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“I’m gonna do some things I ain’t never done before”-Hazel
Motes ***
Growing up I was fascinated with the south. My family
was from the south but when my family migrated to California
I was robbed of the chance to experience the contradictory
cultural elements of that make the south a rich and varied
place. I assimilated my experience of growing up in the
south from my parents, visiting my sister during the summer,
William Faulkner and my favorite writer Flannery O’Connor.
***
Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 O’Connor suffered
from Lupus a debilitating autoimmune disorder that ultimately
took her life. It made her life misery but O’Connor managed
to create an impressive body of work as a writer producing
32 short stories and two novels in her brief life (she died
in 1964 at 39). O’Connor found the voice of the south and
used it to tell stories that reflected themes as varied
as the Holocaust to religion in a genre that came to be
classified as American Southern Gothic. ***
“Wise Blood” based on her novel and directed by John
Huston unlike most movies adapted from literature manages
to be both cinematic and faithful to O’Connor’s marvelous
novel at the same time. Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif)heads home
after being discharged from the army only to discover that
his home has been boarded up and his mother has passed away.
He takes his army pay, buys himself a suit, hat and heads
to Macon to “do something I ain’t never done before”. That
includes creating his own Church of truth and becoming a
preacher after a cab driver insists he looks one. Believing
that looking like a profession makes you that profession,
he begins preaching for his own new Church of Truth without
Christ without the crucified Jesus and picks up his first
disciple from his very first day Enoch Emory (Dan Shor)
a simpleton who believes he is touched by the gift of prophecy.
***
Once it appears that Haz’s Church of Christ without
Christ (as it is later modified by Hazel) attracts money
and attention another street preacher (Ned Beatty) offers
Haz a partnership because he sees how lucrative Hazel can
be. Hazel rejects his offer and finds himself in competition
with another prophet (William Hickey) recruited because
he resembles Hazel. ***
Featuring a stellar supporting cast including Ned Beatty
as a preacher and Harry Dean Stanton as Asa Hawks a flimflam
man/street preacher who influence Haz , director Huston
as Haz’s preacher grandfather and Amy Wright in her first
major role playing , “Wise Blood” captures the flavor of
O’Connor’s novel, her rich characterization of the south
and examination of the complex themes including faith in
a morally slippery world. ***
Interestingly, screenwriter-producer Michael Fitzgerald
and his brother Benedict were the sons of poet Robert Fitzgerald
who was a supporter and friend of O’Connor. Fitzgerald befriended
John Huston and told him of his plans to adapt O’Connor’s
novel. Fitzgerald found financing after traveling the world
and returned to Huston who mentored Fitzgerald agreeing
to direct the project. The script by the Fitzgerald brothers
captures the flavor of O’Connor’s rich, comic characterizations
but without the depth. Lacking the rich back story for the
characters in the film Huston and the Fitzgerald brothers
miscalculate robbing the story of the context of the story
stripping it to a lean narrative with characters that often
border on the grotesque. While that element is in O’Connor’s
novel it isn’t tempered by the sense of compassion that
O’Connor brings to the tale. Still, in spite of this flaw
Huston manages to succeed more often than fail in this colorful
tale of the south, a man who feels he needs no redemption
and who attacks the essence of the church of the moneymakers.
Hazel never denies that Christ existed or that he was crucified
just that he wasn’t crucified to clean up humanity’s mess.
Portraying satire on screen without it falling into the
trap of being one-dimensional is a tricky business but Huston
and his first time screenwriters are “faithful” more often
than not to the satirical intend of O’Connor’s marvelous
rich novel. ***
“Wise Blood” demonstrated Huston still had the flair
as a director to tackle difficult subjects and unusual characterizations.
As in the novel Hazel refuses to accept Jesus and because
of his experience with his preacher/grandfather. The one
flaw in the film is that Hazel’s refusal to accept Christ
or anyone for that matter as his savior and focusing on
how he is without sin except for the sin that God burdened
him with (the original sin of Adam & Eve) along with the
motivation for his cynical anger never truly gets the exploration
that’s needed. Still, the characters themselves manage to
give us some of that insight and we as viewers can be expected
to meet Huston’s film halfway just as we are required to
with any work of literature. Everything is NOT laid out
like it is in pop literature (or pop culture films). ***
This isn’t a case of “the book being better than the
movie” but comparing how two very different mediums tell
the same story with differing approaches and how successful
they are at achieving their ends. O’Connor’s original novel
manages to be more successful because she doesn’t allow
the characters to stray into the area of broad caricature
something that Huston fails to do. Huston also doesn’t give
us any of the sense of compassion that’s threaded throughout
the novel. Lacking that context the satire of “Wise Blood”
still works but it doesn’t reach in and touch the viewer
the way that O’Connor’s novel does. It’s not a matter of
one being better than the other but a matter of the novel
reaching its goal more successfully than the film. ***
Ultimately “Haz” remains true to his code—a rejection
of Christ not because he doesn’t believe in salvation but
he recognizes that religion is used to make money at the
expense of humanity’s soul and that most preachers are nothing
more than flimflam men using their knowledge of the Bible
to manipulate poor people essentially victimizing them and
offering no salvation in return just piece of mind. ---
Image & Sound:
“Wise Blood” has always had a bit of a soft and washed
out look to the film (I saw it originally when it was first
shown in theaters in 1979)and Criterion does a nice job
of preserving that look. The detail is quite good throughout
the film. Criterion provides us with a very clean presentation
that isn’t digitally over processed. If Huston had used
saturated colors in the film that were too bold or strong
it would have pushed the film even more into a very flat
one-dimensional film. Wisely (pardon the pun), Huston went
with the muted colors here. Hopefully we'll see a Blu-ray
of this soon although I think that Criterion would be hard
pressed to greatly improve on the presentation here (sure
it will be higher resolution but I don't think it will be
a huge, dramatic improvement). ***
The audio sounds quite good dialogue is always front
and center. The original sound track was in mono and I’m
assuming that the original elements probably don’t exist
either that or Criterion chose NOT to remix this film for
a 5.1 mix. Since Huston is no longer around to help with
this effort, Criterion did the smart thing and elected not
to mess with history. ---
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