Into the Abyss
The movie “Into the Abyss” will be showing for its final week at the Riviera Theatre in Three Rivers. In the film, director Werner Herzog follows the impact of a death row inmate’s crime to tell a story about murder and the criminal justice system. James Sanford has this review:
[James Sanford] Last year in the documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” director Werner Herzog turned his camera on paintings that have survived for thousands of years. In his new film “Into the Abyss,” Herzog focuses on things that are far more fleeting; acts of violence, spur of the moment decisions, and human life itself.
He’s looking at death row in a Texas prison where convicted murderer Michael Perry is slated to be executed for his role in a triple homicide in 2000. The case involves the attempted theft of a red Camaro by Perry and his cohort Jason Aaron Burkett and the grizzly fate of three unlucky people who got in the way.
But Herzog is even more interested in the frame around this unpretty picture. He wants to know how Perry and Burkett and how their actions have affected people they’ve never met, specifically some of the relatives of their victims.
Ten years after the fact, that once coveted, now broken down Camaro is impounded in a police lot. It’s been sitting there so long that a tree is now growing inside the body of the car. There’s new life too for Burkett, although he’s serving a life sentence he’s married a woman named Melissa. And she knew he was Mr. Right when she saw a rainbow over the prison during one of her visits. Melissa is now having Burkett’s baby although they have never had an opportunity to actually consummate their relationship. You can use your imagination to figure out how that’s been achieved.
For people like Lisa Stotler-Balloun however, there’s been little to celebrate in the past ten years. Her mother and brother were killed by Perry and Burkett and she’s lost most of her family to disease, accidents, and just plain bad luck in the time since. It’s perfectly understandable when she confesses to Herzog that after being deluged with bad news at regular intervals, she finally unplugged her telephone. ‘I did not want another phone call telling me someone in my family had died,’ she says.
Herzog paints a vivid picture of the crime, even letting us know that Lisa’s mother was in the midst of baking cookies when she died. The filmmaker also managed to wrangle some thought provoking quotes from Burkett and Perry.
But what makes “Into the Abyss” fascinating and gives it some texture, is the amount of time Herzog spends with people on the fringes of the murder, including Burkett’s emotionally shattered dad who spent much of his own life behind bars. At one point, father and son were reunited and Herzog doesn’t miss the opportunity to pose a real heartbreaker of a question to the senior Burkett; ‘Describe the feeling to me when you’re handcuffed to your son in the same bus?’ the filmmaker asks. The man all but disintegrates before our eyes and tries to make excuses for his son, claiming ‘he had trash for a father.’
Herzog also gets some devastating comments from a captain of the prison’s death house who eventually walked away from his job in 2000 and sacrificed his pension in the process. He was haunted by the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be put to death in the lone star state since the end of the Civil War.
As you would expect, much of “Into the Abyss” is shockingly sad, but Herzog finds a startling humor and just plain weirdness in some of his subjects. For instance, there is the former associate of Burkett who talks about how he got into a fight with somebody who stabbed him in the chest with a foot-long Phillips head screwdriver. Did the victim rush to the emergency room? No. He just patched himself up and headed off to work. Apparently when they say ‘Don’t mess with Texas,’ they’re not kidding around.
Gilmore Student Arts Scholarships
The Irving S. Gilmore Foundation offers two scholarships to grade school students who want to improve their skills in music, fine art, film production and other arts. The deadline to apply for the Gilmore Student Arts Scholarships is this Thursday. Brian Zocher is the senior program officer at the Gilmore Foundation and is the incoming Education for the Arts Director for Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, also known as K-RESA. WMUK's Rebecca Thiele sat down with Zocher to find more about how these scholarships help kids explore the arts.
[Rebecca Thiele] “Just give me a really brief summary, what is this scholarship about?”
[Brian Zocher] Well, the Education for the Arts Irving S. Gilmore Scholarships…there’s $80,000 that education for the arts is re-granting for the foundation for student to enhance their arts experiences in the community. Scholarships are for students that may be beginning an instrument or vocal lessons or dance lessons and those scholarships are up to $750. Students that are more experiences there are scholarships that are available for $1,250 or up to $2,500.
[Thiele] I noticed that it is for students grades K-12. So, how do you decide who gets these scholarships?
[Zocher] Well there’s an online application process and within that process, we really want to hear the student’s voice and their desire and commitment and passion for exploring an art form. For a kindergartener, it may just be they’ve watched a friend or a family member dance or they went to a dance studio on an open dance day and they were very excited about it. They may even talk about how they love to listen to the radio and dance around their living room. Now that’s going to work for a kindergartener. Once you get into middle school and high school , those letters are more about ‘I’m interested in studying’—let’s stay with dance—‘this particular dance form and here’s how I have progressed so far and these are the techniques I’m interested in learning now. And this is why this teacher is the best teacher for me to take lessons from,’ and so forth. So, everything is looked at within the level that you’re looking at.
[Thiele] And how do students usually use these scholarships?
[Zocher] We see a lot of private lessons. Parents and family members will pay a portion of private lessons and this scholarship can be used to supplement that. Fine arts camps, a lot of students go to Blue Lake or Interlochen or a number of the camps that Western Michigan University has over the summer. Sometimes a student will have an individual mentor that they’ll work with. Or they’ll be a number of short term conferences or seminars that they may be able to participate in.
[Thiele] What about the student artistic equipment scholarship. How is that different from the arts scholarship and what is it used for?
[Zocher] To purchase high end musical instruments or equipment. It started out mainly with musical instruments because this was prior to the time when everybody had computers and could make their own films and videos. And that scholarship, the Student Artistic Equipment Scholarship, really is for those students who are really at the mastery end of exploring playing an instrument. And so, that’s a scholarship that’s got $2,000 for. With that program, we’ve actually had a student who is now a member of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra that purchased their base through this program. Used it throughout their college career and now their professional career.
[Thiele] Is there anything else that we should know about the scholarships?
[Zocher] The student arts scholarships are due in a relatively short period of time. They are due at 4 p.m. on January 26th. This is a unique opportunity that not many communities have and I’d encourage anyone to apply.
Brian Zocher is the incoming Education for the Arts Director at K-RESA and Senior Program Officer for the Gilmore Foundation. K-RESA provides part of the funding for Arts & More.
Other Events:
Got the shin splints? At Kalamazoo Runner’s Night on Thursday the 26th, expert runners will share their advice on how to keep from getting injured on your run and maximize your running performance. The event will be held at Bronson Athletic Club from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Come listen to Celtic musicians play together for free this Friday, the 27th at the Mary Jane Stryker Theater. The Celtic Jam will start at 7 p.m.
Archers, hunters, and craftsmen of all sorts are coming together this weekend (January 27th through 29th) at the Traditional Bowhunters Expo at the Kalamazoo County Fair Grounds. The expo have activities like arrow-making workshops and short, supervised bow lessons for kids.