Der Ketzer

Black humor has never been done better. But this is not a film for the squeamish. It's going to take some thought. Not a film to be watched while doing the dishes. This is a challenging but rewarding film that borders on being a great work of art. The first time I saw this film I was impressed. Each time I rewatch this movie it becomes more funny in an odd sort of fatalistic way. Each time I rewatch it it becomes more impressive. It's almost impossible to describe the way the bittersweet pathos of the movie collides with the funny, goofy, craziness of the characters. We've seen these people but rarely do we really consider their lives. They're damaged or idiots or inept swindlers or all three. We look at them with small amusement or try to get away from them, but don't give them much thought. I usually don't care much about actors. They are a dime a dozen. This film is different. This is pretty much every actors best role. Brad Dourif shows why he should be way more famous. Amy Wright is spellbinding in as a very strange girl. Dan Shor is hilarious and pathetic at the same time as a lonely moron. Stanton is hysterically funny as an utterly corrupt preacher. Lot's of other unusual and interesting performances including a small but wonderful performance by a sympathetic one armed mechanic, a wise but vicious highway patrolman and a small town hooker enjoying her own downward spiral. In the end all of the characters are doomed, but they are all worth caring for in spite of and because of their own strange but very human weaknesses. In addition it's beautifully filmed and has a heart rendering score that fits it perfectly. Reputed to be Hustons own personal favorite film, it bombed at the box office. Highly recommended.

I am not a reader of Flannery O'Conner, so I can't comment on her point, but I know she is considered a great American writer of Southern Gothic fiction, and that she only wrote two novels, one of which was made into this film.

I am familiar with Brad Dourif, who got an Oscar nomination for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was most recently in Rob Zombie's Halloween, is familiar to TV viewers on "Deadwood," and is the voice of Chucky. He put himself in the very capable hands of a great director, John Huston, who won Oscars for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (writing and directing), and accumulated 13 other nominations for such classics as Sergeant York, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, The Asphalt Jungle, and Prizzi's Honor.

What we get is a dramedy that is more comedy than drama. Hazel Motes (Dourif), in reaction to his strict fundamentalist upbringing, starts a church that he calls The Church of Christ Without Christ. Now, that will go over well down here in the South! He meets an assortment of preachers/con-men (Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty), a non-stop talker (Dan Shor), and an oversexed 17-year-old (Amy Wright). The collective wit of the entire cast in this film is about equal to a bowl of soup, and that is what makes it funny.

One of the first of Dourif's over 120 appearances, and it is a hoot!

Hazel Motes returns from the conflict overseas, (Vietnam? Korea? World War 11? Flannery O'Connor's Deep South is a timeless place, cut off from reality and the rest of the world). Instantly we can recognize he's not, as we say over here, the full shilling or is a few sandwiches short of a picnic and in no time at all has taken to preaching his own peculiar gospel and founding his own church, (The Church of Truth without Jesus Christ, Crucified), and whose message appears to be, 'save yourself 'cause sure as Hell the Lord won't save you'.

He's an isolationist but he takes up with a supposedly blind preacher and his sexually voracious daughter while an idiot boy, several sandwiches shorter of a picnic than even Hazel, takes up with him. The only clue to his behaviour seems to lie in a few flashbacks to when he was a boy in the house of his fire-and-brimstone preaching grandfather, (Huston himself), and had a penchant for putting rocks in his shoes. Yes, you think to yourself, it will all end in tears.

Huston, of course, is in his element. Casting himself, however briefly, as the craggy Bible-belter is just up his street and this kind of Gothic horror-comedy brings out the best in him and there is a good deal of comedy to be found here; a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse. But the film probably wouldn't be anything without the superlative performance of Brad Dourif who seems born to play the gimlet-eyed Hazel; the problem was, of course, that Dourif was born to play Billy Bibbit in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and was never able to shake off that Southern Gothic not-quite-right-in-the-head character. It was what he was good at and casting directors never let him forget it. But if "Wise Blood" had been the only movie he'd made he would still deserve a footnote in the annals of acting.

Preaching the Church Without Christ, Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif) tells anyone that will listen that he wants a church that is free from salvation and dogma, a church "where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way". With existentialist overtones, he says, `Where you came from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it." In John Huston's darkly satiric film Wise Blood, adapted from Flannery O' Connor's first novel, Haze is caught in a struggle between the obsessions of his past and his desire to live the truth.

The more he resists his rigid Christian upbringing represented by his fundamentalist grandfather, the closer he is drawn to it. No matter what he does, Jesus moves "from tree to tree in the back of his mind, the wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark." Raised in a predominately Protestant area, Flannery O' Connor was a devout Catholic whose novels and short stories paint a tragi-comic portrait of Bible Belt evangelism and the hypocrisy that thrives in decaying Southern towns. While the film is a human rather than a Christian interpretation and the ending is simply tragic without being spiritually revealing, it still remarkably captures the essence of the novel and, if nothing else, will send viewers scurrying to their nearest library.

Set sometime in the mid-twentieth century, Haze has returned from the war with a big chip on his shoulder. Without joy he returns to his family home in Eastrod, Tennessee but on finding it run down and deserted takes a train to the fictional Taulkinham. Here he is seen by everyone that he meets to be a preacher even though he strongly protests. Even the taxi driver tells him that his hat and "a look in your face somewheres" make him look like a preacher. Brad Dourif's appearance suggests Haze with a "nose like the shrike's bill, eyes the color of pecan shells and set so deep they are like passages leading nowhere." When he meets a blind street preacher Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton) and his fifteen-year old daughter, Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright), childhood memories are reactivated and he proudly tells them that he doesn't believe in anything.

With a zeal that might be described as the passion of the anti-Christ, Haze buys a broken down "rat-coloured" car that becomes the rock upon which he builds his new church, the Church Without Christ. Wearing a preacher's bright blue suit and black hat, Haze stands on the hood of his car and addresses a handful of stragglers, spewing his contempt for Christianity. "Listen you people", he says, "I'm going to preach there was no fall because there was nothing to fall from and no redemption because there was no fall and no judgment because there wasn't the first two. Nothing matters but that Jesus was a liar." When anyone criticizes his car, Hazel defends himself with the statement, "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified." Haze attracts an assortment of mostly unlikable characters: con-artists, frauds, and women without moral discernment.

While some are repugnant, others are simply amusing and the film remains watchable because of its savage humour and colourful language. For example, when one character describes the Welfare woman who cared for him, "She sho was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull", and, "a red-haired waitress at Walgreen's has "green eyes set in pink" so that she looks like a picture of a Lime Cherry Surprise." One of the most compelling characters, Enoch Emery (Dan Shor), a slow-witted eighteen-year old with "wise blood" like his daddy, provides the comic relief. Enoch is so desperate for friendship that, mimicking the travelling Gonga the Gorilla show, he steals the gorilla costume and sneaks up on people hoping they will shake his hand. In another sequence, thinking it may be the "new Jesus", Enoch steals a shrunken mummy from the museum and gives it to Haze.

When Haze becomes fed up with the town and its inhabitants, he tries to leave but is stopped by a sheriff who tells him he isn't going anywhere and proceeds to push his car into a lake in a parody of the baptism ritual. His behavior becomes more and more extreme, having decided that he cannot live in both worlds, he chooses to live according to his convictions. Lacking the ability to express love, he internalizes the car's destruction and now sees himself as "not clean". He stuffs his shoes with glass and rocks and wraps barbed wire across his chest, then throws lime on his face. Suggesting a parallel with the story of Paul on the road to Damascus, he loses his sight but regains his vision. As strongly as he has denied Christ's presence, however, he now cannot resist it. In spite of himself, Haze achieves the grace that he sought to avoid.

I finally saw this movie. Had to get it on loan through the inter-library loaning service. I liked it very much. It was pretty faithful to Flannery O'Connor's story. John Houston and the cast deserve accolades for bringing this story, that can be elusive when trying to figure out what is going on, to the screen. And from some of the viewer's comments, I can see how difficult it is to understand. I sent some e-mails of my views to some of the reviewer's of this movie.

Any review of "Wise Blood" must be done in the context of the book. The odd ball and crazy characters we see all have a purpose. The hypocracy of religion is only a tool. Many of us at some point have seen some of the characters; the odd balls, the charlatans. Ned Beatty is magnificent in almost a cameo role for him. There is a tool in writing called "use of the grotesque" and some have called it "Southern grotesque". Referencing that most of the strange characters come from the South. But whether that is true or not, it did provide a source for Flannery O'Connor's books and stories.

It has been written that her stories and books are narrow, because they deal with Christianity and in particular with people in crisis and how these people go about resolving their crisis. But her stories are well-crafted and "full of insight about human weakness".

Hazel Motes crisis was trying to build a church of Christ without Christ and this led him down a path he could not resolve in his mind. Everywhere he turned, his church and ultimately he was rejected. I believe(I use these words because this is my interpretation) Hazel finally realizes that if all his attempts have failed then there is a Jesus. And Hazel being a prophet now must suffer like a prophet. The rest is his own doing his atonement for sinning. There was one small part in the book left out of the movie. When the police go to find Hazel, one of the policemen hits him with his night stick. I think of Christ being stabbed on the cross by a Roman Soldier, when the policeman hits Hazel. Also in the movie there is not enough emphasis on the Landlady's change. When she first starts taking care O hazel after he blinds himself, she is interested in his money(not explained well in the movie). After he leaves her and goes out in the rain storm, she is fearful he will get sick, and when he comes back not realizing he is dead, tells him it is okay. He can stay upstairs or not. He can do what he wants. She has experienced a return to grace. There is a collection of Mary O'Connor's writings and lectures she gave called "Mystery and Manners" edited by her good friend Sally Fitzgerald. There is a lot of material that helps to explain her writing. I wish I could explain more about Flannery O'connor, but I am glad I can read her and glad that John Houston made "Wise Blood" into a movie.

Regards,

Fran Stone