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The theme of the story revolves around capital punishment: he interviewed death-row inmates, police officers, and the families of victims. The film is cold and somber, forcing us to confront this morally ambiguous domain. From the film's title, we can easily discern Herzog's purpose in gazing into the abyss of the human soul, which should set this film apart from traditional documentaries on capital punishment. Behind the scenes, the 68-year-old German director, Herzog, interviewed several death-row inmates in the United States, producing the documentary *Into the Abyss*. Herzog stated: "A person should not be executed by their country. There is absolutely no room for debate on this matter. I believe the only exception is during a state of war." In the United States, 34 states still have capital punishment, with 16 of them currently able to carry out executions. The method of execution is lethal injection, although Utah still allows firing squads. As a German living in the United States, I have a different historical background. I respect but do not agree with the U.S. practice of capital punishment. In Werner Herzog's four-part documentary *The Abyss*, each chapter begins with this repeated voice-over narration. The camera pans over the empty bars of the pre-execution holding cell, then over the candlestick and Bible on the long table against the wall, and finally down a short corridor into the execution room, showing the viewer the empty injection bed. Six weeks after being interviewed by Herzog, death-row inmate James Barnes wrote to him, hinting that he would confess to two additional murders. He later did confess. Their crimes were monstrous, but they were not monsters; they were just people. This is how Herzog described his approach to filming *Death Row*. In 2010, at several death-row prisons in Texas and Florida, the 68-year-old German director interviewed several inmates awaiting execution. One of them, Michael Perry, was executed eight days after being interviewed and filmed by Herzog. Most of them had gone through years, if not decades, of appeals, supplementary evidence, and reviews, and some had even been given execution orders multiple times, only to have them rescinded. Apart from Perry, the other interviewees were still alive at the time of the film's premiere. The feature-length documentary *Into the Abyss*, centered on Perry, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010 and was showcased at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival in November. The other five inmates each became the focus of four short documentaries, which premiered in the special screening section at the Berlin Film Festival on February 14, 2011. Herzog had dreamed of making a movie about the most heavily guarded prison in Germany when he was in his late teens. At that time, he read some news reports, and I can only say that I have to thank God that I didn't make it back then, because the idea was too stupid and childish. He said during the post-screening Q&A for *Into the Abyss*. The dream of filming a prison has always lingered, and a few years ago, he suddenly developed a strong interest in filming death row inmates. The reason that most captivated him was: We don't know when or how we will die. They do. You only have 50 minutes. There are about 400 inmates in Florida's death row prison, and James Barnes is one of them. In 1998, Barnes was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Seven years after the sentence was handed down, he converted to Islam during his imprisonment. In the holy month of Ramadan this year, he confessed to another murder he committed in 1988, and was sentenced to death. That case, known as the "burning bed case" in Florida, was once quite famous. Barnes broke into a woman's home in Melbourne, Florida, hid in her closet to spy, then raped and killed her, and then set fire to the bedroom to destroy the body. In the prison cafeteria, bald, wearing an orange prison uniform, and shackled, Barnes sits in front of the camera. Herzog's interview is straightforward: I understand that you hope to gain sympathy to get a reduced sentence, but (my filming) does not mean that I have to like you. The question I am curious about is, can you see the sky or trees or birds from inside? I'm always in my cell, separated from the corridor by two bars, and there's a window 3 meters away, but at most I can see the opposite side...