Wise Blood
1979, PG, 108 min.
Directed by John Huston, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Brad Dourif, Daniel Shor, Amy Wright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ned Beatty, Mary Nell Santacroce, William Hickey.

One of the last films in John Huston’s long career (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle, Moby Dick, Fat City, Prizzi’s Honor) is this exceptional interpretation of Flannery O’Connor’s eccentric Southern tale of fringe fanatics. The film is a haunting meld of O’Connor’s Gothic approach to human relationships and Huston’s pessimistic view of human endeavors. Brad Dourif plays a WWII vet who returns home and becomes a preacher in his self-styled Church Without Christ. Into his life comes a blind preacher (Stanton) and his childlike daughter (Wright), as well as a peculiar landlady (Santacroce). Huston (billed as Jhon Huston) plays Dourif’s preacher grandfather, who appears in flashbacks. Disturbing and grim in its portraits, Wise Blood is nevertheless marvelous storytelling and its performances are virtually divine.

This article appears in August 4 • 2000.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.