Woyzeck

"What is it in us that lies, murders, steals?"

"Don't you hear? Don't you hear the dreadful voice that screams from the whole horizon, and that man usually calls silence?"

Woyzeck by George Buchner

Woyzeck: It's us poor people that...You see, Captain, sir...Money, money! Whoever hasn't got money...Well, who's got morals when he's bringing something like me into the world? We're flesh and blood, too. Our kind is miserable only once: in this world and in the next. I think if we ever got to heaven we'd have to help with the thunder.

Captain: Woyzeck, you have no virtue!

Watch Werner Herzog's brilliant adaptation of this play It takes some time to appear.

In this film Klaus Kinski delivers a wild and stunning performance in a role only he could play. Franz Woyzeck (Kinski) is a hapless, hopeless soldier, alone and powerless in society, assaulted from all sides by forces he cannot control. Abused and tortured, both physically and psychologically by commanding officers, doctors, and his unfaithful Marie (Eva Mattes, Best Supporting Actress at Cannes), Woyzeck struggles to hold on to his humanity and his fragile sanity. In the film's shattering climax, he is finally driven over the brink into madness and murder.