Wise Blood

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.

What other testament to how criminally neglected this film is other than the fact it has a rough 900 votes at the time of writing this? A movie directed by John Huston of all people. That's not to say Wise Blood is not a flawed film, few if any such films exist after all, nor that it has that dramatic wholesomeness and clear characterization that makes something like Sierra Madre the classic it is, yet, much like other 80's cult items like Repo Man, it remains endlessly watchable and fascinating.

The movie follows the trials and tribulations of a young man fresh back from a war (not specified which - any war will do really) somewhere in the deep South who starts out as an angry man who believes in no saviours and no dogmas and dreams of a Church of Christ without Christ but slowly finds himself digressing out of circumstances out of his hand to that which he most loathes. It's not specified to what extent the war changed him as a man or if it did at all, or if a fundamendalist grandfather (played in a flashback cameo by John Huston himself) played a role in his formative years.

Turning from fierce individualist and hater of preachers to zealous preacher of his own church where there is neither fall, redemption or judgement because there's nothing to fall from and nothing to be redeemed for, and from preacher to self-tormenting repentant, Brad Dourif brings Hazel Motes and his monomaniac pursuit alive with burning passion. Always tense and ready to lash out at everyone and anyone, he's a seething mass of tendons and nerves writhing with agitation.

I have not read Flannery O'Connor's original novel nor have I been brought up in a Protestant or Catholic background (or the deep South for that matter), but there's something captivating about Wise Blood beyond and despite its particular subject matter. That elusive quality that turns a good movie into a haunting one. Still, it's easy to see why it failed to find an audience when it came out and has been largely forgotten since. The seriocomic mood is perhaps a bit too incosistent for the viewer who needs to quickly determine what kind of response the movie demands. Part religious drama, part road movie, part demented black comedy, part satiric oddity, Wise Blood is as hard to file under a specific label as it is to watch without a reaction. Yet it doesn't fail in any of them, and that's why it's such a bonafide cult film, rather than merely a curiosity.

Blessed with a powerhouse performance by Dourif, enhanced by cameos of such character actor stalwarts as Harry Dean Stanton (in the role of blind preacher) and Ned Beatty, the picturesque baroque of the American South, and assured direction by the venerable John Huston, Wise Blood, in all its southern gothic glory, is a cult film crying out to be rediscovered by a new audience.

A Southerner (Brad Dourif) -- young, poor, ambitious but uneducated -- determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.

This film is brilliant for its examination of religion and for its casting. On the former point, some aspects are clearly exaggerated. The world is full of crazy preachers, but probably not so many in one town that they are stumbling over each other. Is the film against religion? No. On the surface, yes, but it is really against hypocrisy.

And the casting... Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty are great, but Brad Dourif runs the show, and it is a shame his name is not more widely known outside of film fanatic circles...

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.

A hefty percentage of the comments on "Wise Blood" dwell on its relationship to the novel from which it was drawn -- pro and con. Brilliant faithful adaptation says one moviegoer. Trashy sacrilege screams another. Those of us who haven't read the book are stuck with the movie which balances superb atmosphere with strange storytelling. Let's start on the plus side. John Huston and his crew have caught not only the look but the feel, almost the smell, of a midsize southern town in Summer. The weathered frame houses, the sagging streets, the one-screen cinema, the tired used car lot with its rusty Ford Fairlanes, they form a richly authentic backdrop for the action. That's where "Wise Blood" gets into trouble. Who is Hazel,played by Brad Dourif, what war did he emerge from, why does he want to be a preacher and most of all, why does he suffer psychotic temper tantrums? You'll have to figure that out for yourself -- along with why a would-be acolyte steals an embalmed monkey for him and why the nymphet daughter of a "blind" evangelist is smitten with him, down to her threadbare stockings. Sure, there are allegorical references galore throughout the film. The phoniness of Gonga, the gorilla (a bruiser in an ape suit) matched against the phoniness of street corner preachers. But in the end, maybe you'll say to yourself (but never breathe a word to more ephemeral friends)I just wish the darned thing made more sense.