John Huston's 'Wise Blood' is a straightforwardly weird film. At times, it threatens to become a satire on born-again religion, or a portrait of individual alienation, but it steers away from any consistent course save that of downright oddness. The fact that every one of the movie's central characters appears to be an inbred moron makes it hard to invest any emotion in the story; while the soundtrack at times goes in for comic emphasis, as if to undercut the underlying blackness of the tale. Even the era of the story is hard to place: apparently the 1960s, many of the details seem to come from a much more ancient, almost mythical time. Perhaps the south of America really did inspire such a mordant, Gothic vision at the time Huston made the film; but today, it's a very hard movie to relate to. Any why does Huston mis-spell his own Christian name in the credits?
Review of Wise Blood
