Belief in Veins

A preacher's son returns from World War II to promote atheism in his small southern town in 1979's Wise Blood. One of John Huston's most remarkable films, this was based on a 1952 novel by Flannery O'Connor. Yet it feels surprisingly anachronistic, its tone of parody reminding me more of a 1960s Terry Southern movie. At its most basic level, it's a story about the inevitability of zealotry versus the inevitability of charlatanry and the possibility that, for some people, it may be impossible to be anything other than a zealot or charlatan of one kind or another.

Brad Dourif stars as Hazel who finds his childhood home is abandoned and his father (played in flashback by John Huston himself) is dead. So he goes into town, buys himself a new suit and black felt, open crown hat, throws away his uniform, and proclaims to the tailor that he's going into town to do things he's never done before. He repeats that with fervent intensity to other people and also gets into the habit of telling people how Jesus isn't real and no-one needs Jesus to be clean or saved. Eventually he stands before compulsively gathering crowds and proselytises the sanctity of disbelief.

A young man (Dan Shor) starts following him around as an eager disciple but Hazel finds him annoying. Hazel's too busy following a blind preacher (Harry Dean Stanton) and his pretty daughter (Amy Wright). Hazel just can't help unloading his contempt on the preacher.

We learn that Hazel had been wounded in the war and he's ashamed to say where he'd been wounded but we never learn precisely what led him to this curious new belief system. However, his commitment to moral codes and objective truth ironically make him more like the preacher father he seems like he'd want to rebel against. When he tells the landlady that he represents his own created "Church of Truth without Christ" she asks him if it's a form of Protestantism. "Oh, it's Protestant," he says.

Ned Beatty plays a huckster who tries to partner up with Hazel. It takes a lot of effort on Hazel's part to convince Beatty's character that he's not trying to scam anyone. Beatty hardly seems to understand how anything could possibly not be a scam, just as much as Hazel can't quite comprehend insincerity.

The film's essentially a tragic parody of human psychology that occasionally strays into surrealism. It's pretty brilliant.

Wise Blood is available on The Criterion Channel.