I just finished watching the film Wiseblood and It was one of those films you see and know what they’re going to say…i.e. virtually all of the spoken word samples in Jesus Built My Hotrod are lifted from this film. Most here will probably know this…but those that don’t …do now!
The film is very Lynchy in style and the characters are all completely insane. Well worth the watch.
Below is info on the recent dvd release of it…
“It’s the weirdest, strangest, coolest thing I’d ever read,” says Brad Dourif of this ferociously black comedy.
Wise Blood
Release: 1979Country: USACert (UK): 15Runtime: 108 minsDirectors: John HustonCast: Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty
30 years old and just as rivetingly strange as ever, it’s a classic example of the sort of indie film that got made in the 1970s but could hardly have come out at any other time. Not only is it guaranteed to alienate the deep south audience of its setting – Macon, Georgia – with its anti-everything stance, but its stars were unknowns and its director, an old, sick John Huston, was uninsurable.
Dourif won a supporting Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but this is his greatest performance: intense, pale-eyed and feral, he’s the founder of the Church of Truth Without Christ. (The original choice was Tommy Lee Jones.)
Set in a uniquely American milieu of hucksters, preachers, used car dealers, whores and clip-on ties, it’s usually classified as “grotesque southern gothic”, but it’s a lot richer, stranger and more compassionate. Co-star Amy Wright and screenwriter brothers Benedict and Michael Fitzgerald, both then in their 20s, also contribute interesting interviews
