Death Row / Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog, 2011/12)

[kidc85]

I was interested if anybody knows the production story behind these dual releases? Did he plan to make a TV series and then found one of the stories was strong enough to release in cinema, was the plan all the time to make four episodes and a film, did he only plan for one movie but found he had too much good footage, etc? The consecutive release of a TV series and related film (the killer from ITA even gets a cameo in one of the episodes) seems incredibly unusual, I can't think of anything similar.

I've only seen DR and, although it's not particularly exciting film-making (it's rigidly in a talking heads format), Herzog elevates it above the usual. Whilst he graciously takes a neutral stance on the death penalty (he's against it but does not want to make an issue out of it as he is a "guest in the United States") Herzog is quick to ask confrontational questions if he thinks he's being bullshitted. In one episode, whilst asking about the shooting a police officer, he repeatedly stops the criminal from drifting off topic by asking pointed questions and the effect is startling. The fact that Herzog is fearless (his asking of one inmate about why he was so "stupid" - a fair question - is memorable) but fearless within a strict ethical boundary (unlike Broomfield, perhaps) makes him a remarkably good interviewer. His habit of asking his frequently nonplussed interviewees quasi-philosophical questions ("What is time?") and then sitting back as they float off into a monologue that wouldn't look out of place in a scripted Herzog fiction is the icing on the cake. Finest moment? Herzog has prompted a death row inmate to talk about food and he replies "I would kill for an avocado... Er... well, perhaps not..."

[Michael Kerpan]

Just watched the Blu Ray of Into the Abyss. Not quite certain what to say about the film -- other than that it is a remarkable bit of work. No real extras on the BR, but it looks quite good.

[naersjoen]

I was interested if anybody knows the production story behind these dual releases? [..]

Werner Herzog addressed some of these questions in this 30-minute talk following the premiere of Death Row at the Berlin film festival earlier this year: http://www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival ... _hdbf.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (third video).

[mfunk9786]

I found Into the Abyss a bit too literal in its presentation of the circumstances of the case against Michael Perry and Jason Burkett: far too much time was spent on occasionally confusing discussion of Perry and Burkett's alibis, which made following the timelines of the case a bit murky sometimes. Considering that it was likely chosen for this documentary because it was such a clear-cut conviction, I didn't really find all that to be necessary, aside from providing a contrast with the film's strong points. Herzog knows an interesting interview subject when he sees one - Burkett's wife, the retired executioner, and the minister are all fantastic screen presences (for better or worse) and are able to put all this in perspective better than criminals, bystanders, or grieving family members of the victims of these crimes. Most directors wouldn't know what to do with these stragglers, but Herzog is able to congeal their contributions into a solid backbone on which a rather messy film can rest.

As much as he tends to gravitate towards disturbing subject matter, perhaps Herzog's cuddly German approach isn't my favorite - again, as in Grizzly Man, he is (out of politeness, or a sense of guilt/obligation) unwilling to show us anything too upsetting, instead opting to either literally or figuratively flinch at the prospect of showing it. At least in Into the Abyss, we're spared any sequences in which he dons a large pair of headphones and makes perturbed faces as he listens to the climax of his documentary's shocking tale. I admire his restraint, but in the theatrical documentary format, I'd be lying if I said it didn't frustrate me.

[colinr0380]

As much as he tends to gravitate towards disturbing subject matter, perhaps Herzog's cuddly German approach isn't my favorite - again, as in Grizzly Man, he is (out of politeness, or a sense of guilt/obligation) unwilling to show us anything too upsetting, instead opting to either literally or figuratively flinch at the prospect of showing it. At least in Into the Abyss, we're spared any sequences in which he dons a large pair of headphones and makes perturbed faces as he listens to the climax of his documentary's shocking tale. I admire his restraint, but in the theatrical documentary format, I'd be lying if I said it didn't frustrate me.

I was a little surprised that he showed the footage of the bodies from the crime scene tapes (albeit with faces obscured, if faces had originally been in that footage) as that seemed quite intrusive to keep in the film. Although I suppose that was dealing with the aftermath rather than footage capturing an actual death as it was occurring, as with the recordings in Grizzly Man.

I'm in two minds about both Into The Abyss and the Death Row series too. I partly agree with david hare's comment that on first glance there really is nothing much to be taken from the film except that capital punishment is controversial, although I think at least in Into The Abyss Herzog's film quite admirably doesn't toy with ideas of guilt and innocence after the facts of the crime have been stated, as much as Michael Perry seems to want to muddy the waters.

However I do think that Into The Abyss expertly raises a lot of difficult issues and shades of particular issues. For example how a crime resonates beyond the killers and the way that other people take on responsibility for other's actions such as the brother feeling responsible for introducing his brother to his future killers or the jailed father feeling guilty at not having been there to bring up his children and wanting to take on the responsibility for his son's crimes. Are they right to feel this way? Should they feel that guilt (for bringing a brother into a criminal world, albeit without thinking that he would be murdered for it) or that responsibility (sure the father should probably feel guilty for not bringing up his children properly but is saying that you want to take on the guilt for your son's crimes, however noble that wish is, at all acceptable as a way of absolving your son from taking responsibility for the actions that he, rather than you, committed?) so strongly? Should the sister of one of the murdered men feel guilt at having worried for him all his life until he turned 16, then on relaxing that worried fear for him see him killed? The film sketches in a whole range of emotional reactions which in a way is left up to the audience to decide whether they feel that the interviewees are justified in holding.

There is the implication in the section interviewing the ex-bar staff member and one of the chaps at the bar that there is a whole community where casual violence might be a way of life (or, in the slightly suspicious story about the chap having been knifed by one of the accused in a previous encounter, that violence can produce a good story. It may be made up, embellished or totally true, but Herzog just lets the chap talk) and the contrast of the run down areas with the gated community in which the crime was committed suggests a kind of element of class violence, or at least an undercurrent of social inclusion and exclusion. The boys coming from a background with fathers in jail and mothers 'on disability' killing for the short term thrill of stealing a flashy car and showing it off with rides to patrons at their local bar could perhaps be contrasted with the sister of one of the murdered men saying that their motives were purely 'greedy'. The car that stands as a symbol of this divide is left to be owned by nobody and slowly rust away in an impound lot - another example of pointless waste.

I did think it was interesting that, after the opening interview with the death row pastor, the idea of the death penalty was only raised in a kind of low key way near the end of the film after a lot of time spent detailing the case and the interviews with everyone involved. In the way that Jason Burkett was sentenced to life while Michael Perry to death, there seemed to be the suggestion that it was only the pleas of Burkett's father that saved him from the same death sentence. That suggests a kind of pot luck application of the law, one way or the other (and I think interestingly links to the sister of one of the victims saying both that she felt a weight removed from witnessing the execution of Perry but also that she would not have been against a sentence of life without parole either, had that been the decision)

I'm personally totally against the use of the death penalty, not just for being against the 'eye for an eye' idea but also for the way that taking somebody's life perhaps shows society falling to the level of the person who committed the original crime. The interview with the ex-death row executioner seemed also to be about that idea ("taking another person's life is wrong", whether done as an individual or as the state) but also raises the idea of what having to put people to death does to the person who is involved in that process as an employee. There is the suggestion of a kind of post traumatic stress disorder in Mr Allen's case, although perhaps the intensity of the execution schedule ("two a week" at its height) and having to execute a woman for the first time pushed things to a head quicker for him.

Is it right to ask somebody to do this as a job and seemingly not support them if they cannot continue doing it (the film suggests in an intertitle that Mr Allen had to quit his job, losing his pension, because he couldn't assist in executions any longer). This ties in with the implication of the film that there are problems in society itself that need to be addressed - that people are being driven to take drastic action by the circumstances in which they are being forced to live every day. It might not mitigate their actions in any way but perhaps there is a better way to treat people to help them live better. The description by the sister of not just her brother being murdered but her whole family being decimated in the matter of a few years by disease, accidents, drug use and so on also suggests people living very difficult lives.

While I'm against the use of capital punishment, I do think that Herzog is leaving his film open for the alternate view. Particularly in the section describing the marriage of Burkett to a lady who only met him whilst he was in prison and then their conception of a child by artificial insemination there is the suggestion there that, while serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for at least 40 years, Burkett is still able to have a child. Something that the people that he murdered will never be able to do. Indeed it is something that Michael Perry will never be able to do after his execution either. I suppose somebody in favour of capital punishment could point to that as an example of a murderer with a life sentence being able to have a semblance of a normal life that their victims never will have.

Indeed the way that Herzog gets both the brother and sister of the victims to hold up and mull over pictures of their murdered relatives seems to get contrasted with the final image of Mrs Burkett holding up a sonogragm picture of her unborn baby on her mobile phone (which also resonates back to the sister being unable to bear having a telephone any more as she has only had news of being informed of the loss of relatives through it).

Is this a purely joyous celebration of a new life that has come out of so much carnage of ruined lives (as in the subtitle of the film "A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life"), or does it have darker undertones of a family that exists in the wake of the destruction of other families? Does it also recall Jason Burkett's father talking of the way he was in jail and didn't bring his son up properly leading his own son to follow him into prison? Is this, as yet unborn baby, going to have to take on the burden of a jailed father and growing up in a dysfunctional society that may eventually land him in prison too? Is there a bleak inevitability to that cycle or will this unborn baby be able to exist outside of all of this pressure and burden of what he has been born into? Will he inevitably have to get tattoos at least, as everyone else seems to have them? (Although the brother of one of the victims does say that people always told him that he would be the one to die before his 21st birthday, not his brother, suggesting that the trajectory of a life isn't totally set in stone)

Or is that why Burkett (and others in the film) want so many children - so that there is the small possibility of one of them breaking free some day?

Herzog's film is quite subtle in the way that it doesn't really push any of these issues to the forefront of the film, or a particular message that the film has to reach at the end, but they're all there to think upon. While the interviews are quite simply filmed I did like the little directorial touch of having some of the interviews with witnesses take place outside against wide open vistas which made a very effective contrast with the cell-based interviews. Though both of the major female interviewees (the sister and the wife of Burkett) are both filmed at home in domestic settings, which I wonder is meant to suggest anything about women left behind in empty homes, yet another legacy of acts of violence rippling out beyond just the murderers and their victims.

[warren oates]

For me Into the Abyss is about nothing so much as this: how capital punishment is wrong because it magnifies the violence of the original crime by sullying the lives of everyone it touches, reverberating out across time and generations -- from the victims' legacy and memory to their survivors, from the convicted murders themselves and their families to the prison chaplains and death house guards. There's no one in this film who's life isn't negatively impacted by the existence and the implementation of capital punishment -- even those who say they are for it. It's a much bigger and more subtle argument than, for example, the one in Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line, which posits that capital punishment is wrong because we sometimes/often convict the wrong person.

Any word about when and how the complete Death Row series will make it to home video?

[manicsounds]

Is this not the entire series?