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Video by FFWD Staff Klaus Kinski’s slow descent into madness onscreen Madness – that soundless roaring within, imperceptible to all but the afflicted. It manifests itself in many different forms, but once you’ve seen director Werner Herzog’s adaptation of Georg Büchner’s stage play Woyzeck (Germany, 1979), it is impossible to conceptualize madness without also envisioning the great German actor Klaus Kinski: sallow, with sunken cheeks and a cold steel-blue stare so penetrating and paranoid that it seems to express everything and nothing all at once. It is a deft balancing act, measuring blank vacancy with an equally manic intensity, and it makes Kinski’s presence in this film more unsettling than perhaps any other role he played. By comparison, even his other work for Herzog, in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Nosferatu, the Vampyre, involves more outward, physical expressions of insanity while Woyzeck is characterized by the introversion and anti-social behaviour demanded by the title role. Kinski is Private Franz Woyzeck, a soldier of the lowest rank, bullied by his superiors and misunderstood by all others who ignore his protestations that instinct takes precedence over social conditioning. The idea that insanity is the only sane response to an insane society – a society made insane by its separation from natural instincts – is central to the film, and the standard by which Herzog forces us to judge Woyzeck’s mental state. Woyzeck’s doctor berates him for pissing in the street, and when Woyzeck tries to defend himself by insisting, "I felt the call of nature," the doctor embarrasses him, and belittles his "animalistic" impulses. There are other similar scenes where Herzog reveals that while it is possible to teach animals to do "human" tricks, some behaviours are more primal and can’t or won’t be unlearned. Certainly, a horse can learn simple multiplication tables and tap out answers with its hoof, but a cat thrown from a window will always land on its feet. The clearest example of Herzog’s and presumably Büchner’s point is the scene with the sideshow barker and his subjugated monkey in the silk and tassels of a high-ranking soldier. Says the barker, "The monkey is a soldier. That’s not much, yet it’s the lowest rank of mankind." If this is true, then Woyzeck is even lowlier than the monkey in a world obsessed with status. As a bottom-scraping private, he holds little position even in the lowest rank of mankind. From here, it’s not a huge leap to accept that Woyzeck is somewhat representative of all casualties of sick hierarchical societies, and his response to that sickness is truly disturbing. The climax and conclusion of the film revolve primarily around Woyzeck’s final failure of containment. It’s a cinematic moment brimming with tragedy and pathos, as Woyzeck finally gives fully over to savagery for a brief, satisfying moment, and exacts a revenge that the closing titles suggest is pure and beautiful even as it leads to his further alienation from everything except his own motives. Kinski is unfathomably commanding here, displaying a rage provoked possibly by the difficulty of a role that allegedly broke his spirit. Still, it’s Herzog’s brilliant decision to show us Woyzeck coming completely undone – Kinski raging, lunatic – as music plays on the soundtrack. It’s been said that Kinski never really recovered from playing this part, and it’s easy to see why.

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