solomon-29
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
17 years
Reviews
Wise Blood (1979)
A beautiful novel ruined by John Huston
I realize that bringing a novel to the big screen is always problematic. That is the only positive thing I can say about this truly horrid adaptation.
Have you read 'Wise Blood?' It's an amazing book. Flannery O'Connor wrote about the south as no one else has. She was a southerner herself, a devout catholic, and a remarkably gifted writer. In her first novel she wove together a dark and deeply disturbing tale of faith, doubt, and redemption with a macabre sense of humor and surprising evenhandedness. The characters in the book may seem outrageous to those who have not lived in the rural south, but I can assure you that such people do exist. Not only do they exist, they are human beings with families, feelings, and concerns like anyone else. Flannery's intentions were so often misunderstood - she was not lampooning these backwoods zealots - she saw in them the beautiful operation of what she would have called 'grace'...even in the most violent, distressing, and maddening of circumstances. To read 'Wise Blood' is to be washed over with a sense of dread and impending doom. Finally, it is to think long and hard about our judgments and preconceptions - our entire world view.
None of this comes through in John Huston's 'Gilligan's Island'-like adaptation. None. It is a farce. A bad farce. The entire film is saturated with a hauteur that turns the stomach. The acting is poor, the southern accents are fake and insulting. The filmmakers show no insight into the thinking of religious southerners. Ms. O'Connor's intense prose are reduced to sight gags and cheap, amateur theatre. The soundtrack is a mixture of hayseed silliness and 'Clockwork Orange'-style cheeseball electronics that doesn't fit the story or even the MOVIE. I was granted free admission to this movie and almost walked out. Truly, truly terrible.
As an aside, I do not agree with Ms. O'Connor's religious views, and while I was raised in the deep south, years ago I made my way north and have not looked back. But the south is a beautiful place full of fascinating individuals (like every other place on earth), and the cartoonish mockery with which southerners and their attitudes are dealt in this movie borders on offensive. If you're into being offended (which I am not), then this movie most DEFINITELY crosses the line.
I don't like to talk crap about an artist's work - John Huston was a man that I did not know, and I'm sure he was a sincere and gifted filmmaker, to which his respected place in film history attests. My views are clearly skewed by having read (and loved) Flannery O'Connor's work. So I don't claim to be coming from any other perspective. Maybe as a stand-alone film it works for cinephiles. But for Flannery O'Connor fans - and, I might add, for self-respecting southerners and openminded individuals of all stripes - this movie is a waste of time.
Have you read 'Wise Blood?' It's an amazing book. Flannery O'Connor wrote about the south as no one else has. She was a southerner herself, a devout catholic, and a remarkably gifted writer. In her first novel she wove together a dark and deeply disturbing tale of faith, doubt, and redemption with a macabre sense of humor and surprising evenhandedness. The characters in the book may seem outrageous to those who have not lived in the rural south, but I can assure you that such people do exist. Not only do they exist, they are human beings with families, feelings, and concerns like anyone else. Flannery's intentions were so often misunderstood - she was not lampooning these backwoods zealots - she saw in them the beautiful operation of what she would have called 'grace'...even in the most violent, distressing, and maddening of circumstances. To read 'Wise Blood' is to be washed over with a sense of dread and impending doom. Finally, it is to think long and hard about our judgments and preconceptions - our entire world view.
None of this comes through in John Huston's 'Gilligan's Island'-like adaptation. None. It is a farce. A bad farce. The entire film is saturated with a hauteur that turns the stomach. The acting is poor, the southern accents are fake and insulting. The filmmakers show no insight into the thinking of religious southerners. Ms. O'Connor's intense prose are reduced to sight gags and cheap, amateur theatre. The soundtrack is a mixture of hayseed silliness and 'Clockwork Orange'-style cheeseball electronics that doesn't fit the story or even the MOVIE. I was granted free admission to this movie and almost walked out. Truly, truly terrible.
As an aside, I do not agree with Ms. O'Connor's religious views, and while I was raised in the deep south, years ago I made my way north and have not looked back. But the south is a beautiful place full of fascinating individuals (like every other place on earth), and the cartoonish mockery with which southerners and their attitudes are dealt in this movie borders on offensive. If you're into being offended (which I am not), then this movie most DEFINITELY crosses the line.
I don't like to talk crap about an artist's work - John Huston was a man that I did not know, and I'm sure he was a sincere and gifted filmmaker, to which his respected place in film history attests. My views are clearly skewed by having read (and loved) Flannery O'Connor's work. So I don't claim to be coming from any other perspective. Maybe as a stand-alone film it works for cinephiles. But for Flannery O'Connor fans - and, I might add, for self-respecting southerners and openminded individuals of all stripes - this movie is a waste of time.