VEILED THREATS by Phil Mershon
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INTO THE ABYSS
Directed by Werner Herzog
Released in 2011
Picture
First, let's refresh your memory with a snatch of hate speech from the ghoulish Texas governor, Rick Perry. It was back in September of last year, during one of the ridiculous network-financed campaign seminars masquerading as GOP debates, when NBC anchor Brian Williams inquired of Mr. Perry whether he'd ever struggled with the idea of the state putting a person to death. After a bit of circumlocution about how the government he claims to not trust never makes mistakes, he ended with words which I am sure he believed to be powerful. He said, "In the state of Texas, if you come into our state, and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is you will be executed."
    Chances are Perry was referencing charges that he had acted improperly--conspiratorially--by appointing three of nine commission members to investigate the circumstances of the evidence, trial and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham back in 2004, an execution for a crime which, in all likelihood, Mr. Willingham was innocent.
    Twelve hundred thirty-three people have been executed within the domain that is the state of Texas since 1819. 
    If you want the names of other people who were almost certainly innocent but executed by Texas anyway, check out Carlos DeLuna, Ruben Cantu, David Spence, Gary Graham, and Claude Jones. Their executions were all quite recent. Guilt or innocence really doesn't matter in Texas. All that matters is that the electorate gets to taste the blood. That's it.
   Texas executed Michael Perry for a triple murder for which in all likelihood he was guilty as sin. And still the execution was wrong. Werner Herzog's incredible documentary Into the Abyss (2011) looks at the family and friends of the victims, as well as the killer and his convicted accomplice, and the details of what turned out to be a very stupid crime motivated by the desire to steal a fancy sports car. 
    In 2001, when the murders were committed, Michael Perry and Jason Burkett were eighteen years old. The victims in the case were Sandra Stotler, her son Adam, and a friend named Jeremy Richardson. All of this, as well as a police shoot-out with the perpetrators, happened in the small town of Conroe. I can say with some confidence that no matter what your pre-existing position on capital punishment, nothing in this movie will alter that position. However, it can also be said that your heart will change because you will be forced to admit to yourself the infinite complexities that heart of yours contains. Herzog listens to the people he interviews. He listens hard and so do we. The camera stays on a young man who knew one of the assailants. He stands there with his Pitbull ball cap, talking and spitting, telling us about the time one of the convicts stabbed him under the arm pit with a nine inch Phillips head screw driver all the way up to the handle. No, he didn't go to the hospital. Spit. He just thought himself lucky to be alive and went back to work. 
   Whether you know it or not, you are never far from someone who has committed a violent crime. A good many of these people are housed in the many correctional facilities throughout this country and others are not. Some of those who are not live in parks or shelters. Others live in very nice homes. Some cannot read. Others are highly literate. And every now and again, one of these folks goes to Texas and kills somebody, gets caught, and the state puts him or her to death, usually after about ten to twelve years. 
    Herzog does not preach. He just asks questions, good questions, such as early in the film when we meet the prison chaplain who will oversee the execution of Michael Perry. He talks about what he does to stay sane. He golfs a good bit. Occasionally he runs into some squirrels. "Talk about your encounters with squirrels." What a question! Is this guy nuts? Then the pay-off. The chaplain explains that one time he was riding in the golf cart and a squirrel darted out in front of him. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have run over the rodent. But he stopped in time. The squirrel just looked at him. The chaplain stared back. And he knew that he had had the power to kill the squirrel and instead opted not to use that power. If that's preaching, then I need to start going to church again.
    Werner Herzog is not a sentimentalist. He does not romanticize either the killers or the victims. He simply lets the temporary survivors tell their story. The camera lingers on these men and women and we see them in ways we never do in documentaries. For instance, again early on, Michael Perry comes into the visitation area for his interview. He turns around to place his handcuffed wrists in an adjoining hole so the guards can unlock him for the interview. He wipes the separating glass with a cloth. He wants to be able to see Herzog and he wants us to be able to see him. It is one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever witnessed in a film.
    The other scene I feel obliged to mention is that of a former correctional officer from the Texas Death Wall who resigned after the execution of Karla Faye Tucker. You may remember her. In June 1983 she struck Jerry Lynn Dean twenty-eight times with a pick-ax. Her conviction and execution in 1998 received some play because she converted to Born Again Christianity in prison and no less a blood-thirsty robot than Pat Robertson came out and begged for the state not to kill Tucker for the reason that killing a Christian is just not good policy. In any event, this C.O. resigned after strapping down over one hundred inmates. He just couldn't do it any more. He began to sense that something else was happening, that this wasn't about justice any longer. And he made an interesting observation about "living the dash." On your tombstone, he pointed out, there is the date of your birth and the date of your death. These dates are separated by a dash. That dash is your life. Live it.
     With the highest incarceration rate of any western country and the only such country to practice the death penalty, our time together may be short.
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  • Home
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  • The Deluge
    • Veiled Threats >
      • 1939-1945
      • 1946-1963
      • 1964-1975
      • 1976-1985
      • Born Losers
      • Don't Look Back
      • Bonnie and Clyde
      • Cool Hand Luke
      • The Graduate
      • Up Tight!
      • Cycle Savages
      • Wild in the Streets
      • Never a Dull Moment
      • Yellow Submarine
      • Night of the Living Dead
      • Faces
      • The Love Bug
      • Midnight Cowboy
      • Easy Rider
      • Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
      • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
      • They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
      • The Magic Christian
      • Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
      • The Landlord
      • The Ballad of Cable Hogue
      • Getting Straight
      • The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
      • Five Easy Pieces
      • Godard in America
      • Gimme Shelter
      • Little Big Man
      • The Boys in the Band
      • Joe
      • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
      • The Big Boss
      • There's a Girl in my Soup
      • The Liberation of L B Jones
      • Klute
      • The French Connection
      • Willie Dynamite
      • Helter Skelter
      • King: A Filmed Record
      • Get Carter
      • Harold and Maude
      • Panic in Needle Park
      • Across 110th Street
      • And Soon the Darkness
      • Deliverance
      • Rolling Thunder
      • Super Fly
      • Busting
      • The Ruling Class
      • The Harder They Come
      • Day of the Jackal
      • Play Misty For Me
      • The Jezebels
      • Sacco & Vanzetti
      • Badlands
      • Cold Turkey
      • Soldier Blue
      • American Graffiti
      • The Falcon and the Snowman
      • Watership Down
      • Scarecrow
      • Walking Tall
      • Frances
      • The Coca-Cola Kid
      • Bob Roberts
      • Bad Company
      • We Are Marshall
      • Patton
      • The Natural
      • The Crossing Guard
      • Reds
      • The Spook Who Sat by the Door
      • Mud
      • Who is Harry Nilsson
      • Ornette: Made in America
      • Six Degrees of Separation
      • This Film is Not Yet Rated
      • Incident at Oglala
      • That Championship Season
      • The Pope of Greenwich Village
      • Little Murders
      • Assault on Precinct 13
      • Capote
      • Inglourious Basterds
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle
      • Scorpio
      • The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
      • A New Leaf
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • The Last House on the Left
      • The Deer Hunter
      • Let the Right One In
      • Colour Me Kubrick
      • A Time to Kill
      • A Scanner Darkly
      • Salem's Lot
      • Roman Polanksi: Wanted and Desired
      • The Seven-Ups
      • The Contender
      • Hoffa
      • The Pledge
      • American: The Bill Hicks Story
      • Donnie Brasco
      • Bugsy
      • Milk
      • Reservoir Dogs
      • Glengarry Glen Ross
      • V for Vendetta
      • Trumbo
      • Two in the Wave
      • South of the Border
      • Into the Abyss
      • God Bless America
  • Before the Deluge
    • The Bicycle Thief
    • Judgment at Nuremberg
    • Five Minutes to Live
    • The Manchurian Candidate
    • Hud
    • Pressure Point
    • Blow Up
    • Requiem for a Heavyweight
    • Hurry Sundown
  • Human Flood
    • Jean-Luc Godard >
      • Breathless
      • Masculine Feminine
      • Film Socialisme
    • Brian De Palma >
      • Sisters
      • The Fury
    • Stanley Kubrick >
      • Lolita
      • 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • A Clockwork Orange
      • The Shining
      • Full Metal Jacket
    • Francis Coppola >
      • The Conversation
      • Apocalypse Now
    • Woody Allen >
      • Take the Money and Run
      • Bananas
      • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid to Ask
      • Sleeper
      • Love and Death
      • Annie Hall
      • Interiors
      • Manhattan
      • Stardust Memories
      • Zelig
      • Broadway Danny Rose
      • The Purple Rose of Cairo
      • Hannah and Her Sisters
      • Radio Days
    • Robert Altman >
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      • Brewster McCloud
      • 3 Women
      • Nashville
      • The Gingerbread Man
      • Ready to Wear
      • Gosford Park
      • The Player
    • Luis Bunuel >
      • The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
    • Roman Polanski >
      • Cul-de-Sac
      • Rosemary's Baby
      • MacBeth
      • The Tenant
    • Martin Scorsese >
      • Boxcar Bertha
    • Steven Spielberg >
      • Duel
    • Oliver Stone >
      • Talk Radio
    • Orson Welles >
      • F For Fake
    • Akira Kurosawa >
      • DODES'KA-DEN
    • Max Ophuls
    • John Ford >
      • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
    • John Huston
    • Frank Capra
    • Billy Wilder
    • Roger Corman
    • Bernardo Bertolucci
    • Elia Kazan
    • William Wyler
    • Spike Lee
    • Francois Truffaut >
      • 400 Blows
      • Jules and Jim
      • Bed and Board
    • Jean Renoir
    • Federico Fellini
    • Charlie Chaplin
    • John Cassavetes
    • Agnes Vargas
    • Alain Resnais
    • Eric Rohmer >
      • Claire's Knee
    • Ida Lupino
    • Leni Riefenstahl
    • Penny Marshall
    • Costa-Gavras >
      • The Confession
      • Missing
    • Alfred Hitchcock >
      • Spellbound
      • Shadow of a Doubt
      • The Birds
      • I Confess
      • Dial M for Murder
      • Rear Window
      • To Catch a Thief
      • The Wrong Man
      • Suspicion
      • Saboteur
      • Lifeboat
      • Notorious
      • Rope
      • North by Northwest
      • Psycho
      • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  • No Particular Place to Go
  • The Pits
    • The Big Chill
    • W. C. Fields and Me
    • Zabriskie Point
    • Eat The Document
    • Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    • A Boy and His Dog
    • A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    • The Executioner's Song
    • The Visitors
    • Paul McCartney Really is Dead
    • Going Places
    • Pi
    • Erik the Viking
    • Sometimes They Come Back
    • Thinner
    • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
    • A Bullet for Pretty Boy
  • Links