How do you adapt an unfinished play? Georg Büchner was never able to finish what might be his most famous work- Woyzeck. It exists as a collection of fragments that have been stitched together by various authors, editors and translators, but there is no final version of Woyzeck that has been approved by Büchner himself. However, the piece is considered one of the most influential German plays and a film adaptation was inevitable, and we received a great one when Werner Herzog shot his version in 1979.
Woyzeck is a character study at core, but even more importantly, it’s a work meant to display Büchner’s philosophical theory. Büchner believed that all events are inevitable and transpire in virtue of some necessity. Humans aren’t free in their actions and will, everything is being caused and determined by something that you can’t control yourself. So how is this being displayed in the play and therefore the film?
Woyzeck is a simple soldier, married with a kid. He has to work several jobs to sustain his family, since his wife Marie takes care of the son. Woyzeck is being exploited by pretty much everyone around him. The Doctor offers him extra money for taking part in medical experiments that include Woyzeck only eating peas which seems to weaken him substantially and voices start appearing in his head. A key scene unfolds when Woyzeck shaves the Captain for extra pay. The Captain clearly looks down on Woyzeck, keeps on suggesting that Woyzeck has no moral, that he is stupid just because he is poor. As the scenes goes on, it becomes apparent that Woyzeck is more intelligent than the Captain who can’t follow what Woyzeck is saying and ultimately just mocks him since he can’t win a serious debate. The Captain represents the rich that feed of the poor and continue to oppress them for their own profit, not realizing that they are far from being superior in a more abstract way.
Woyzeck continues on having visions of the apocalypse, there are voices in his head predicting end times. I’m not sure what to make out of those in the context of the movie, but in terms of the original play I would guess that those are connected to Büchner’s wish of a revolution, his wish to end the Status Quo and start with a new sociological order.
The downwards spiral continues as Marie grows tired of Woyzeck and her mundane life and becomes more interested in a drum major who she ends up sleeping with. Woyzeck tries to win her back and gets into a fight with the major, but he ends up punched up and desperate.
The tragedy peaks when Woyzeck takes Marie out to a pond and stabs her to death.
In the film, this scene turns darkly funny as it is being accompanied by unfitting music that stands in stark contrast to the violence that is being depicted on screen.
The movie ends with Woyzeck drowning himself and the people of the village in excitement when they realize that a real murder has taken place.
Büchner (and thus Herzog) pose an interesting question about guilt with Marie’s murder. Is Woyzeck guilty of being a coldblooded murderer? He seems relatively calm when he leads Marie to the pond, but we as an audience have seen what Woyzeck has suffered through up until this moment. Society as a whole has abused and exploited him. The voices in his head continue on driving him more and more mad. We know that there will be no redemption for Woyzeck, just the empty void of madness and despair is waiting for him. If you look at his actions from Büchner’s perspective, one can definitely argue that Woyzeck isn’t truly guilty. Picking up the determinism again, it was the world around him that caused the murder to happen, it was an inevitable event caused by exterior circumstances. Whether you agree with Büchner’s philosophy or not, I think you can still appreciate his thought process, which is obviously very opposed to the rich and the establishment, and begs for a revolution.
Woyzeck isn’t a perfect play or a perfect movie by any means, but it’s a work that has always intrigued me with its display of social issues and human cruelty.
Büchner’s revolution did not come, and he never finished his Woyzeck either. However, his influence has lived on and can still be felt today.