Herzog: Nobody can intimidate me

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Werner Herzog said his death row film ended up being about the 'urgency of life'

Werner Herzog has insisted he was not intimidated meeting convicted killers on death row for his new film.
The Grizzly Man director interviewed inmates on death row for his new Channel 4 series and his new film Into The Abyss. He said convict Michael Perry, who has since been executed by lethal injection, "looked like a lost kid", but added: "I do believe I have never seen anyone as dangerous as him."

Herzog said: "I didn't feel intimidated, no one can intimidate me, but having seen dangerous men and having been in dangerous situations, I can somehow guess quite right, this is dangerous. This person is dangerous."

The 69-year-old German filmmaker met people who work on death row, Michael Perry, Jason Burkett, his accomplice, who was found guilty of the same three capital murders but sentenced only to life in prison, and the family of the victims.

He said: "It was not really planned to do a film about life, but in a way it emerged from the footage itself. We hadn't noticed but it's very much about life. It is a film that shows the glory and the urgency of life."

Herzog - who once publicly ate his own shoe to honour a bet - said he would not request a last meal if he was on death row.

He said: "I wouldn't care. I probably would refuse to have a last meal. I couldn't care less. but I would like to die on top of a high mountain, with a grandiose vista and a sunset, possibly. And wives and children mourning over me. That would be wonderful. That's how I should live."

:: Into The Abyss: A Tale Of Life, A Tale Of Death is released in cinemas on Friday March 30.






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