production going, and he knew it. Even Paul Richter, that oaf, couldn't hold a grudge when we sent Ute the Mole Girl to visit him in his hospital room. Siegfried recovered quickly.
    I had learned something crucial: the dragon beat Siegfried, but that's not what Die Nibelungen showed. Lang's movies didn't allow room for the incidental; he imposed his will on every element on the set. He was a liar and a fraud. But I had felt the power of the dragon, had tasted the unfettered potential of cinema to create something true and beautiful and dangerous, and I had to have more.

    Die Nibelungen kept shooting into the New Year. To celebrate the end of production–in Hollywood, they call it a wrap party–Ufa turned Grosse Halle into a beer garden, serving up Bretzel and Schultheiss to the legions of extras who had all dutifully died for Lang's horrid epic. Later that night, Thea and Fritz hosted a more exclusive affair at their notorious Hohenzollernstrasse apartment. Thea asked me to make sure that cast, studio bigwigs, and investors were properly entertained. Together with Steffen, I supplied bowls of Zement , a samovar of opium tea, a hookah packed with Turkish kif, and a dozen Friedrichstadt dancers.
    Thea and Fritz had turned their apartment into an exotic museum, stuffed with paintings and art objects, Chinese carpets, Japanese temple flags, sacred vases, Buddhas, shrunken heads, and cabinets filled with trinkets so Lang could brag about his travels. He was a bore, but no matter: we had made it into the inner sanctum, a place I'd only seen in the photo spreads of glossy movie magazines. In the purple library,