Wise Blood (1979)

A Southerner--young, poor, ambitious but uneducated--determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.

Director:

John Huston

Writers:

Flannery O'Connor (novel), Benedict Fitzgerald (screenplay),

Stars:

Brad Dourif, John Huston, Dan Shor

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brad Dourif	...	Hazel Motes
John Huston	...	Grandfather (as Jhon Huston)
Dan Shor	...	Enoch Emory
Harry Dean Stanton	...	Asa Hawks
Amy Wright	...	Sabbath Lily
Mary Nell Santacroce	...	Landlady
Ned Beatty	...	Hoover Shoates
William Hickey	...	Preacher
J.L. Parker	...	Karl
Marvin Sapp
Richard Earle
Herb Kossover	...	Jacob Wood
Betty Lou Groover
John Tyndall
Gillaaron Houck

Storyline

US Army war veteran Hazel Motes may not be a believing Christian, somehow observations like the state of a run-down country church, meeting the ridiculous frauds on the streets and memories inspire him to take up, after initially fierce refusal, the part of a traveling preacher when a cab driver insists he looks like one in his new hat. He starts his own new Church of Truth, without the crucified Jesus, his first disciple being an 18-year old simpleton with a 'prophetic gift'...

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Plot Keywords:

church | preacher | disciple | grandfather grandson relationship | mental retardation | 

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Taglines:

An American Masterpiece!

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA West Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 February 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

John Huston's Wise Blood

Filming Locations:

Macon, Georgia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Anthea, Ithaca

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

As Hawks touches Hazel's face, in the next shot he's touching Hazel's hat.

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Quotes

Hazel: Your conscience is a trick, it don't exist, and if you think it does, then you had best get it out in the open, hunt it down and kill it.

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Crazy Credits

Director John Huston is credited in all the titles as "Jhon Huston". Producer Michael Fitzgerald later explained that, wanting to have a child-like look to the credits, they had an actual child write the names. The child misspelled Huston's first name, but they liked it and kept it, as a metaphor for the artificial, off-kilter tone of the story.

User Reviews

A perfect adaptation of O'Connor's masterpiece.

It is rare to find an great film adaptation of a great book. One can think of great films that have been made from novels of the second or third rank: Dodsworth, The Age of Innocence,L.A. Confidential,The Magnificent Ambersons, Barry Lyndon. However, one can think of very few great film adaptations of great novels. In fact, great novels are often made into badly flawed or even poor films. One thinks of all the bad adaptations of Faulkner,Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, as well as the seeming near impossibility of making a great film from Joyce or Proust. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Interestingly, two of the best were directed by John Huston. The first was that perfect adaptation of one of the five best short stories ever written, The Dead. The other was this incredibly powerful, chilling, sardonic, profoundly moving, and superbly acted version of Flannery O'Connors tale of the "Christ-haunted" American south, Wise Blood. Huston was by his own account, a less than religious man. It is therefore ironic that the very Catholic friends and executors of that supremely ironic Catholic novelist, Flannery O' Connor should have chosen him to direct this, her masterpiece. I can hardly think of a more faithful, a more precise or a more literate transcription of one of the supreme masterpieces of literature to the screen. A truly great, searing, blackly humorous, extraordinarily moving, film.