This Week's Lunch Special: Herzog ala Corman

This week on the Kinskipalooza Tour: Klaus loses his marbles, gets all philosophical and murders his wum-mon in:

Woyzeck

Theatrical Film, 1979

Director: Werner Herzog

The Story
Exactly as described above.  Oh, you want more?  OK, although the story itself is very sparse.  Woyzeck is a downtrodden soldier living in …somewhere European (we are never told) in the early Nineteenth Century.  Trying to support his girlfriend/common-law wife Marie and his son by taking odd jobs for his Captain and allowing himself to be medically experimented upon by his Doctor, Woyzeck is a complete mess both physically and psychologically.  All of this plus Marie’s infidelity with a bullying Drum Major leads Woyzeck to… lose his marbles, get all philosophical and murder his wum-mon.  What?  Don’t look at me like that!  I didn’t spoil nuthin'; the ending was spoiled in the film’s trailer!  And on the DVD artwork.

Review

I’m not going to say much on this movie, and not only because I’m very busy at the moment.  The truth is that there isn’t much to say about Woyzeck.  It’s a middling effort from Werner Herzog and not that great of a movie.  It was shot in the space of two weeks right after filming Nosferatu, and it shows.  The scenery in this film is gorgeous (a Herzog trademark) and Kinski does a good job as the tormented title character, but everything fails to gel for me.  The pacing stutters and the film is way too dialogue heavy, and not in a good way.  Characters do nothing most of the time except stand around philosophizing at each other (this is probably the most stereotypically European film I have seen yet from Herzog).  Seeing as this was adapted from a play, this is not a surprise – everything does have a stagey feel.

I don’t hate this movie, and in fact a weak effort from Herzog is better than the best efforts put out by 90% of the other movie directors out there.  It’s just not that compelling.  It’s definitely worth watching once though if for the beautiful photography and Kinski’s acting.  Just don’t expect to come back to it again and again.

Screenshots

Just your typical gorgeous Herzog scenery, just keep moving, keep moving along....

Eva Mattes as Marie:  "What the Hell just happened?"  

You'll be asking yourself the same question throughout this movie.

"My, Major, what big hands you have!"
"The better to grope you with, my dear!"

The doctor drops a cat bomb on Woyzeck.  You know, I wonder if Germany even has an SPCA, because if they do then they must be pissed with Herzog right about now, what between the horse-punching-monkey-chucking of Aguirre, the rat-abuse of Nosferatu and this.  Actually, come to think of it he would probably treat his human actors the same way if he thought he could get away with it.

"Um, look, I like you too, but I think we should try being just friends first."

Woyzeck runs through a field of POPPIES Poppies poppies

The DVD

Woyzeck comes on an infamously bare-bones DVD.  Don't expect any frills.  The picture and sound on this are good enough, but there has obviously been no attempt to clean up anything.  There are no extra features save the theatrical trailer (which, again, spoils the ending) and text info on Herzog and Kinski.  There is no commentary by Herzog, so I guess he didn't think that much of this film, either.

Next Week: Fitzcarraldo