Woyzeck - the film

[Febnyc]

Last night we watched Werner Herzog's 1979 film of the Büchner 1914 play, Woyzeck. It features Klaus Kinski as the title character and Eva Mattes (Winner, Best Supporting Actor in Cannes) as Marie. Kinski is, for me, a fascinating actor - I've seen a number of his movies. This one, however, aside from Kinski's raving lunacy (what else is new?), had little to offer in its 80 minutes, except the constant degradation of a human being (well, that's the story of course). Oh, Herzog's directing and filming were striking and certainly the subject is a juicy one - but I found myself slightly bored. Maybe it's because I have seen a couple of performances of Alban Berg's opera, Wozzeck - to which the film does not compare, in my opinion.

I think the old George Romney statement about slums could be paraphrased here: If you've seen one Kinski movie, you've seen them all.

Nevertheless I keep being attracted to this manic person - and force myself to sit through hours of screenplay just observing his particular "talent."

(PS - For the life of me I could not understand why Ms Mattes won the Cannes prize. She evinced one mood, was more or less wooden throughout, and had little to do besides look pretty. Perhaps someone who knows this film could enlighten me.)

[Brendan]

For me, Kinski/Herzog is hit or miss: hits were Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde, misses were Nosferatu and Woyzeck.

I still consider The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser to be Herzog's best movie.

[Febnyc]

Fitzcarraldo was my favorite, but still I yawn in the middle. It's long and it gets tedious, although Herzog and Kinski do a good job of maintaining the tension within the Fitzcarraldo character himself and between him and the Amazon natives.

(I guess there was a real tension, beyond the script - since one of the natives reportedly offered to kill Kinski during the filming.)