Ballad of a Righteous Merchant

The renowned German filmmaker Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) is captured in this flawed documentary as he directs the well-received 2009 drama about madness and murder, My Son My Son, What Have Ye Done. Shot by Herzog's longtime, off-and-on story collaborator, Herbert Goller, we see the great artist doing the business of a narrative filmmaker: scouting locations; sussing out the possibilities and limitations of shooting a scene within the confines of particular spaces; directing the actors (Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe) with increasing fine-tuning; springing the unexpected on actors in a scene by not calling "cut"; and changing the tones of certain scenes so mystery and wonder enter into them. There is a lot to learn from watching all this about Herzog's passion for probing the essence of what it means to be human in extreme circumstances. But Goller seems intent on lecturing viewers anyway with needless abstraction and forced poetry concerning Herzog's cinematic explorations. Such verbal inflation will make the uninitiated feel needlessly left out. If you can tune out that pompous stuff, his is a worthwhile visit to Herzog's world. Lightly recommended. J, H, C, P.