Le malin

This is not an easy movie to get a handle on, so I'm not surprised reviewers either love it or hate it. Now, I've neither read the O'Connor novel nor lived in the South nor read the Bible since Sunday school. As a result, I have to take the movie as just that, a movie, without benefit of outside comparison.

I get the impression that underneath all the black humor and exaggerated characters, something profound is going on. But exactly what? Perhaps you need that outside reference to penetrate the subtext. Then again, perhaps the profound subtext is illusory, like Hazel's view of Christianity, such that the narrative amounts to little more than artfully eccentric entertainment, courtesy sly old John Huston.

The following are what I hope are helpful interpretations, generally not emphasized by other reviewers, many of whose commentaries were, nonetheless, very helpful to me.

Above all, Hazel has come to hate hypocrisy. His motto appears to be: If you own the Truth, then live it. For Hazel, Truth is the illusory nature of Christian metaphysics, (a disavowal that doesn't necessarily equate with atheism), and by golly he's going to live that truth in his own peculiar way. Thus, the hard-eyed obsessive stare, the refusal of commitment sex (Sabbath) but not commercial sex (an over-priced 4 dollars), and the rather heartless rejection of the pathetically friendless Enoch. In short, like his adversary, the true Christian proselytizer, Hazel is a driven man.

The trouble is that he knows only one way of spreading his truth-- by preaching angrily on street corners. Worse, his gospel is one of pure and insistent negatives (perhaps why atheism has never been popular), for example,"when you're dead, you're dead!" -- not exactly a crowd-pleaser. Nor, for that matter, is he going to allow Preacher Sholes (Ned Beatty) to dilute that negative message with a crowd-pleasing brand of hucksterism. Hazel may be strange, but he is no hypocrite.

Now, it's clear that the broken-down jalopy means more to Hazel than just another hunk of iron. He's always praising it, even as it coughs smoke and bleeds fluids. It's his chariot, and while it might not take him to heaven, it will take him to the next town to spread his Word. Note that he even uses it to slay the pathetic pretender who would take his place on the street corner. Moreover, it's not until Hazel loses that chariot (hilariously) that he takes on the role of the martyred prophet. After all, rejection now means he has no other place he can get to.

For me, the most revealing part of the film is Enoch's (Dan Shor) pathetic efforts at establishing contact with another human being. Huston, of course, doesn't play up the sentiment, but it's there anyway. Also, this may constitute the most damaging perspective on the dominant Christian culture of the movie-- even more damaging than Hazel's centerpiece non-belief. After all, if Jesus' message is unconditional love, why is Enoch alone and abandoned in an empty world of nominal Jesus followers. Nor, for that matter, is Hazel's brand of soulless non-belief any help either.

Then too, just count the number of happy smiles in the film-- practically none, except when the kids are reaching out to the fake human, Gongo the gorilla. Poor Enoch thinks that by donning Gongo's costume, people will finally reach out to him. But there's no such contact in this atomized world of social rejects. In fact, a dominant theme appears to be just that, rejection-- Hazel rejects Jesus, Sabbath, his landlady, Enoch, Preacher Sholes, while even the cop rejects Hazel's jalopy, at the same time, the whole seedy community rejects Enoch. Quite a commentary on an environment where Jesus is advertised on every big rock and sold on every street corner as a friend to the friendless.

Now, I don't know if there is any particular moral to the foregoing, but if there is, I suspect it's not a comforting one. Anyway, the movie is full of colorful characters, offbeat situations, and is never, never predictable. So, like the film or not, I expect that it's one you're not likely to forget.

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.

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.

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...

Vignette styled look at southern towns, corruption, hypocrisy, and the hidden 'evils' of evangelism. Has a atmosphere that is so thick you can almost taste it.

Dourif's performance is so good, so solid, and so powerful that it literally propels you through the story no matter which avenue it takes (and it does take some strange avenues). His performance should have won him the Academy award and shows just how poorly used he has been. This is for all those who think Chucky in CHILD'S PLAY is the best thing he has done.

Although never completely satisfying, the final 20 minutes do have some rather 'odd' twists that may stay with you even after it's long over.