Werner Herzog is never more engaged as a storyteller than when he is dealing with a fiercely obsessed protagonist. He is drawn to men who dream big, who quest El Dorado or attempt to haul a massive boat over a mountain - and he attempts to honor their ambition by recreating these trials on a grand, sometimes perilous scale. Most filmmakers would treat these individuals as madmen, and portray their self-inflicted struggles as grotesque downward spirals. Herzog has no interest in wallowing. He wants to empathize. When you're dealing with a protagonist as completely bonkers as Brad McCullum empathizing means following some highly volatile whims - which is probably why MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? met with a mixed critical reception and never received a proper theatrical release. Inspired by the true story of a promising young actor whose obsession with Aeschylus's THE ORESTEIA led him to stab his mother with an antique spear, Herzog and screenwriter Herbert Golder have crafted a bizarrely cathartic tale of matricide (starring a mesmerizing Michael Shannon as the murderous thespian) that involves the intense consideration of flamingos, oatmeal, basketball, and so much else. Though the film starts as a hostage drama (with Willem Dafoe as the cop trying to negotiate McCullum's surrender), Herzog is far more interested in probing the troubled actor's neuroses - and so we're dragged everywhere from the (hauntingly empty) San Diego Convention Center to the Urumbamba River in Peru (a familiar Herzog location). MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? is a consistently puzzling movie, but so sincerely off its rocker that you can't help but fall in love with it. In my estimation, it's Herzog's most fascinating non-documentary since FITZCARRALDO. So I was thrilled to sit down and briefly chat with the maestro a couple of weeks ago while he did the promotional rounds for the film's DVD release. In the below Q&A, we discuss the film's critical reception, the degree to which Herzog's theater studies influenced his take on the material, the dangers of the Urubamba River, and his thoughts on digital filmmaking. It's a lively little interview. Enjoy.

Mr. Beaks: How are you?

Werner Herzog: I'm working a lot these days because I have some deadlines. The most imminent deadline is Toronto. I have to show up with a finished film.

Mr. Beaks: It always seems like filmmakers are working up to the last minute trying to meet festival deadlines.

Herzog: In this case, two things were clear: the schedule was tight, but at the same time, yes, I could do it. But it means disciplined work. Focused work.

Beaks: And that's never a problem for you.

Herzog: No.

Beaks: It was exactly a year ago that MY SON, MY SON premiered at Venice. Since then, it's screened very infrequently. When the DVD arrived the other day, I felt like it was my first opportunity to see the movie. Given the way it's been treated, I was stunned to find that it's one of my favorite films you've done in the fictional realm.

Herzog: Thank you. Yes, I have the feeling that this is a very, very intense film. I'm completely at home with this movie.

Beaks: Is it frustrating to think that the reaction at last year's festivals helped to keep this from audiences? That a small group of critics limited the distribution of your film?

Herzog: It was not dictated by critics because it had good reviews. What do you mean by critics "dictating"?

Beaks: Looking back at the reviews, most critics certainly preferred BAD LIEUTENANT to this. Several reviewers used that film to dismiss MY SON, MY SON.

Herzog: BAD LIEUTENANT was simply the more popular film because we had Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes and Val Kilmer. Of course, the focus was more directed to BAD LIEUTENANT. But it does not really matter. I was working fast last year. I released two feature films, and one short film, and a book, and... whatever. (Laughs) I just can't help it. Sometimes, it happens that two of my films at the same time are competing for attention. And what you're referring to is simply the attention that was higher for obvious reasons focused on BAD LIEUTENANT. I don't mind. It's okay. I can live with it. The film will have a long life. Besides, we should not forget that releasing a film today is the real problematic side of filmmaking. It has become very expensive. In the shift of media, there is a gray zone, and nobody really knows how to grapple with it. Television is somehow shrinking, the print media is shrinking movie releases. There will be different and new outlets, but we do not know yet where it will stabilize.

Beaks: My first viewing of your film was on television. It was a good presentation - as good as I can afford, that is. How do you feel about so many non-mainstream films getting their first widespread distribution via DVD or On Demand? They're rarely being seen in their intended medium.

Herzog: That is correct. The only thing that we could hope for is that we'll have much larger screens at home and very good sound systems. However, it will not replace the experience of sitting in the theater with other people you do not know, who share the fear and the laughter and the excitement together with you. I keep saying that the mother of all battles is the theaters. The cinemas.

Beaks: You said you felt very at home with MY SON, MY SON. Is this because it brings you back to your early days of studying theater?

Herzog: But I have no affinity to theater. That's very strange. I have never staged theater. I've staged operas, but that's an entirely different world. I never liked theater. I probably have not seen more than four or maybe five theatrical productions in my entire life. I gave up in dismay at a fairly early age - maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. Since then, I've never seen a theater performance.

Beaks: Why is that?

Herzog: It has many, and probably too complex reasons to explain here in a short interview. A simple answer would be I have difficulties to believe any actor who appears on stage. I do not believe a word they are uttering. Whether it's a good performance or a bad performance, whether the drama text is good or lousy, I just cannot connect. It's a gap of credibility for me.

Beaks: Do you find that actors are more in the moment in front of a camera than on the stage?

Herzog: Again, it's too complex to argue about it and grapple with it, but, in general, I can say I have no affinity to theater whatsoever. And the staging of what you see in MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE of an ancient Greek drama, or part of an Ancient Greek drama, was done by a theater troupe in San Diego, a wonderful group of young actors who only stage Ancient Greek drama. I admire them, how they are struggling and surviving and doing things. Of course, there were some guidelines I gave them, some very general guidelines, but the staging of the theater production was their staging.

Beaks: I was just in San Diego for Comic Con, so I was struck by your use of the convention center. For some reason, I found myself wondering if that might be a subculture you'd like to examine via documentary. What's your methodology for tackling a documentary?

Herzog: There's actually no methodology. (Laughs)

Beaks: (Laughing) None at all. You just arrive at these things randomly.

Herzog: (Laughs) To confess a truth, the projects are stumbling into me wildly. And it's obvious, it's absolutely clear to me without a moment's hesitation that this should be a documentary more than a feature film. But I have to caution because my documentaries have a great affinity to my feature films. Documentaries, in my case, are sometimes staged, scripted or fantasized. I have a simple way to explain it: they are many times feature films in disguise.

Beaks: Documentaries are often about exploration. Do you essentially know what you'd like to say at the outset?

Herzog: Very often I don't have the faintest idea. When I went to Antarctica, you cannot scout. You are sent only once. It's so expensive to have someone down in Antarctica for a single day. Very expensive. So you are sent down, and you know six weeks later you have to come back with a movie. I had no idea whatsoever. I had some basic visual ideas, but that was about it. And I knew I was not going to make another movie about fluffy penguins. (Laughs) In many cases - for example, with GRIZZLY MAN - I jumped into it so fast, so abruptly from almost one day to the next, there was almost no time for preproduction. I just went into it with the confidence that I would do it right.

Beaks: MY SON, MY SON afforded you the opportunity to return to Peru. It was nice to see you filming on that river again.

Herzog: Exactly. The scene of AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD was shot only 300 feet further down river. The opening, early scenes.

Beaks: Has the river changed in any way?

Herzog: It has changed. It's strange. Although it's the same location, it changes. But what does not change is my love for the jungle, my love for Peru. In a way, I may have become a secret, honorary citizen. In my soul, I feel like that. Of course I am not a citizen of Peru. One thing I should also explain about Peru: it was not the intention of the screenplay to go to Peru. The real murderer, Mark Yavorsky, whom I met briefly once after he had spent eight-and-a-half years in a maximum security detention center for the criminally insane. He had travelled to Pakistan, became a Muslim, and came back completely changed. That's how somehow, in a vague, strange, inexplicable way, his paranoia started. We were deliberating should we go to Northwestern Pakistan, to the Indus River. And we came very quickly to the conclusion it wasn't going to be prudent to have a movie star and camera, a high-profile target out there in Pakistan. It's just not prudent. People think I'm a man of blind bravado. No, I'm not. I'm very, very aware of dangers. What is significant, and I would like to point it out, in sixty films that I made not a single actor ever got hurt. Not one.

Beaks: Not significantly injured.

Herzog: Not hurt at all. Well, very slightly. A few bruises. Crew members, yes. And I got hurt. But actors were always protected to me. Prudence. Being circumspect. Being aware of dangers, and handling dangers very well. So it was clear we were not going to go to the northern part of Pakistan. We said, "What's the next most ferocious river I know." And I said, "Yes, Peru!" Rio Urubamba. Near Machu Picchu.

Beaks: Is it still very treacherous?

Herzog: Treacherous in what way?

Beaks: Perhaps I shouldn't say "treacherous", as I've never been there, but it does seem, on film at least, to be very rugged and inhospitable.

Herzog: It is, yes. You have to be very careful. The cinematographer was only held by a rope. The stones are slippery. If you slip and fall in the river, you will disappear. At a much lower level of the river, two or three months before we arrived, there were two young men who were on a fairly flat rock. They smoked pot and became somehow oblivious of the danger; they started to slide and slipped into the water. They were never found. Nothing left of them. You have to be careful. You have to be on the alert.

Beaks: How was it shooting with the Red camera down there?

Herzog: Not easy. The Red camera is not built for jungles. (Laughs) It's more a studio camera. And, of course, when you have to do things spontaneously, the Red camera is basically like a huge computer; it needs to reboot itself for the first four-and-a-half minutes before you can press a button. Now if you know this, you can organize yourself and prepare yourself to shoot with the Red. I'm still a man of celluloid, of pushing the button and the camera starts rolling.

Beaks: Celluloid for practical or aesthetic reasons?

Herzog: I'm not nostalgic about celluloid, but celluloid is still of superior quality to any format in high definition digital shooting.

Beaks: It did, however, feel as if this camera allowed you to evocatively capture that hazy, dreamlike Southern California daylight.

Herzog: It captures an artificial, metropolitan, sort of deep night in New York City at three in the morning. I'll have to take a good look at it again. What I'm trying to say is that I'm absolutely not nostalgic; I'm just going for quality. Of course, everything is going to shift to digital. Well, not everything. A lot will shift to digital. I like to edit digitally because I can edit as fast as I'm thinking. MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE was delivered in its final cut a week after shooting was finished.

Beaks: The final cut?

Herzog: The locked-in picture. However, we edited while we were on location. I wanted to deliver the film almost instantaneously. The only thing that was missing was the music and mixing and technical procedures. But the film in its narrative shape was delivered five days after principal photography had ended.

Beaks: So you don't need that extra time filmmakers often require. Typically, there's principal photography, and then there's a lengthy period of editing.

Herzog: Well, that's suspicious to me. It shouldn't be a year. Those people normally don't know what they are doing, or they have no clear vision what they're doing; they're fooling around and creating twenty-two parallel versions and can't decide. That's the danger of it. But usually, yes, you would need a year if you have a story with a lot of material and great complexity. Yes, why not. But I'm somebody who tries to also think in economical terms. I want to produce a film that doesn't cost too much, where the costs are contained so that the film can become profitable fairly quickly. A wonderful example would be MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE?, and a very good example is BAD LIEUTENANT. I delivered the film two days under schedule, and $2.6 million under budget - which is unheard of in Hollywood. But I enjoyed it a lot because I earned myself a bonus.

Beaks: That's always a good incentive.

Herzog: But let's put money aside. I think it's a general attitude that filmmakers... I hardly see any colleague who is aware of finances, and how money can be wasted, thrown out the window very quickly.

Beaks: Getting back to this idea of a lengthy editing period. There are many young filmmakers who prefer postproduction to principal photography. They "shoot for the edit". You see a lot of this on YouTube.

Herzog: And a lot of the films that you see on YouTube are not good - with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions is "Plastic Bag" by Ramin Bahrani. It sticks out. This high-caliber of filmmaking immediately resonates; there's something unheard of or unseen of. I like to be supportive of anyone who is a young filmmaker. Ramin is one of those. He has made three feature films out of nowhere within only two years. When he approached me, "Could you speak the voice of the plastic bag," I said, "Let me have a quick look at the footage." And I immediately said, "Yes, this is worthwhile." Or when Harmony Korine wanted me to act in JULIEN DONKEY BOY or MISTER LONELY, of course I said, "Yes."

Beaks: Because you respected his previous films?

Herzog: Sometimes, it's just the person. Someone with a great, great creative intensity and a new voice, a new vision. Whatever I can do to assist I will do.

MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? hits BD/DVD on September 14th, and it is highly recommended. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks