Wise Blood (1979)
Directed by: John
Huston.
Written by: Benedict
Fitzgerald & Michael Fitzgerald based on the novel by Flannery O'Connor.
Starring: Brad Dourif (Hazel Motes),
Dan Shor (Enoch Emory), Harry Dean Stanton (Asa Hawks), Amy Wright (Sabbath
Lily), Mary Nell Santacroce (Landlady), Ned Beatty (Hoover Shoates), William
Hickey (Preacher), John Huston (Grandfather).
John
Huston’s Wise Blood, based on the novel by Flannery O’Connor, is a very strange
movie indeed. It is a redemption story of sorts – the story a non-believer, a
nihilist really, who comes back into the fold and embraces Jesus in the end,
although by then he has lost pretty much everything else in his life, so it may
well have been better for him not to find Jesus (at least, in this life). It is
a story of holy and unholy fools – crooks and charlatans – although according
the movie at least, that doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t real.
The main
character in the film is Hazel Motes and he’s played with single minded
determination by a perfectly cast Brad Dourif. He returns from the war (the
film never specifies which one – although O’Connor’s novel in set in post WWII,
the film however doesn’t have the trappings of a period piece – perhaps due to
budget constraints – so it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say Vietnam), and goes
back to his small, Southern hometown. There is a new highway there – opened,
he’s told, just long enough for everyone to drive away from town. None of his
family is left – we glimpse his preacher Grandfather (played by Huston himself)
– is flashbacks, but no one else. Hazel ends up heading into the city, where he
plans to start street preaching. But he is not a typical street preacher,
talking about how Jesus saves – just the opposite really. His is a “Church without
Christ” - “where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead
stays that way”. Despite all his supposed hatred of Jesus, Hazel has the
passion of a true zealot – he rarely talks of anything other than his Church,
and spreading his “gospel”. If Wise Blood is anything, it is a reminder of that
old saying – the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Hazel doesn’t
really hate Jesus – he’s just mad at him, perhaps because of what happened
during the war (he says he has an injury, but doesn’t want people to know
where), or perhaps because of the fire and brimstone his grandfather preached
(which scared him so much, he wet himself).
While in
the city, Hazel meets a series of fools, crooks and charlatans. He isn’t there
long before he finds a new follower – the hapless Enoch Emory (Dan Shor), who
becomes committed to him despite the cruelty in which Hazel treats him. Enoch
is clearly a lonely, somewhat dimwitted young man, who will eventually end up
in a gorilla suit in another ill advised obsession. There is Asa Hawks (the
great Harry Dean Stanton), a supposedly blind street preacher, and his daughter
Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright). They are scam artists – he isn’t really blind,
despite what his “clipping” says (he supposedly was going to blind himself for
Jesus). Sabbath Lily sets her sets on Hazel herself. There’s Hoover Shoates
(Ned Beatty), who hears Hazel’s pitch, and likes it – he feels there is a lot
of money to be made from it, but when Hazel doesn’t get on board – it isn’t a
scam to him – Shoates simply goes out and hires someone to give the same sermon
(William Hickey). Finally, there is Hazel’s landlady (Mary Nell Santacroce),
who seems so kindly – but of course, even she has something else on her mind.
There is
nothing new about redemption stories – and yet Wise Blood is one of the
strangest ones you will see. It isn’t really about a saint among sinners – we
see Hazel Motes do a hell of lot of bad things. It is the work of a cynical
Christian – but a Christian just the same. For the most part, the film follows
O’Connor’s novel fairly closely – even if Huston initially had a different
interpretation – he thought he’d be making a satire about Southern religion,
which in a way, I guess he was – he was still the right choice to direct.
Huston is one of the few directors who was able to take difficult, literary material
and turn it into a film that is both faithful to the novel, and works as film itself.
The film isn’t perfect – I find, in particular, that the scenes leading to the
ending could use a little more clarity – but mainly, it is a fine adaptation of
a difficult novel.
Lots of
things helped here – including, oddly enough, the lack of a budget. It is a
small budgeted film, and so Huston shot mainly on location in Macon, Georgia –
using the rundown city as a perfect backdrop to the film. The lack a definitive
time period works here (I often don’t like, as specificity is the soul of
narrative – here though it makes it a more quintessential American story). The
cast of character actors could hardly be improved upon – Dourif apparently
wanted to add more nuance to Hazel, but Huston rightly knew that he was a one
note character – whatever he embraces, he embraces fully. Harry Dean Stanton
delivers one of his finest in a long line of morally dubious conmen. Amy Wright
is a wicked joy as Sabbath Lily. Ned Beatty all smiles as he steals from you –
and Hickey is wonderfully pathetic as his sidekick. Santacroce sneaks up on you
as the unnamed Landlady – helping in those final scenes.
If Wise
Blood doesn’t quite rank up with Huston’s best films, that is because of the
strength of his resume – from The Maltese Falcon to The Treasure of the Sierra
Madre in the 1940s to Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead in the 1980s, and much in
between, Huston had a varied, wonderful directing career. Wise Blood is a
little seen, underrated late career highlight for him – and everyone else
involved.
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