Customer Reviews

Wise Blood

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"WISE BLOOD" is an overlooked jewel.

Southern writer Flannery O'Connor's first novel, "Wise Blood," made it to the big screen in 1979. The John Huston directed, low budget feature was widely praised and then practically forgotten.

O'Connor was a devout Catholic. She was also battling lupus, the sometimes debilitating immune disorder. Both factors may have colored her novel. Huston was a devout atheist. His world view certainly nuanced the tone of the film.

The story concerns a somewhat troubled, perhaps damaged, youth, Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif). Just out of the army and son of a fire and brimstone Pentecostal preacher, Motes is determined to open the first Church Withouth Christ in Taulkinham, Tennessee.

A young Brad Dourif is brilliant as the driven, vexed, Motes. There's not a false note or a wasted frame. His is a journey of spiritual self-exploration, penance and perhaps redemption. O'Connor's curiosity about the southern brand of Pentecostal mind set is riveting on film. Motes is trying to shed the damage of his ferocious religious childhood, but cannot shed his spirituality. He finds he's a Christian in spite of himself.

Supporting actors Harry Dean Stanton, Amy Wright, Ned Beatty, William Hickey and Dan Shor are all spot on.

The frisson between director Huston's disdain for religion and O'Connor's devoutness is a perfect match. The screenplay by brothers Benedict and Michael Fitzgerald does not stray from the core events, tone and ideas of O'Connor's story.

The obviously lower budget production, shot mostly in Macon, Georgia of the late 1970s, does not really detract, even though the novel is set in a somewhat earlier period.

The use of older, rather decayed buildings and locations amidst a more modern setting give a kind of muddy, out-of-time, appeal. A nice visual metaphor to the theme of old fundamentalist religious views in conflict with a more progressive spirituality.

This is a unique film and story. Hard to categorize. For me, it's a darkly comic, decidedly gothic, tale of profound spirituality and humanism. When the shoot was over, Huston said, "I think I've been had."

Criterion's transfer, as usual, is clean and sharp. I thought the color was unusually true and subtle. And the period monaural track crisp and easy on the ear.

The extras are all watchable. The new interviews with Dourif and the writer-producer brothers Fitzgerald are entertaining and informative.

A huge bonus is the rare recording of Flannery O'Connor reading her famous and terrific short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is alone probably worth the price of the disc! This is the only known recording of the author reading one of her stories.

There's also a wonderful vintage 1982 "Creativity With Bill Moyers" with director Huston.

Finally! John Huston's wonderful, spare adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's darkly brilliant comic novel comes to DVD. I've loved this film since its original release -- saw it repeatedly in Paris during its first run there, where it was more successful critically than APOCALYPSE NOW or TESS -- and have tried to catch it at every (infrequent) opportunity since. The period details are a bit off (a low budget guaranteed a bare-bones physical production), but the screenplay and direction couldn't be better. And that cast! A career performance from Brad Dourif as the religion-crazed Hazel Motes, marvellous supporting work from Harry Dean Stanton, Dan Shor and Amy Wright, the ideal Sabbath Lily -- and Atlanta actress Mary Nell Santacroce (mother of Dana Ivey) is unforgettable as Hazel's landlady. O'Connor's violent, sin-soaked South is certainly not for all tastes, nor, in its fidelity to her work, is this film. But if you respond to her vision, this picture will haunt you the rest of your life. Hats off to Criterion for giving us another in their line of wonderful restorations.

John Huston sets this adaptation of Flannery O'Connors Wise Blood not in the sin-soaked South of the early-twentieth century but in the present. This may have been due to budgetary constraints but Huston makes virtue of necessity and the result is a film that looks like it grew right out of the decaying streets of Anytown, America circa the late-1970's. The result is offsetting at first, because in this translation the story is less about religion and more about an America that has lost its unifying vision (if indeed it ever had one). Therefore, thematically, Huston's Wise Blood squares nicely with many other American films from the 69-81 Vietnam and post-Vietnam era like Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy, Bogdanavich's The Last Picture Show, Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, Altman's Nashville, Malick's Days of Heaven, and Forman's Ragtime.

As the beginning credits roll we are treated to a series of beautiful black and white photographs which serve as evocations of an older America but one that in some ways still exists and lives on in the old run-down parts of town and in the old run-down neighborhoods even as a new America tries to re-invent itself and erase its ties to its sin-soaked past. Wise Blood is about American history and identity in a time of national crisis, but Huston does not emphasize the Vietnam War as the source of this crisis, rather he underplays it and instead chooses to focus simply on a lack of a substantive vision (religious, artistic, or otherwise) to lend coherence to the chaos that is America not just in the seventies but in all times and places.

To a certain extent this adaptation does feel like a loyal adaptation in so far as the characters are all lonely outcasts prey to visions and dreams that promise salvation but only bring about further destruction, and so they are all, despite their efforts, always on the verge of mental and spiritual collapse. This is certainly a vision of life that is everywhere present in William Faulkner and Nathaniel West and Tennessee Williams and Flannery O'Connor and Truman Capote and in countless other Southern writer's fictions, but its also the vision of many a writer not from the South. Huston was a big fan of Irish literature and it is also the vision of Joyce whose "The Dead' was adapted by Huston in 1987, and Beckett, as well as English writer Malcolm Lowry whose Under the Volcano was adapted by Huston in 1984. Huston is interested in the specifics of American history and identity but the film he creates addresses not just an American but a world-wide malaise.

Brad Dourif does a tremendous job as Hazel Motes. He plays Hazel as a tortured and lost soul desperately trying to free himself from America's long history of evangelical chicanery (Vietnam being just one example of something America has done using religion as a rationale). Hazel believes not in Jesus which only clouds peoples thinking and fools them into believing things they would be better off not believing, but in science which allows for a clear view of both the past and the future. But Hazel just can't get his preacher father or other preacher figures (one of which is played by Harry Dean Stanton and another by Ned Beatty) out of his mind or off of his conscious, as it were, for he's got a mighty guilty conscious even though he knows America's sins are not his own. He can't stand the superstition of religion and the way men use it to manipulate other men and yet it seems like everyone is either desperate to preach or deperate to be preached to if only to assuage the sense of being alone and lost.

Hazel wants only to believe in material reality and tangible things like his old car which he thinks is all a man needs to live his life, but he just can't altogether shake the pull of the religious life which has the power (or at least offers the promise) to lure and transport the soul and not just the material body. In the end Hazel Motes becomes not a preacher but an otherworldy saint who has rejected the world and all ties to it. Whether this is a personal failure or a triumph is up to the viewer to decide.

Brad Dourif gives a stellar and terrifying performance in this crazy jewel of an independent film based on Flannery O' Connor's novel "Wise Blood".

While it might not match the majesty of the novel, what possibly could?

Hazel Motes is an angry SOB who is determined to prove to the world that Jesus Christ is a sham. More than that, he's out to destroy anyone who claims that Christ is indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life; he has all the maniacal zeal of a debauched decadent damning himself into sainthood.

There are frequent flashbacks to Hazel's childhood, sitting in backwoods barns and hearing about hellfire and damnation from a tall, ugly, and sinister Pentecostal preacher played by none other than director John Huston. This man was Mote's Grandfather and he was so terrifying that in one scene young Hazel urinates all over the place.

He encounters all manner of evil and corruption as he bashes heads trying to become *the* only preacher in the South (not likely). Encountering frauds, tricksters, and money hungry snake oil salesmen, the worst is perhaps Ned Beatty and his companion Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton). Not only do they plagiarize Hazel's demented sermons, given on the tops of cars and random streetcorners, they dare to do so for money, which really pisses Hazel off. And Brad Dourif playing Hazel Motes--well, you wouldn't want to piss either of them off.

In reality, behind his Protestant-atheist disguise, this man is a "Jesus Hog" as the daughter of the "Blind Preacher" calls him, and a penitent in the making. Even his treatment of his insane, monkey suit donning young friend is only another manifestation of Catholicism's burning flame drawing him near like a demented moth. And he crashes on that flame, quite badly. This is recommended for anyone who still concernes themselves with O' Connor's work and that raggedy, shadowy beggar who lurks in the trees and everywhere else. Really sick and really pure.

I have sudied Flannery O'connor's work for several years and this film is stunning in the way it captures the author's intent. The role of Hazel Motes is perfectly cast. He is believable in this religious transformation. He grows from skeptic to a believer in his need for salvation. A very difficult event to describe in words and even more difficult to show on film. This film succeeds brillantly. It is one to be studied.

'Wise Blood', the novella by Flannery O'Connor is a profoundly original, complex, and grotesque parable about Christian conscience. The screen adaptation prepared by Michael and Benedict Fitzgerald and directed by John Huston, comes remarkably close to capturing the spirit of the literary work. One of the main reasons for this is the lifting of whole sequences of important dialogue, more or less intact, from the pages of the novella. Another reason is the fortunate choices made in the casting of the characters.

Brad Dourif's portrayal of the monomaniacal Hazel Motes is the paramount factor which makes the film work as well as it does. Supporting roles by Amy Wright, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty also contributed greatly. The biggest transgression in the regard of cast was the role of Dan Shor as Enoch Emory, the amoral mystic with "wise blood". Not that the performance of the actor wasn't up to par, but the screenwriters saw fit to significantly lessen the emphasis O'connor gave him in her story.

However, even though the makers of the film remained remarkably more faithful to the printed word than might have been expected, especially in the case of such a highly symbolic story, O'Connor's brilliant artistic creativity does not transfer intact. The story, as we ingest it through the medium of the book, invites, even forces us, into a state of mind where we are grappling with concepts and trying to relate the strange and initially incomprehensible tale to something known and familiar in our mindscape. Thus, unless we decide to simply reject it or give up on it, we are immediately propelled into a confrontation with metaphysical problems.

Because the film presents a much more visual emphasis on the story, there is more of a tendency to passively accept what we see as being all there is. The film-makers used their control of this visual element to introduce some subliminal, and some not so subliminal, themes. In their hands, the central theme of religious conscience and the consuming quest for redemption is somewhat obscured by their many visual satires of life in the deep south. The misspellings on roadsigns, on a tombstone, and even in the film's credits give the impression that this is a story which will allow us to laugh at the expense of people who are more low-brow and ignorant than we are.

It's true that O'connor's novella, too, is brim-full of satire. The goofy and grotesque behavior of the characters seem as though she conceived of her story as a sort of passion play enacted by nearly subhuman beings, almost a parody performed by apes or dogs, say. By the use of satire, she was able to make sharper, more memorable impressions than by considering her characters as real human beings. The point is that it is easier to recognize such flat characters as being symbols rather than realistic depictions of actual people, in a book than in a film where these cardboard characters take on flesh and blood, drive cars, walk and talk,etc.

So, in the film, it is easy to form the impression that the main focus is to enjoy the satire of the ignorance, backwardness, and strange customs and manners of the region. Satire is a very effective tool which, among other things, allows us the luxury of feeling superior to those who are supposedly not as sharp as ourselves. While it may be true that many of the mannerisms and attitudes shown by characters in the film(or book) may conform to phenomena which could have been observed in reality(and being a native of the deep South, O'Connor should have known), focusing on those aspects can have the unfortunate consequence of encouraging us in smugness.

I must admit that I found the film to be more repugnant than funny. That the two Fitzgerald brothers from Connecticut, having lived in Italy for several years, returned to the U.S. and immediately began this film project reinforces my misgivings that we are being shown more than a side-show peek at their vision of the South. Yes, it no doubt contains authentic depictions, but treats these people as freaks, as though their quirks were inborn and hadn't arisen from environmental and historical causes as well. Thus, the humanity of southerners, black or white, is rendered invalid, because they are below the level of understanding of the film-makers and the audience.

One thing that satire allows us to do is to turn the spotlight away from ourselves onto the weaknesses and errors of others. At times it is admirable, as when Swift used it to point out the corruption of monarchs, politicians, and lawyers who used their power to abuse and exploit the powerless. I don't see it as being so admirable or laughable when it is used against people who may be backward or misguided, but who are living their lives according to their traditional concepts of rightness. I don't say that changes to human behavior would not be beneficial. I just don't believe that laughing at others is a constructive way of going about it.

Flannery O'Connor, of a comfortable middle-class family of southern Catholics, from the reclusive security of her faith, chose to embody her artistic representations of metaphysical religious conclusions in the form of dramas about uncultured low-brow hicks. The inner struggles and mysteries of these poor Protestants were a laughable parody of the refined and serious spiritual investigations she fervently studied in Catholic theologians. The brothers Fitzgerald, who had been acquainted with O'Connor, retained her biting satire of the religious preoccupation of Hazel Motes, and added for good measure a heaping helping of visual exploitation, presenting us with imagery of a monolithically ignorant South.

I think this is a very well-made film which should be viewed critically and appreciated for it's strong points. I also think it should be recognized that it joins in the trend of media producers to try and dispense the correct cultural viewpoints to the masses, and on that score should be regarded warily.

You have to give John Huston kudos for taking on a work of Flannery O'Connor, mainly because of the difficulty of making the grotesque, bizarre Southern gothic flavor work on the big screen. I was hesitant about viewing the film, mainly because I didn't want the film to be subpar in comparison to the book. I have to say that Huston is quite imaginative in bringing Wise Blood to life, and, while the film is not an all-encompassing deliverance of the novel, the film's actors who portray the eccentric characters in the book give the film much credibility. Over all, it was an impressive performance and artistically produced. It is a necessity to have read the book prior to seeing the film to make sense of the plot. With Flannery O'Connor, there is a backwards way to presenting a moral (although she often said there were no morals to her story), and so, you have to count on a world of hypocrites, liars, thieves, and other degenerates to make sense of life. A symbolism works throughout that the viewer interprets, and this gives Wise Blood an extra dimension while watching. For instance, there are many false preachers running throughout that epitomize the negative aspects to attempting to attain faith; this is something Hazel comes to terms with. Hazel Motes, despite his fight against faith and religion, has no soul until he sees the light of salvation in the movie's second portion, although this is even an ambiguous event that could be interpreted several ways. Although he intimates that he has no such faith at any point, we can judge for ourselves if this is true.

As far as the characterization, a superb job was done assembling a cast that breathes some life into the film and makes it visually comparable to the book. Brad Dourif completely embodies Hazel Moates in expression, angst, and rebelliousness; if there was one blemish, it was that the novel's Hazel had even more detachedness from the world in comparison with the film. The question of redeeming oneself is a central issue in Wise Blood, and the many fakes (Asa Hawkes, the false dried up mummy, Sabbath, Gonga the Giant Monarch, the "false" version of Hazel) within the story evoke feelings of people lost and without conscience or faith in anything, incapable of being redeemed. Even Hazel's false life is poignantly jolted in the scene where the sheriff pulls him over and says "I just don't like your face." His false life is seen though, and while Hazel has an immense preoccupation with what it takes or doesn't take to be "redeemed" or have "wise blood", many other characters could care less one way or another. In typical O'Connor manner, there is a irrationally rational message, and director Huston captures the very essence of this.

Fantastic film and DVD, and there is a rare gem included in the package, a recorded version of Flannery O'Connor's short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."

Glad I checked this one out!

4 1/2 stars

Awesome film with a pretty awesome release (as is expected from Criterion). Also, at the time I bought this Amazon had it cheap, compared to stores like Barnes and Noble who overprice their DVD's as it is. It came in good condition but my only beef is that there were no interviews with Dan Shor (who played Enoch Emery in the film). I would have loved to hear his thoughts on the making of the film and what have you. Oh well, a great film regardless.

I've read that to understand Wise Blood one must read its source material, the novel by Flannery O'Connor. I didn't read this until after watching the film and prior to doing so had never heard of O'Connor or her novel. While the novel may assist in one's understanding of the film, I feel a second viewing of the film would serve a similar purpose...And I do plan on seeing the film again. While I may not have read the book and feel I do have more to understand about the film, Wise Blood is a film that came as a complete surprise to me. The film is directed by the legendary John Huston, whose filmography consists of several masterpieces...I've at least heard of many of them, but I hadn't heard of this film until The Criterion Collection released it some time ago. I didn't have high expectations for the film, but found the film only deepening my respect for Huston as a filmmaker.

Brad Dourif plays Hazel Motes, a wide-eyed man returning home from the Army. When he finds his family home abandoned, he buys some new clothes and sets off to do things that "ain't ever been done before." His new clothes make him look like a preacher and he finds himself frequently mistaken for one, but he's quick to clarify he's not a preacher...Hazel hates preachers in fact. Soon, Hazel meets Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton) a supposedly blind, snake-like preacher and his nymphet daughter Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright). Hazel seems to be running from the idea of religion, but always crashing head-on into it. Finally, Hazel begins preaching the "truth without Christ."

It's a strange plot, yes...But it's worth noting that the film, while centered on religion, doesn't seem like a religious film. In fact, much of it plays like satire. Through his story, Hazel encounters all sorts of characters that could only exist in fiction, characters played by a perfect cast at the very top of their game. I don't recall ever seeing Dourif in a better role; he plays Motes wide-eyed, nervous, and with pent-up rage and religious fervor always about to bubble over the surface. It's certainly a career best for the man. Ned Beatty (in a small role) is delightfully sleazy, while Stanton is perfectly believable as the false preacher. Even Dan Shor impressed me with his performance as the child-like Enoch Emory.

Huston was not a director that needed to be visually extravagant to make a beautiful film. Wise Blood is a great film to look at, with a postcard simplicity that is quite charming. Even the score is made up of simple folk-y music. The screenplay is by Michael Fitzgerald and Benedict Fitzgerald (who co-wrote The Passion of the Christ, which may make you see this film differently) and what a wonderful screenplay it is. It shifts effortlessly from quirky and funny to serious and disturbing and characters that could easily seem like stereotypes seem very human. As I said earlier in my review; I look forward to watching the film again to fully grasp the multiple dimensions of it.

The Criterion Collection has done a beautiful job with the film's transfer and I applaud them for releasing the film and (hopefully) giving it a wider audience. While I can't quite figure out whether the film is supposed to be straight-forward or some sort of social satire (maybe Huston was confused as well), my first impression has left me thinking that Wise Blood is an overlooked American classic. I can only imagine that it would grow richer with repeated viewings.

GRADE: A-

While O'Connor's original book appears to be motivated primarily by Katholisch schadenfreude, the resultant movie here could hardly be any more surrealist. Huston was an agnostic, so I suspect that was the intent, at least at first-- but the included interview with Dourif suggests Huston may actually have initially misunderstood O'Connor's intent (an understandable mistake, if you're not Catholic), and then corrected it after some discussion with O'Connor's representatives. In any event, as high surrealism, it's quite enjoyable. As a religious parable, I wouldn't expect too much from it.