Product Details

• Actors: Klaus Kinski, Eva Mattes, Wolfgang Reichmann, Willy Semmelrogge, Josef Bierbichler
• Directors: Werner Herzog
• Format: Color, Letterboxed, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: August 15, 2000
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630597098X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,323 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars BORN TO LOSE, January 28, 2001

By 

Daniel S. "Daniel" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Woyzeck (DVD)

We have to thank Anchor Bay for bringing into the DVD standard a certain number of german director Werner Herzog movies. Werner Herzog is, in my opinion, one of the best film directors of Movie History and his films must be shown again and again if we want that a new generation of directors rises from the ashes of the kilometers of rotten anonymous pellicle produced in industrial quantity nowadays.

WOYZECK was filmed in 1978 in Czeschoslovaquia, just after the completion of NOSFERATU. Georg Büchner's play is well-known to european literature students who have to read it at least once during their academic career. At first, I didn't understand why WOYZECK had attracted a lyrical director like Werner Herzog. Georg Büchner's minimalist dialogs and action don't leave much place for the visionary travellings of the director of AGUIRRE and KASPAR HAUSER.

But, as soon as Klaus Kinski appears as the soldier Woyzeck, I knew that something would happen on the screen, Klaus Kinski IS Woyzeck in the same way that he WAS Aguirre, the mad conquistador. When Woyzeck feels that there is " a second nature " hidden behind what we see, the genius of Werner Herzog explodes once again : what is important is not what we see but what we feel while being hypnotized by the hallucinated Klaus-Woyzeck-Kinski.

Of course, I shall recommend WOYZECK to those of you who are already familiar with Werner Herzog's world through AGUIRRE, KASPAR HAUSER or HEART OF GLASS. I also recommend it to the students who are fighting with the dryness of Georg Büchner's play or to those who still believe that Klaus Kinski was only a B-movie actor who starred in horror movies and spaghetti westerns of the 60's and the 70's.

Superb copy with a trailer and incomplete filmographies of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski.

A DVD zone movie lovers only.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woyzeck Powerful Truthful Kinski Assoluta, July 11, 2003

By 

William L. Phipps (Tuckahoe, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Woyzeck (DVD)

Klaus Kinski gives the finest performance of his career in this fine adaptation of the play, later used by Alban Berg for his opera Wozzeck, completed in 1924. The story has always had a power and truth all of its own; indeed it is based on an actual incident. Highly recommended!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Diet Herzog blended with Whole Kinsky, February 11, 2008

By 

shaxper (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Woyzeck (DVD)

It's been said that this was Herzog's easiest film, and that certainly shows. Whereas the best of Herzog's films are born out of his blood and spit, this film feels blasphemously effortless. I didn't expect the jungle perils of Aguirre: The Wrath of God, nor the 30,000 rats unleashed in Nosferatu, but I did expect art. Instead, Herzog simply points the camera and shoots.

Perhaps, only five days after shooting the exhaustingly stylized and expressive Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, it was tempting to take a leap toward the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, presenting Woyzeck's oppresive reality in sanitized colors with a near total absence of expressive lighting, scoring, and camera work. But I believe Herzog confused artistic interpretation with sheer laziness. Indeed, even at the film's climax, when Woyzeck has broken free of his societal restraints and rediscovered a portion of his natural side, Herzog is too late and still too restrained to make me care. We are outside of Woyzeck, unable to experience the leap that he himself has made.

Rather unfortunately, Klaus Kinsky pours his heart into this role, bringing the character to life with a genuine authenticity that dwarfs the greatness he accomplished with Aguirre and Nosferatu, but his efforts are wasted. Herzog simply holds a camera up to Kinsky's face. It seems obvious that Kinsky sacrificed a great part of himself to achieve this performance, but we are only able to watch; not to experience along with him. Herzog utterly fails to take us along on Woyzeck's emotional journey.

I don't think that other viewers are wrong to recommend this film solely based on Kinsky's command performance. However, I'm angered that the film fails to support Kinsky and make his amazing efforts worthwhile. It is certainly true of both Herzog and Kinsky that their greatness comes only as the result of high personal sacrifice. In Woyzeck, Kinsky came to the table with blood to spare, but Herzog was clearly in need of a vacation.