Alternate Best Actor 1979: Klaus Kinski in Woyzeck

Klaus Kinski did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying  Friedrich Johann Franz Woyzeck in Woyzeck. 

Woyzeck is perhaps an overly brief, though still intriguing, film about a soldier in a rural town. 

This film was made by the team that made Nosferatu, with production starting immediately after that larger-scale production, compared to this shorter, smaller-scale film. What you have though is said to be an exhausted crew and an exhausted star in Klaus Kinski. The quiet and solemn, though still animalistic turn, from Kinksi, offered a bit of a swerve from his innate presence, though it certainly used elements from it. That is the case here again in the role of Woyzeck, who to say is put upon is an understatement. Kinski's trademark intensity is of course present, however, utilized quite differently here as seen from the opening scene of the film. We see Woyzeck as he is put through the soldiers' paces but alone, making it almost look like a comical affair. Kinski has a kind of intensity as he physically straightens up and moves around with all the required soldiering you'd expect. His face though is of exhaustion and desperation within the paces. He's not having fun, nor is he determined in his task, he's rather moving around as a fearful schoolboy just doing what he has to because he's too scared not to do so. 

Kinski's performance here is fascinating because he really is not at all the fearsome warrior, despite playing a soldier, rather he's this rather weak-willed man and while Kinski is many things, that is probably on the bottom of the list when it comes to potential descriptors. Yet here it wholly works in Kinski's performance, where he presents this timid and exhaustive state in his performance. Kinski shows Woyzeck both as a soldier, and often the jack of no trades around town, with a glint of terror in his eyes at all times. He's a man just discomforted in his life and discomforted in his place, yet really too weak to do anything about it. There is that trademark madness in Kinski here yet where we see it is not in outward rage, but rather this kind of internalized petrified quality. He's a man stuck within himself and within anxieties. His whole performance is stiff and overly modest in the right way as someone just defined by his constant fear of the world along with everyone else. Woyzeck basically being this town fool, which Kinski delivers in a uniquely potent way. 

The one area where Woyzeck doesn't seem completely lost is a relatively brief scene of the man with his wife and son as they watch clever Hans the mathematician horse. A notable scene in a way in that for once in his career it seems that Kinski might be just a normal man, however, if that wasn't enough of a stretch, Kinski goes further by bringing this kindly meekness of the moment. He portrays this quiet joy of the man at the moment who does seem to enjoy his family, even as there is still the constant undercurrent of fear still present upon his brow in this moment of comfort. This is quickly subverted as we see his wife entertains another local soldier, who gifts her earrings. This leaving Woyzeck just to ask about them, and even in this Kinski's delivery is remarkable because he manages to be so painfully timid. There is a shyness in this confrontation even and continues to show a man who is basically beaten down by every aspect of the world. 

Naturally being a film that stars Kinski there is going to be a point of no return and this comes as he confronts his wife again, dragging her to a river to murder her for her infidelities. Kinski is downright amazing in this scene. First, as the actual motion of the stabbing is different from usual Kinski's rage, there is such a sense of desperation and kind of confusion about it. Even in this unquestionably permanent act, there is still such a sense of uncertainty in his eyes. The expression on his face is truly what is so incredible about his acting in this scene as it immediately and so naturally segues towards the moment of realization and sadness for his act. His face falls into the man coming into his sense to look even more lost than he already was. Kinski's final scene of him raving as he tries and fails to halfheartedly move on from the crime is still with this weakness even in this state. Kinski shows the man even more cowering than he was before, wholly defeated as he tries to explain to himself the truth of the matter. Kinski portrays just a terrified creature with nothing but his fear to hold on to. Although a relatively brief performance due to the brevity of the film, Kinski delivers a memorable turn here. A performance that contains the intensity he's known for, however, mutilated in a different direction to create such a striking portrait of a man breaking from his confines to become only more pathetic and desperate than he already was.