From one strange little film to another strange little film, this week we have Wise Blood, a John Huston adaptation of a Flannery O’Connor novel. I saw this film once many years ago, and I remembered the general ideas of it and the fact that it was strange, but I couldn’t recall all the details, so I figured it would be a good one to revisit. After watching this again, this is a prime New Hollywood era “life movie,” which is my term for films that are more about the characters and the things that happen to them rather than a traditional narrative. This one might be divisive for you folks, but I think we’re used to that on this blog by now. Here’s an idea of what goes on in this film:
The film mainly follows Hazel Motes, a veteran who’s just coming back from the war, though they never clarify which one. He returns to his family’s home, only to find it decayed and abandoned, with most of the family assumed to be either dead or scattered. With no home to go to, he heads to a nearby city, where he shacks up with a local prostitute, Leora. Around this time, he also meets Enoch, a young overeager zookeeper who’s always looking for someone or something to connect with. He tries to befriend Hazel, but Hazel doesn’t really take to his annoying and desperate demeanor. One day, in the middle of town, Hazel runs across a blind preacher and his daughter, who’re co-opting a salesman’s pitch to advertise their church. Hazel takes an interest in the two, if only to question their beliefs, though the preacher sees his questioning as a cry for help and salvation. Insulted by this, and already frustrated with religion in general, Hazel announces to the townsfolks that he’s starting his own church: The Church of Truth Without Christ. Though he pushes this church idea forward, and keeps denouncing traditional Christianity, he also goes out of his way to figure out where the preacher lives and board a room there. After this point, a lot of things happen: Enoch steals a shrunken man from the museum and gives it to Hazel as a potential “New Jesus;” the preacher’s daughter, Sabbath Lily, takes a liking to Hazel and the two form something of a “relationship;” Hazel has dream-flashbacks to his younger years among his very religious family; a promoter/con man Hoover Shoats first tries to partner with Hazel on his church idea, but when Hazel rejects the offer, he tries to co-opt the idea and take Hazel’s followers away from him; Enoch becomes fascinated by a man in a gorilla suit who’s doing meet and greets at the movie theater, and decides to steal the suit to try and meet and greet random people; and the preacher is discovered to be not so sight-impaired as he claims. Oh, and Hazel buys a crummy used car and constantly has issues with it, though he’s in denial about it the whole time. All of these events lead up to the final shocking turn near the end, which I won’t reveal to you here, of course. So, now that you have an idea of what the film’s about, let’s get into my thoughts.
As you can probably tell by my summary, there’s quite a bit going on in this film, and it doesn’t really tie together as a typical story structure. It’s more so just about the characters and who they are/what they do. This kind of filmmaking was not uncommon in the New Hollywood era, with such works as Easy Rider, Harold and Maude, Alice’s Restaurant, and even the early Ralph Bakshi films, and I wouldn’t doubt that you could still find films like this today in the more low-key and indie scenes. However, I can understand people not taking to this sort of thing very well, as the loose nature can come off as meandering and directionless sometimes. You can also run into a similar problem that last week’s film had, with the flow feeling off or that it doesn’t carry the film through, to the point where it can lose the audience if the ideas and characters don’t engage them enough. I definitely think Wise Blood is going to throw some people off, especially since it has some rather weird elements to it in addition to its looser feel. However, I also think that, if you let the film sit with you after watching and think about the characters and their mentalities/choices, then it’ll give you something to sink your teeth into. Generally, the film is very much about a crisis of faith and the want for something to hold on to. Hazel grew up in a very religious family, and you get the sense from his childhood memories that it had an almost traumatizing effect on him (or at least that he never knew how to process what he was seeing/being told). In one flashback, after a congregation lets out, he finds a naked woman lying in a casket in the church who giggles at him; and in another, the preacher (assumed to be his grandfather) uses him as an example of a sinner to the congregation and Hazel pisses himself in his chair on the stage. I get the impression that Hazel is almost going through a “delayed rebellion” of sorts, like he couldn’t do anything about what he experienced or was done to him when he was a kid, so now that he’s older, he’s going to push back against the religion that caused him so much turmoil. Plus, considering the fact that he probably experienced many horrors in the war, and the fact that his family was gone when he came back, these probably implanted ideas in him like “what kind of a loving God would allow these horrors to happen?” and “what good was the religious togetherness when you’re going to lose everyone anyway?”. Thus, it makes sense why he would commit so hard to atheism, but the thing is that no matter how much he preaches the message of rational and scientific truth, you always get the impression that he’s really just looking for something to believe in. As much as he hates the “blind” preacher, he still goes out of his way to live in the same building as him and come to his room to argue with him on religion. It’s almost as if he was crying out for help in his own way, and finding out that the preacher was really just a fraud probably sent him further into his atheist shell. It’s interesting because, as much as Hazel can’t stand him, Enoch might be more similar to him than he’d ever admit. Enoch comes across like a lost puppy: eager to please and always searching for a friend or someone to connect with. He latches on to Hazel at first, because he believes in his message, and he even steals a shrunken man from a museum to give to Hazel, even though Hazel never asked for it, as a potential New Jesus for his church. Later, when the gorilla suit guy comes to the theater, Enoch clearly wants to interact with the gorilla for longer than the allotted simple handshake, and ends up stealing and wearing the costume, going up to random people at night asking to shake hands, which doesn’t go as he would hope. His saddened “I just wanted to shake hands” tells you a lot with a little, that he’s struggling with faith and belonging just as much as Hazel is, except he doesn’t have any specific idea to latch on to, nor does he have the aggressive conviction to shield himself like Hazel either. Then, you have Sabbath Lily, who’s the classic “young person who thinks they’re more mature and world ready than they are” type of character. You get the sense from her that her upbringing wasn’t great, especially since she seems to have no real bond with her father and wants to shack up with Hazel who’s definitely older than her. Thus, she’s most likely seeking some sort of bonding point herself, also in her own way, and not a particularly healthy one. I can imagine some folks would be put off by Lily, as she gives off some Kubrick Lolita vibes to an extent, though the actress herself was nearing thirty and was the same age as Hazel’s actor Brad Dourif. I don’t blame you, since I felt that too, but thinking back to my teen years, I do remember people that acted similar to her, so I do think there’s a basis in reality for her character (one of those “it’s not right, but it exists” sort of deals). I’m starting to run a little long here, so I want to note one more thing before I wrap up: the musical score. I’ll be honest, this is probably one of the weirdest parts of the movie. Half of the time, it almost sounds like something out of an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It’s a very odd choice for a film that, while having some levity, isn’t a wacky comedy or anything of the sort. I can say that it definitely contributes to the strange feel of the film, in one of the most jarring ways possible. Anyway, I’ll move on to my conclusion now.
So, Wise Blood is a weird but interesting little film that portrays the wayward search for something to believe in among its quirky cast of characters. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I still think you should give it a chance. I think it’d be neat to see if you find it very meaningful or utterly incomprehensible, or if you wind up in the latter and then slowly work your way to the former after thinking about it. If nothing else, it’s certainly unique, and probably one of the last gasps for New Hollywood era “life movies” before the modern era. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you all again next time.