I can’t believe John Huston, grizzled director of the iconic The Maltese Falcon and director of propaganda films to support the war effort during WWII, was not only still directing films in 1979, but films that were just as weird and compelling as anything being made by the twentysomething hippies and burnouts of New Hollywood. This is a man who worked with Humphrey Bogart, now filming a man stealing a shrunken mummy from a museum and a guy pounding his chest in a gorilla suit. What a career and what a film.
Wise Blood is John Huston’s—what I’m told “faithful”—adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s 1952 novel of the same name. Known for her offbeat tales of the South, O’Connor’s Wise Blood is a dark comedy about a disillusioned veteran of an undisclosed foreign war, Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif), who decides to become a preacher of an anti-religious movement he calls “The Church of Truth Without Christ.”
Shot on a low budget with lesser-known actors in Macon, Georgia (near O’Connor’s home in Baldwin County), Wise Blood is a biting satire on religion, particularly how many exploit faith for financial gain. It’s almost as if the people who claim to be the most religious are, in fact, the most dishonest.
Brad Dourif plays Hazel, a quiet but proud and determined veteran who is resolute in not following in his father’s footsteps of becoming a preacher (his father is played by John Huston in flashbacks). But after being mistaken for a preacher by how he acts and dresses, and after being angered by conmen like Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton), who pretends to be blind, and Hoover Shoates (Ned Beatty), a swindling promoter, Hazel becomes an anti-religious preacher.
Along the way, Asa’s naïve daughter, Sabbath (Amy Wright), falls for Hazel and Hazel is continually aggravated by a needy simpleton, Enoch Emory (Dan Schor), who tries to help by stealing a mummy and getting a guy in a gorilla costume to promote Hazel. Honestly, I’m not sure if I get Enoch’s intentions—that guy is nuts.
The film itself is vignette-heavy. It doesn’t so much follow a plot as string together the misadventures of Hazel and friends. This isn’t surprising when you consider that Flannery O’Connor, famous for her short stories, compiled Wise Blood from several preexisting stories she’d written.
The tone of Wise Blood is surprisingly silly. Part of me wanted to see how this story would feel with a darker, P.T. Anderson bent, like The Master, but O’Connor’s source material is far more absurd. Not to mention this film is about mocking religion, so it might as well be a comedy.
Brad Dourif, known at this point for his Oscar-nominated supporting performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is locked in as Hazel Motes. Dourif has had a great career in film series like the Child’s Play franchise and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but after watching a movie like this, I wish he’d done more straight-up drama. It’s hard to think of another actor who can play a weirdo loner better than Dourif.
The film is shot beautifully, and Huston’s choice to shoot on location with lots of non-professionals adds a lived-in quality. Huston’s sensibilities are a good match for O’Connor’s style; I only wish the story was more cohesive. Nonetheless, the film is never uninteresting.
John Huston was 73 when he made Wise Blood and made six more movies until his death in 1987. John Huston was literally directing while wearing an oxygen mask on the set of his last film, ironically named “The Dead”. What’s crazy is that Huston’s latter-day films are just as relevant as his earlier classics. The man never lost a step and never stopped trying new things. Fuckin’ icon.