As we mentioned last week, Werner Herzog’s last feature film, the bizarre psychological horror, “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done,” hits DVD on September 14th thanks to Absurda, Industrial Entertainment and First Look Studios.
Starring Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Michael Pena, Udo Kier, Brad Dourif and Grace Zabriskie, the strange and deadpan picture was once positioned — by the press at least — as a David Lynch project handed off to the German auteur, and considering the Lynch-ian spirit pulsing throughout the picture (including Lynch acting mainstays), one is forgiven if they believed that info to be true. But that’s not really the case and Lynch is only an executive producer on the project. “I’ve always wanted to make a horror film except without bloody axes coming at you from the dark. It should be an anonymous fear creeping up on you and you don’t know where it comes from,” Herzog said describing his approach to the film.
What perhaps was more instrumental was Lynch’s enthusiasm for the story which helped get it in front of cameras. Based on a true crime story — about a man who essentially goes insane after a kayaking trip and the subsequent mystifying events that led him to slay his mother with a sword — the project was conceived by Herzog’s longtime assistant director Herbert Golder.
When Herzog first heard the story from Golder, he was instantly taken with it and encouraged Golder to finish the script which took him several years. Finally Herzog took matters into his own hands and forced the writer to finish the screenplay. “I said, ‘Come with me, we’ll go into the mountains, we’ll huddle together and we’ll write this movie,” the filmmaker recalled of his conversation with Golder. “And I said, ‘You will not leave this place until we are finished and second, I give you one week [to complete it]. It was written in the same way that screenplays like, ‘Some Like It Hot’ were written.”
However, the project lay dormant and could have stayed that way, but Herzog and Golder happened to tell the story to David Lynch, whose excitement revived the project. “We were sitting in David’s kitchen [telling him the premise] and he got completely excited over it and this enthusiasm pushed us into making it.” Lynch’s producing partner Eric Bassett and their Absurda production shingle then helped get the film off the ground.
While there was a connection between the two filmmakers, a spiritual kinship as it were, Herzog said active associations with Lynch’s work were mostly unintentional. “Grace Zabriskie in the film is my homage to David, let’s face it,” the director said. “But the strange thing is, as different as David and I are, sometimes our films touch each other. In rare cases, our films rub shoulders with each other. [This film] is not a collaboration, but there is a similar flame that is flickering inside of us.”
But those hoping for a true blue David Lynch/Werner Herzog collaboration where the two directors write a film together or actively make one together, will likely be disappointed. “I doubt it would ever happen,” Herzog said. “Because we are too much self-made men and it shouldn’t end up in a more practical collaboration. It’s good to join in spirit.”
Contest closed: We have a little giveaway as well that include three prizes. One grand prize consisting of a signed poster and a DVD of the film and two more prizes of one DVD each. One simply has to email us the answer to this question: What is the Greek play that inspired these true life events and runs throughout the picture? (one hint: info is not found on Wiki or IMDB). Bonne chance.