One of the signs of a great artist is that even when not at the top of his game he is still capable of flashes of utter brilliance. Such is the case in Werner Herzog's 1979 film Woyzeck, starring his friend and bane Klaus Kinski. It is not a great film, but is a film with moments of greatness in its eighty minute length, and was the third of five films made by the director-actor team. Part of the reason the film, as a whole, does not reach greatness is because it wears its stage roots too strongly, especially in its overtly philosophic monologues. Not surprisingly, for a stagey film, the tale is claustrophobic, and was shot in just eighteen days, in 1978, in Czechoslovakia, less than a week after Herzog wrapped on his film Nosferatu, Phantom Of The Night, the remake of the F.W. Murnau silent film horror classic.
The tale is a simple one, about a German soldier, Friedrich Johann Franz Woyzeck (Kinski), in the early 19th Century, who slowly goes mad and kills his faithless lover Marie (Eva Mattes), possibly an ex-prostitute, who is having sex with another military man. Many critics claim that the woman is Woyzeck's wife, but, as they live apart and she does not bear his name, there is no evidence within the film for this assertion- which is often the case in film criticism, that false information is repeated ad infinitum. But, as simple a tale as the film tells, it is the how of this film that lifts it from possible banality to near greatness. Kinski's performance, as usual, is riveting, and even though nowhere near as mesmerizing as his titanic performance in Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, it is nonetheless brilliant.
The most commented upon scene is the one where Woyzeck murders his lover near a pond. It is done in slow motion and to music, and has a certain brilliance to it- especially as Kinski's character briefly realizes he has gone over the edge, but this sort of violence has been done before on screen, if not as well. A better scene comes when Woyzeck's doctor tosses a cat out of a second story window, and Woyzeck catches it, then quivers as the cat shits on him. It's the kind of odd thing that happens in reality that rarely occurs in film, and Kinski's portrayal of his reaction to it is every bit as wonderful as the murder scene. What separates a film like this from the trite, opulent, and ultimately stale Merchant/Ivory sort of film, however, is that this film should, by all rights, be a costume drama, yet it is not. Yes, there are costumes, but the reality shown in this film is not of soaring landscapes and marvelous old buildings, but of grimy streets, hand-held camera shots of dark, dingy little apartments, not of clean, gilt mansions. This is an intimate period piece, not a costume drama, and its people are life sized quivering little people, not semi-mythic towering heroic creatures. Herzog, as he did in Aguirre and in The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, shows the viewer the world as it was, not as how it should have been.
Woyzeck is usually dismissed in the Herzog canon by critics for its visuals- the darkness and static camera shots, for they claim that is part of its staginess. They're wrong. Not in that such shots are not 'stagey,' but in that that's a bad thing in the film. The visuals all work splendidly in evoking mood. The stagey aspect of the film that denies it greatness is the often too deeply philosophical monologues from such dimwitted characters. This kills some of the realism that film does better than stage productions. Yet, that's not a major quibble for this excellent little film, with the 'little' being used in all its best connotations. Whether Woyzeck is seen as a dark comedy or sinister drama depends upon the viewer's mood, to a great extent. Like all of the Herzog-Kinski collaborations, this film deals wonderfully with alienation and loneliness, the desire to stay sane under stressful and abnormal circumstances, the inability to cope with frustration, and the staving off of paranoia (usually failed) when under attack- either physically or psychologically. That so few other films, especially in Hollywood, even ponder these aspects momentarily, much less set them center stage, is a thing to be rued. Werner Herzog, however, deserves all the praise he can get, even for these 'lesser' films in his oeuvre, for a lesser Herzog will beat ninety-nine out of a hundred so-called critical 'masterpieces' from Hollywood. When failures can still get those kinds of odds you're playing with 'house money,' and that's when it's OK to think small to reach deeply.
The tale is a simple one, about a German soldier, Friedrich Johann Franz Woyzeck (Kinski), in the early 19th Century, who slowly goes mad and kills his faithless lover Marie (Eva Mattes), possibly an ex-prostitute, who is having sex with another military man. Many critics claim that the woman is Woyzeck's wife, but, as they live apart and she does not bear his name, there is no evidence within the film for this assertion- which is often the case in film criticism, that false information is repeated ad infinitum. But, as simple a tale as the film tells, it is the how of this film that lifts it from possible banality to near greatness. Kinski's performance, as usual, is riveting, and even though nowhere near as mesmerizing as his titanic performance in Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, it is nonetheless brilliant.
The most commented upon scene is the one where Woyzeck murders his lover near a pond. It is done in slow motion and to music, and has a certain brilliance to it- especially as Kinski's character briefly realizes he has gone over the edge, but this sort of violence has been done before on screen, if not as well. A better scene comes when Woyzeck's doctor tosses a cat out of a second story window, and Woyzeck catches it, then quivers as the cat shits on him. It's the kind of odd thing that happens in reality that rarely occurs in film, and Kinski's portrayal of his reaction to it is every bit as wonderful as the murder scene. What separates a film like this from the trite, opulent, and ultimately stale Merchant/Ivory sort of film, however, is that this film should, by all rights, be a costume drama, yet it is not. Yes, there are costumes, but the reality shown in this film is not of soaring landscapes and marvelous old buildings, but of grimy streets, hand-held camera shots of dark, dingy little apartments, not of clean, gilt mansions. This is an intimate period piece, not a costume drama, and its people are life sized quivering little people, not semi-mythic towering heroic creatures. Herzog, as he did in Aguirre and in The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, shows the viewer the world as it was, not as how it should have been.
Woyzeck is usually dismissed in the Herzog canon by critics for its visuals- the darkness and static camera shots, for they claim that is part of its staginess. They're wrong. Not in that such shots are not 'stagey,' but in that that's a bad thing in the film. The visuals all work splendidly in evoking mood. The stagey aspect of the film that denies it greatness is the often too deeply philosophical monologues from such dimwitted characters. This kills some of the realism that film does better than stage productions. Yet, that's not a major quibble for this excellent little film, with the 'little' being used in all its best connotations. Whether Woyzeck is seen as a dark comedy or sinister drama depends upon the viewer's mood, to a great extent. Like all of the Herzog-Kinski collaborations, this film deals wonderfully with alienation and loneliness, the desire to stay sane under stressful and abnormal circumstances, the inability to cope with frustration, and the staving off of paranoia (usually failed) when under attack- either physically or psychologically. That so few other films, especially in Hollywood, even ponder these aspects momentarily, much less set them center stage, is a thing to be rued. Werner Herzog, however, deserves all the praise he can get, even for these 'lesser' films in his oeuvre, for a lesser Herzog will beat ninety-nine out of a hundred so-called critical 'masterpieces' from Hollywood. When failures can still get those kinds of odds you're playing with 'house money,' and that's when it's OK to think small to reach deeply.