What He Has Done

2009's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a rare confluence of talent, a Werner Herzog movie produced by David Lynch. I'd been in the mood to watch it again ever since I saw it was up on Criterion Channel and then one of its stars, Udo Kier, died a few days ago. The cast also includes Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Grace Zabriskie, and Braf Dourif.

Shannon stars as Brad McCullam, a young man who murders his mother with a 19th century military sabre. It's based on a true story but Herzog says about 70% was invented by the filmmakers. He was more interested in creating a portrait of a personality.

The film is set and shot in the actual city where the real crime took place, my home town, San Diego. It's certainly a potent experience for me to watch it now that I've been living in Japan for almost six years. The film even includes a lot of real details from the city. The Coronado Bridge is mentioned significantly, Balboa Park is shown and mentioned. Even the ostrich farm belonging to Brad Dourif's character is true to life--if you drive around the backroads of San Diego long enough, you will indeed come across an ostrich farm or two.

In the film, McCullam goes to the farm with Udo Kier's character, the director of the production of Orestes McCullam's starring in. I felt like Herzog was trying to create a moment by putting the crazy uncle played by Brad Dourif in frame with Kier's character when Dourif's launches into a homophobic tirade about the ancient Greeks. Kier, who was openly gay throughout his career, maintains perfect poise, though.

I know I've seen this movie before but somehow I can't find my old blog entry on it. I feel like I would probably be repeating myself if I talked about the film's religious subtext. I liked how all the oatmeal containers that play a significant role in the film are labelled "Puritan Oats" instead of "Quaker". The kindly face of the mascot is the face of God, McCullam claims. His fiancee, played by Chloe Sevigny with unwavering affection and loyalty, has the unlikely name of Ingrid Goodmanson, like she's an amalgamation of 17th century Dutch and English Protestants just come over on a boat.

There are so many little Lynch touches to the film but it's hard to say if Lynch really did contribute these things or if Herzog was adopting some of Lynch's style. Obviously there's the casting of Zabriskie as the mother; Zabriskie is among the stable of frequent returning performers in Lynch's films. But a lot of the dialogue feels very Lynchian in the way the characters push and savour odd significance in certain words, as when Dafoe's character says McCullum is "Irish, maybe even Scottish," as though in his mind Scottish is a more extreme version of Irish. There's the way characters linger over the term "white water rapids" when they discuss the deaths of the people who went to Peru with McCullam.

This was one of the movies that first solidified Michael Shannon's reputation for playing intense nutcases. McCullam's madness always hovers on the border between tragedy and comedy, familiar territory for both Lynch and Herzog. He takes Ingrid outside in one scene and points first at one house and then another and announces that he's going to buy it for her. She, a good Puritan, takes him in all earnest seriousness, and explains to him he doesn't have that kind of money. He just stares at her with those intense eyes and says, "So what?" like a holy visionary. But the situation is so absurd it only highlights how off the rails he is.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is streaming on The Criterion Channel.