Director Werner Herzog has to be one of the most versatile filmmakers of all time. Though most directors stick to one genre, Herzog has ventured into many, even taking a turn at acting in several projects, including playing himself in the hilarious mock-documentary Incident at Loch Ness (which he co-wrote). He won a Directors Guild Award for his fascinating documentary Grizzly Man and received his first Oscar nod for another documentary, Encounters at the End of the World; but he also directed and wrote the major studio release Rescue Dawn starring Christian Bale and was nominated at this year's Venice Film Festival for his big budget crime drama Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and Val Kilmer. He's at TIFF to promote the latter, but also a smaller, darker film called My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, starring Willem Dafoe, based on a real murder. Herzog's account of his meeting with the murderer on which the film is based, is intriguing. He told CBC.ca: "The real murderer was declared unfit to stand trial for reasons of insanity. He was locked away in a maximum-security mental institution for eight and a half years, and then released as being sane. The reason why he was declared sane was that he didn’t pose a threat to society in general, because his crime was so much focused against his own mother. I met the man and he was not really sane yet. He still looked kind of dangerous. I decided immediately I would not maintain this contact anymore." The murderer has since died. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans screens tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at AMC 6; and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done has a final showing tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the AGO's Jackman Hall.
Tags:
Christian Bale, Eva Mendes, Grizzly Man, Nicolas Cage, tiff, tiff 2009, Val Kilmer, Werner Herzog, Willem Dafoe
Comments:
I really used to like Eva Mendes, but I think she is becoming a diva now. If she really wants an adventure, she should get a regular job.