Here’s a new essay at Criterion about their latest release: Wise Blood.
I’ve heard very mixed things about this film, insofar as it represents (or fails to) the story O’Connor wrote. Will you be picking up this DVD? Have you seen the film? I’d love to hear your take on it.
I wish I could watch this film without carrying over the associations that come with seeing Brad Dourif now. He’s played so many creepy characters. How can we escape memories of Wormtongue while watching his Hazel Motes?
Yes, I’ve seen _Wise Blood_. In the theater. When it came out. When I was 9. And I don’t have any memory of this film, save for the fact that I was utterly bored by it. (Should’ve waited a few years).
I am the most useless commenter on this board.
I haven’t seen it, but I ordered the DVD as soon as I read it was coming out on Criterion (on this blog I think). At the very least it looks to be a fine example of 70’s American cinema with a wonderfully quirky cast. This essayist seems to say that Huston managed to do justice to O’Connor’s vision in spite of himself. Anxious to see is she’s right.
It’s on my Netflix queue but it says I have a short wait so . . . I’m waiting. In the meantime, I watched 400 Blows again, which I find rather Flannery-esque in many ways.
I just can’t do it. I wish I could, but Wise Blood means more to me than any book in the world– well, those not directly breathed by God Himself, anyway. I’ve read it a dozen times, wrote my senior thesis about it, and its impact on my own life and thinking is incalculable; aside from O’Connor, the only artist who has had such a tremendous effect on my own worldview is Joe Henry.
I have no reason to think that the film is anything less than great– after all, the Criterion folks are backing it. But truth be told, even if it was a masterpiece, I think I’m too close to the source material; I don’t want any new images replacing the ones I have in my head.