Death Row Portraits

Written & Directed by: Werner Herzog
Full credits at IMDb

Werner Herzog is against the death penalty. He begins every episode of his Death Row Portraits, a four-part miniseries made for Investigation Discovery, by admitting as much; as a German, how could you not be? But his approach is morally demanding. Unlike, say, David Grann's "Trial By Fire," in which the New Yorker reporter uncovers evidence that suggests the state of Texas executed an innocent man, Herzog doesn't focus on the guilt of his subjects; he doesn't like many of them, and doesn't ask you to, either—he invites you to despise them, even—nor does he shy away from the gruesomeness of their crimes. They're not saints or heroes or victims. Still, he asks, does that mean the state should judge them so definitively—that we should kill them?

Keep reading my review at The L Magazine