

The aging writer Aurelio Morelli is disillusioned: although the critics like his books, they are barely read. He develops hatred on youth and their depraved moral. One night he goes with a callgirl - and kills her. The police doesn't have a clue, only the unscrupulous sensational journalist Bossi suspects him. Instead of naming him to the police, he persuades Morelli to write about the murder for his paper. Morelli uses the occasion to write his memoirs, in which he confesses lots of other crimes before this last one...
Acting
Kinski's feral energy devours every scene he's in
Writing
Meta-narrative blurs murder and memoir deliciously
Direction
Purzer's clinical gaze implicates the viewer

Director
Manfred Purzer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mel Ferrer and Klaus Kinski reportedly clashed on set; Kinski's volatility allegedly made Ferrer—no stranger to difficult directors—visibly uncomfortable during their dialogue scenes.
Released the same year as Pasolini's murder, the film's exploration of an artist's violent end and posthumous mythologizing felt eerily prescient in European arthouse circles.