Is Wise Blood (1979) the Last Pure Adaptation of Flannery O’Connor We’ll Ever See?

Reader, I’ve been thinking about Flannery O’Connor a lot lately.

Granted, people all across America have been too. That’s because Wildcat, a new biopic about O’Connor co-written and directed by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya, is slowly finding its way onto movie theater screens around the country. As you read this, it might even be at one of your local cinemas!*

But I’ve probably been thinking about it more than most. That’s because I just wrote a piece for Garden & Gun about a particularly eventful screening of Wildcat in Atlanta that featured not only Ethan in attendance but an unscheduled appearance by Maya for a discussion after the film.** It was a wonderful evening, and even though I didn’t get to interview either of the Hawkes, I recorded their entire hour-long conversation, which was full of many insightful things.

As you can imagine, I used roughly one percent of the quotes they provided that night in the feature. (600 words really isn’t a lot when you’re writing stories like this.) But you know what doesn’t have a word count? That’s right, folks. This very newsletter.***

I do have a theme of pre-2006 films to stick to, though. Thankfully, Ethan had a lot to say about Wise Blood when someone in the audience asked if it was an influence on Wildcat.

As you probably know, Flannery O’Connor died at age 39, so her literary oeuvre is much lighter than it could’ve been had she not dealt with the effects of lupus for the last dozen years of her life. But she still left us with an impressive trove of 31 short stories and a pair of novels.

O’Connor’s Southern Gothic style isn’t exactly well-suited for film, but Hollywood sure tried. By my count, seven of her short stories were adapted for the cinema or the TV. Only two of those happened while she was still alive, which is probably for the best; O’Connor was infamously displeased with a 1957 production of “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” saying that she was “not overcome by [the] acting powers” of leading man Gene Kelly. “The best I can say for it is that conceivably it could have been worse,” O’Connor said, because she was the realest.

The other five short story adaptations came in the 70s, seemingly paving the way for Wise Blood, released in the U.S. during the final month of the decade. Director John Huston was nothing short of a titan at the time, having delivered a slew of hit features and earned a running total of 13 Oscar nominations—eight as a writer, four as a director, one as an actor.

Adapting one of O’Connor’s two novels wasn’t a challenge too daunting for such a master, right? Well, Ethan Hawke would beg to differ: “That film is batshit crazy. Anybody that thinks I’m nuts, go see John Huston’s Flannery O’Connor and you’ll think I’ve got my head on pretty tight.”

That opening reaction got some laughs from the audience, but thankfully Ethan had more to say: “One of the things I love that John Huston said about that movie is, he read that book and thought it was like Sartre, you know. He thought it was existentialist. And then he realized when he finished shooting, ‘I think I just made a Christian film.’ And that’s how strange Flannery is. ‘This movie is a Christian film and I didn’t even know it!’ Because she’s so wild and so out there.”

I was pretty taken aback by that anecdote. Imagine an undisputed master of the craft making his 33rd film and then realizing after the fact that unintended themes had crept their way into the finished product.

It’s clear that Ethan—whom Maya called a “closet Christian” at one point in the conversation—has thought a lot about Wise Blood. He didn’t hold back: “He’s a hero to me. But I don’t think he really understood that novel. I don’t. And I would say it to his fucking face.**** He understood a lot of things, but I think he thought it was one thing and then figured it out. I think that novel’s a masterpiece. You read it today and it feels like, ‘Oh, this is too modern. This is prescient.’ That’s how radical her brain was. It still feels electric. It feels like…it’s staggering. And he got the madness, but he didn’t get what a powerful novel I think that is.”

Others may have come around to agree with Ethan by now, but he would’ve been an outlier at the time. After a mixed reaction at its Cannes premiere, Wise Blood went on to receive plenty of critical acclaim. And it’s now in the hallowed shelves of the Criterion Collection.

It’s also, to my knowledge, the last attempt anyone has made at recreating Flannery O’Connor’s stories on film.***** There are many more short stories and even a whole ‘nother novel to be explored. Though if you’ve read her work, you know that’s a daunting cinematic task, given how much time she spent inside her characters’ heads—and how much space those thoughts occupy in her stories.

Maybe someone like Ethan will come along and think they’re just crazy enough to pull it off. Until then, Wise Blood will serve as either the final word or a cautionary tale. (Hell, it could be both.)

*If you live in Birmingham like me, you can now see Wildcat at the Sidewalk Cinema! But it’s only around this weekend (and a couple of screenings on Thursday), so don’t miss out or you’ll feel like a big dummy. (There’s even a post-screening discussion with two local O’Connor scholars Sunday evening!)

**This was my debut feature for Garden & Gun! I couldn’t believe they took the first pitch I sent them, but I’m very grateful that they did. It’d be neat if you gave it a click (and even a read!); who knows, good numbers might help me earn future assignments. (Also, since a few people have asked, this is a website-only feature. Maybe I’ll be in the print edition eventually.)

***This is mathematically true but spiritually false. I don’t ever want to ask y’all to spend more than a few minutes reading these things. Also, my editor John would be so upset if I didn’t regulate my ramblings.

****He lowered his voice and kinda growled this line for comedic effect. And it worked. I was howling.

*****Until now! Kind of! (Folks, go see Wildcat. I’ll say no more.)

Wise Blood is now streaming on Max and the Criterion Channel, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.