My favorite line in Wise Blood takes place late in the film. Hazel Motes' landlady, played to perfection by Mary Nell Santacroce, sees blood on the sheets and catches Hazel with barbed wire wrapped around his chest. She says to him: "What are you doin' that for, that's the kind of thing people have quit doin'!" Hazel replies, "They ain't quit doin' it as long as I'm doin' it." I've used that line of Hazel's, though in different circumstances. Btw Ms. Santacroce's daughter is the actress Dana Ivey, whom I know well.kingrat wrote: ↑February 10th, 2023, 8:03 pm
I'm pretty much on Lawrence's side here. I also adore Wise Blood (both novel and film) and, though I wouldn't call The Dead a total bore, it's in the 6/10 category for me, well-intentioned, not bad, with the usual problems of stretching the material when a short story is turned into a full-length movie.
Swithin, thanks for posting the excellent New York Times article, though I have to give a genuine Southern "bless his heart" to the author for not thinking that O'Connor's characters seem like real people. They only seem like people I went to school with, was related to, or met in the course of everyday life. O'Connor, as a Catholic in the South, was an outsider who was fascinated by the religion-drenched (Southern Protestant, of course) South she and LawrenceA and I grew up in. Of course there were the mainstream Protestant denominations (remember them?), but Protestantism always accepted the absolute right of people to read and interpret the Bible in their own way and start their own churches if they liked. We used to drive past the Full Gospel Baptist Church; a neighbor was a foot-washin' Baptist (Primitive Baptist, officially); and then there was Brother Bob's church, I forget the name. Later he became Dr. Bob, having acquired his advanced degree the old-fashioned way (he bought it).
O'Connor was a Jansenist, though she might not have accepted the label: Catholicism that accepted the Calvinist emphasis on original sin.
Brad Dourif is perfect casting for Hazel Motes in Wise Blood, a film that reminds of some aspects of what was once home.
Regarding The Dead, what can I say, except that it's one of my top ten films. I really feel Huston channeled John Ford, in both of these late films. In The Dead, when Aunt Julia sings "Arrayed for the Bridal," the camera travels around the Morkin sisters' home, alighting on various cherished objects, and mementoes of the past. Ford could have shot that beautiful scene, it's very similar to Clementine looking around Doc Holliday's room and at his possessions, when she arrives, to the tune of "My Darling Clementine;" or Ma Joad deciding which mementoes to keep, to the tune of "Red River Valley." Spirit and history imbuing objects and memories of home. The Dead is not a "plot" movie.
