Wise BloodWhat is truth? Is it something you can prove? Is it something that you see every day? Is it something you feel, no matter the facts to the contrary? Or--here's one--is there even such a thing as "truth"? Wise Blood is a black comedy adapted from the novel of the same name by Flannery O'Connor. It is the story of a young veteran named Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif), who returns to his family home only to find it shuttered and in ruins. All alone with some money in his pocket, he sets out on an aimless pilgrimage. Boiling over with animosity toward Jesus Christ, he preaches against salvation by way of a messiah, crossing paths with all manner of misfits and scoundrels in the process.
|
|
Much of Flannery O'Connor's writing featured unsympathetic characters, and Wise Blood is no exception. Virtually everyone in this movie is either monumentally stupid or deluded, corrupt, or a combination of the two, including Hazel. What little we learn of our protagonist's past comes by way of that crucial opening scene--along with a couple of flashbacks--as he wafts through the shuttered family farm. He finally lays his eyes on the family graveyard on the outskirts of the property, on a gravestone with an epitaph proclaiming that a loved one is now singing with the "angles" (a misspelling of angels). I believe that this is where the seed of resentment is planted, either out of a sense of abandonment or that this death was preventable. Hazel chooses Christianity to direct his wrath upon, even though his hatred comes from some other part of his being. Set in the South--and shot in and around Macon, Georgia--many of the people Hazel meets are full of that ubiquitous Southern charm and warmth. He criticizes a woman on the train after they share some small talk, asking if she believes herself to be "redeemed"; she isn't quite sure how to reply. That's because Hazel's intrusive interrogation--his bitterness and sarcasm--simply isn't the way people ought to converse, even if she was silently judging him for leaving the price tag for his suit on his sleeve. So she simply smiles and replies with some empty words. He takes this encounter (and another with a cab driver) as an invitation to take advantage of a misinformed conclusion others make about him, owing to his choice of hat and suit: that he must be a preacher. This only adds to his resentment, and after he crosses paths with a father/daughter duo of con artists passing out faux religious tracts on the street, he begins to feel a "calling" to speak out in the name of "truth". The "father", Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton), is an erstwhile preacher who supposedly blinded himself for the Lord, even though he's faking. His daughter, Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright), plays along with the sham, all while setting her eyes on Hazel as a potential ally to their con, attempting to "recruit" him by seducing him. And if this wasn't bad enough, Hazel is constantly beset by an overly simple-minded hick-in-the-city named Enoch (Dan Shor), who is convinced that he can be an apostle of sorts to Hazel as he preaches his atheistic gospel. Hazel believes that he can encourage passersby to reject the false salvation of Jesus by speaking in public, but he's ill suited to it, as observed by a huckster named Hoover Shoates (Ned Beatty). Hoover interjects as Hazel is losing his crowd, trying to play on the emotions of the audience, seeing a meal ticket in Hazel. Hoover may be a born salesman, and would have no doubt succeeded in popularizing "The Church of Christ Without Christ"...except for Hazel, who refuses to "play along" with Hoover's lie, inadvertently making him into an enemy instead. Hazel proclaims loudly that he values the "truth", but even this proclamation is just an obfuscation of the truth. Take the rundown (likely stolen) car he buys. Even though it is obviously a lemon of the highest order and ready for the scrap yard, he deludes himself--and tries to delude others--into believing that it is a magnificent car. This is because he believes that he should have a reliable car, even if he doesn't want to bother buying a good one. So regardless of Hazel's grandstanding about "truth", he proves to be no different than any of the other crooks, con artists, and fools, not to mention the everyday people he hypocritically casts his judgment upon simply because they turn to faith to give life meaning.
Wise Blood hinges on Brad Dourif's performance and our feelings toward Hazel, somehow managing to be antagonistic and comical, loathsome and yet, at times, pitiful. A pair of flashbacks--featuring the director of Wise Blood, John Huston (misspelled in the credits as "Jhon Huston" for inexplicable reasons) as a zealous preacher--identify that Hazel was abused as a child. He was forced to walk on broken glass in his shoes and sit still after wetting himself on stage...all at the behest of his guardian's twisted "faith" in Jesus. In reality, no matter how much Hazel wishes to speak about his needs and beliefs, no one really wants to listen to him. He repeatedly tells the stupid Enoch to stop bothering him, and is outraged after he lies about knowing where to find Asa and Sabbath Lily. This leads Enoch to "prove" himself to Hazel by stealing a shrunken mummy for Hazel to use as his "Jesus" for his new church. (Yes, Enoch is a strange cookie.) Enoch's subsequent scenes are primarily just for comic relief, like how he becomes fixated on a movie about a King Kong-like gorilla named Ganga, confusing the man in a gorilla suit for the character. This leads to him stealing the suit and accosting pedestrians with pleas to "shake Ganga's hand". (Irrelevant, but uproariously funny.) The last half of Wise Blood is plump with absurdity, including a sheriff who pulls Hazel over not because he previously killed an imitator (William Hickey) with his car, but simply because he "doesn't like his face". And just when you think this sheriff is leading Hazel into an arrest, he instead just pushes his clunker of a car down a hill and into a lake for no identifiable reason. Hazel's resistance to the ways of the world and naive adherence to his definition of "truth" makes him a tragic (yet nevertheless unlikable) protagonist, doomed to be defeated in his crusade because he himself is not "virtuous" (in the sense that he is not truthful). Hazel probably begins to come to this conclusion after the destruction of his car--his totem of belief in something "higher"--and ironically chooses to blind himself. Believing that this will, somehow, bring him closer to his ephemeral "truth", all that it does is make him a prisoner to an increasingly possessive landlady (Mary Nell Santacroce), who goes so far as to manipulate events with the police to keep him a prisoner. The only escape from such a world of madness left open to Hazel is implied to be death, or at least acquiescence. Ultimately, the lesson of Wise Blood--an ironic title given the rampant stupidity of its characters--is that any attempt to define "truth" can only expose one's own biases, which will in turn negate the effort. Better to just lay back and let the world drift on by.
Recommended for: Fans of a sharp and comically cynical study of a fool who believes everyone else to be the fool instead. Wise Blood is steeped in irony, and is a wickedly funny black comedy, no matter your denomination.
Wise Blood hinges on Brad Dourif's performance and our feelings toward Hazel, somehow managing to be antagonistic and comical, loathsome and yet, at times, pitiful. A pair of flashbacks--featuring the director of Wise Blood, John Huston (misspelled in the credits as "Jhon Huston" for inexplicable reasons) as a zealous preacher--identify that Hazel was abused as a child. He was forced to walk on broken glass in his shoes and sit still after wetting himself on stage...all at the behest of his guardian's twisted "faith" in Jesus. In reality, no matter how much Hazel wishes to speak about his needs and beliefs, no one really wants to listen to him. He repeatedly tells the stupid Enoch to stop bothering him, and is outraged after he lies about knowing where to find Asa and Sabbath Lily. This leads Enoch to "prove" himself to Hazel by stealing a shrunken mummy for Hazel to use as his "Jesus" for his new church. (Yes, Enoch is a strange cookie.) Enoch's subsequent scenes are primarily just for comic relief, like how he becomes fixated on a movie about a King Kong-like gorilla named Ganga, confusing the man in a gorilla suit for the character. This leads to him stealing the suit and accosting pedestrians with pleas to "shake Ganga's hand". (Irrelevant, but uproariously funny.) The last half of Wise Blood is plump with absurdity, including a sheriff who pulls Hazel over not because he previously killed an imitator (William Hickey) with his car, but simply because he "doesn't like his face". And just when you think this sheriff is leading Hazel into an arrest, he instead just pushes his clunker of a car down a hill and into a lake for no identifiable reason. Hazel's resistance to the ways of the world and naive adherence to his definition of "truth" makes him a tragic (yet nevertheless unlikable) protagonist, doomed to be defeated in his crusade because he himself is not "virtuous" (in the sense that he is not truthful). Hazel probably begins to come to this conclusion after the destruction of his car--his totem of belief in something "higher"--and ironically chooses to blind himself. Believing that this will, somehow, bring him closer to his ephemeral "truth", all that it does is make him a prisoner to an increasingly possessive landlady (Mary Nell Santacroce), who goes so far as to manipulate events with the police to keep him a prisoner. The only escape from such a world of madness left open to Hazel is implied to be death, or at least acquiescence. Ultimately, the lesson of Wise Blood--an ironic title given the rampant stupidity of its characters--is that any attempt to define "truth" can only expose one's own biases, which will in turn negate the effort. Better to just lay back and let the world drift on by.
Recommended for: Fans of a sharp and comically cynical study of a fool who believes everyone else to be the fool instead. Wise Blood is steeped in irony, and is a wickedly funny black comedy, no matter your denomination.