Product Details

• Actors: Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe
• Directors: Werner Herzog
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: First Look Studios
• DVD Release Date: September 14, 2010
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003JOOTW4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,747 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The film takes place in Southern California, the story comes from an actual case, and the cast includes Willem Dafoe and Grace Zabriskie. It sounds like a David Lynch picture, except it isn't. Instead Lynch produced, while Werner Herzog directed. If Bad Lieutenant was Herzog's swamp noir, My Son, My Son is his desert noir. In another Lynchian touch, two cops (Dafoe and Michael Peña) provide entry into the San Diego-set story. Called to the scene of a murder, they meet actor Brad McCullum (Michael Shannon), who utters "Razzle dazzle" as they enter the flamingo-pink ranch house to find Mrs. McCullum (Zabriskie), dead by sword. Before Brad's fiancée, Ingrid (Chloë Sevigny), arrives, Herzog flashes back to Brad's days in Peru, where he found his "inner voice." The flashbacks continue to his participation in the famously matricidal Oresteia (Udo Kier plays the director). Combined with Ernst Reijseger's off-kilter score and Peter Zeitlinger's sun-bleached cinematography, it all exerts a certain queasy fascination, but Herzog's "whydunit" never really takes flight. Unlike Nicolas Cage's loopy lieutenant, Shannon invests Brad with a more recessive quality, which gives his madman greater credibility--at the expense of empathy. And yet… there's a scene with Shannon, Brad Dourif, and a tiny man in a tuxedo that offers the sort of what-the-heck magic that makes even the lesser films of Herzog and Lynch more interesting than most. Fortunately, there are enough of those moments to make the movie worthwhile, though not quite the messed-up masterpiece it might've been. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

The first collaboration between legendary filmmakers David Lynch and Werner Herzog, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is loosely based on the mysterious true crime story of a young stage actor who, obsessed with a Greek tragedy he's rehearsing, slays his own mother with a sword. Academy Award-Nominees Michael Shannon, Chloë Sevigny, and Willem Dafoe headline this psychological thriller written and directed by Herzog, produced by Lynch, and featuring Grace Zabriskie, Udo Kier, and Brad Dourif.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, hypnotic, unconventional, and tragically underseen September 20, 2010

By Matt the Knife

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

In 2009, Werner Herzog delivered a stunning one-two punch with "Port of Call New Orleans" and this movie. I would rank "My Son, My Son" right up there with "Aguirre" in the Herzog canon. If you're looking for standard conventional Hollywood product, avoid this one. If you're looking for something that will keep you fascinated, confused, and thrilled by its originality, see it ASAP. As a portrait of insanity, "My Son, My Son" throws Hollywood's standard treatment of the subject in the wastebasket: You're never given an "explanation" for the main character Brad's descent into insanity, and he doesn't come off as a merely normal guy with some problems (let's face it, Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" is the most RATIONAL paranoid schizophrenic in the history of mankind!). I see and hear mentally ill individuals at the bus stop nearly every day, and their words make just as little sense as Brad's. This is a powerful, compelling, and sadly overlooked masterwork.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth a little research up-front ... May 15, 2011

By phreejax

Format:Amazon Instant Video

The film is based on the 1979 murder by Mark Yavorsky of his mother. I only vaguely remember this San Diego case, so I did a quick 'google' on Yavorsky, and easily found some background that made this movie much richer for me. It really is a bit of a Greek tragedy, as Yavorsky clearly was a very talented young man (basketball star, poet, writer, actor) who slowly descended into acute psychosis -- which, apparently, no one did very much about. And he really was playing Orestes (Greek for, 'a man who can conquer mountains,' a fact subtly used in the movie) in a USD production. And Orestes, of course, is best known for ... murdering his mother.

It's not that the movie doesn't tell Yavorsky's story well -- I think Herzog did as well as anyone could; it's just that I think I 'got' some of the nuance a bit better after reading some of the old news articles out there. Also interesting, I thought, is that the screenwriter, Herbert Golder, actually interviewed Yavorsky a few times. (Yavorsky was found innocent by reason of insanity, probably the right call, and served many years in a mental health facility).

David Lynch produced the movie, but this is not a "Lynch" movie, as he never set foot on the set nor contributed to the script. This time, the midget and pink flamingos belong wholly to Werner Herzog.

The acting and production values are great, as one would expect. All in all, a very good film, and highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An unconscious examination of who we are, the madness inside us June 29, 2012

By J.L. TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

To appreciate this movie, you need to understand the point of its weirdness. I think David Foster Wallace said it best when describing another David Lynch film, Blue Velvet:

"Blue Velvet captured something crucial about the way the U.S. present acted upon our nerve endings, something crucial that couldn't be analyzed or reduced to a system of codes or aesthetic principles or workshop techniques. The movie helped me realize that first-rate experimentalism is a way not to 'transcend' or 'rebel against' the truth but actually to *honor* it. It brought home that the very most important artistic communications take place at a level that not only isn't intellectual but isn't even fully conscious, that the unconscious's true medium isn't verbal but imagistic, and that whether the images are Realistic or Postmodern or Expressionistic or Surreal or what-the-hell-ever is less important than whether they feel true, whether they ring psychic cherries in the communicatee."

The important question is whether it succeeds at ringing psychic cherries. I can't speak for you, but for me the scene (beginning around the 20th minute) where Ingrid is trying to "straighten" the bed, and Brad comes and sits on it and wants to play music for her, and the mom barges in with brownies, "I'm just so happy for you both. ... Brad, can't you see that Ingrid is trying to straighten the bed?", the momentary look back before she leaves, "can't she ever knock?", and then she barges in again a few moments later, this time with wine, and then the prolonged, eerily-adoring stare--hoo boy that was one of the creepiest and realest and most magical scenes I've seen.

You cannot watch this as a normal movie, expecting clear answers, logic, or even linearity. It only works as an unconscious examination of who we are, the madness inside us.

P.S. - Other than the straightening the bed scene, the most magical scene in this movie begins around the 62nd minute, when Brad wanders around a crowded outdoor market in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, China. "Why is everyone staring at me?" It's a scene with no narrative ties to the rest of the story but somehow still fits perfectly. I learned from Wikipedia that this sequence was shot "guerrilla style" with a small digital camera because Herzog did not wish to endure the lengthy process to obtain shooting permits in China. So all of those faces you're seeing are genuine and unscripted (and slightly illegal).