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Simply A Masterpiece

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is a good movie, but it's not a great film. The book is great, and the movie is faithful to the book, which often reads like a screenplay because of the way O'Connor used dialogue. The director (Huston), with only a few minor deviations from the book's description of characters' inner thoughts, makes pretty much the point the author intended. For those confused about the director/author's viewpoint, I think Miss O'Connor's spoiler foreward to a later edition of the book gives it all away:"That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for some readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen." Thus the mystery about meaning reflected in many of the comments here and on the message board, a mystery which even a black comedy film adaptation can only deepen as well.

Directed by John Huston, "Wise Blood" is an adaptation of a 1952 Flannery O'Connor novel of the same name. It stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes, the grandson of a staunch Christian. When he returns to the American South after World War 2, Hazel decides to start a church of his own.Huston's film largely omits what made O'Connor's novel memorable. O'Connor, who wrestled with her own Catholicism, set her tale in a racist, puritanical, post-war America. Moulded by religious family members, her characters saw themselves as being "unclean" and "guilty of sin". The faintest desires, the slightest sexual acts, sent O'Connor's characters into a tailspin, each viewing themselves as having committed a transgression against God.But O'Connor's novel went beyond simple Catholic Guilt. Culturally indoctrinated to view African Americans as being "unclean", O'Connor's guilt-ridden characters begin to view themselves as being "black". Self-identifying with African Americans, they perceive themselves as being tarred, blighted, outcasts and so intrinsically unworthy. O'Connor then drew parallels between slavery and Christianity; both were methods of inculcating obedience. Both promised redemption only after impossible, and obscene, forms of discipline.John Huston's "Wise Blood" touches upon these themes. Huston's characters try to reject God, they put stones in their shoes as penance and wear gorilla costumes as a form of quasi-racist punishment. More shockingly, they gouge out their eyeballs and lacerate their own bodies. But as Huston's film is obviously set in the racially integrated 1970s, and as it makes no attempts to convey the mood, mannerisms and psycho-social realities of the 1940s, these themes feel half-baked. In subtle ways, the Bible Belt of 1979 was not the Bible Belt of 1948. Huston either doesn't care about these subtleties, or honestly expects us to believe that his film is set in the 1940s.7.9/10 – Flawed but fascinating. See "Elmer Gantry".

There isn't a likable Character to be found in this Existential, Philosophical, Film about Religion as seen through the Mentally Challenged. These Folks are not only unlikeable, they are for the most part, Retarded.It is a beautifully ugly Movie with these unattractive Participants set in front of even more unattractive Sets and Locations. Things are in decay, not only physically but Spiritually.This is an almost singular Film. It is Categorically undefinable and has never found anything more than a peripheral Cult Audience since released. No wonder. This is like a Sideshow Freak of a Movie. You gawk and gaze at amazement as these splinters of Humanity parade themselves openly in utter disregard of their inadequacies. Old Salt John Huston Directs from a bittersweet, relentlessly cynical, scathingly satirical Author. The Cast, led by an outstanding Brad Dourif, is an A-List of B-Actors, some who have made Careers of playing oddballs. This is not a Film that is easy to like, but you could admire, and is nothing if not evocative and provocative. A truly Underground piece of Subversive Art. It cannot be seen without some of the misanthropy melting your Mind as it inhibits your ability to comprehend what was just experienced.

I couldn't make heads or tails of this movie. First of all I think that John Huston is far better actor than he is a director, and apart from "The man who would be king","Asphalt jungle" and "Key Largo" I don't think he made a good movie, but I know he made some bad ones ("The MacKintosh Man", "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", "The Kremlin Letter"), so I approached "Wise Blood" with caution. I must say it surprised me in many aspects. It is a complex film that in my opinion is trying to show how religiously debased people can bring the apocalypse on themselves, first of all, and how the lack of faith causes inner destruction of human spirit. In showing this, it simultaneously ridicules the world of churches without Christ and false prophets that are the product of people without faith, who, ironically are their major followers. Hazel Motes is a product of this world, he was terrified of the way religion was introduced to his life, (shown by small but memorable scenes with "Jhon" Huston as the preacher, probably Motes' father or grandfather), and coming out of the war, he was even ashamed of being wounded in, he tries to find something else he could cling his beliefs on.Huston does a surprisingly good job, but the movie goes places it never gets to. The introduction on seedy preaching characters of Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton) and Hoover Shoates (Ned Beatty), are supposed to bring their colorful nature to front and show different ways religion is used as a scam, but it never goes there really, and the nature of Motes' relationship with his landlady or the outcome of his fling with Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright) is never revealed, although she tied her future with him. Anyhow, this movie is worth seeing, if for nothing else than for great acting and there are plenty, and a few funny scenes as well. Decent.