Directed by Werner Herzog • 2009 • United States
Starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny
What strange series of events led a man to murder his mother with an ancient sword? Produced by David Lynch, Werner Herzog’s typically idiosyncratic take on a true crime unfolds as a fascinatingly fractured psychological puzzle in which a detective (Willem Dafoe) sets out to piece together the mysterious circumstances that cause an actor (a perfectly cast Michael Shannon at his most intense) to descend into madness. Combining elements of horror, hostage drama, and police procedural with an undercurrent of mordant comedy, MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE plays like a diabolical meeting point between Herzogian eccentricity and Lynchian surrealism.
Up Next in Directed by Werner Herzog
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Echoes from a Somber Empire
Directed by Werner Herzog • 1990 • Germany, France
One of director Werner Herzog’s most unsettling explorations of the madness that can seize men’s hearts, this haunting documentary recounts the reign of Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who ruled for eleven years as the self-declared emperor of the Central A...
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Lessons of Darkness
Directed by Werner Herzog • 1992 • Germany
“The collapse of the stellar universe will occur–like creation–in grandiose splendor,” announces the quote (attributed to Blaise Pascal, but actually invented by the director) that begins Werner Herzog’s terrifyingly beautiful rumination on the ravaged ...
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Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Directed by Werner Herzog • 1997 • Germany
Dieter Dengler, a German-American Navy pilot who was shot down over Vietnam in 1966, recounts his experiences as a POW in a Vietnamese prison, tortured and starved until fear and desperation compelled him to make daring escape. Travelling to Laos and Th...
