Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
by Andrew Douglas
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DVD details
Actor: David Eugene Edwards, Gary Howington, Harry Crews, Johnny Dowd, The Handsome FamilyDirector: Andrew Douglas
Brand: IMG
Cinematographer: Andrew Douglas
Producer: Andrew Douglas
Producer: Anthony Wall
Producer: Jonathan Shoemaker
Producer: Martin Rosenbaum
Producer: Simon Crocker
Producer: Steve Golin
Writer: Steve Haisman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-03-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Homevision
DVD Reviews of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
DVD Review: Worthwhile, but lacking integrity
Summary: 3 Stars
My family has lived in the South since it was jungle, since before Mississippi was even a territory, much less a state. But I moved away from Mississippi thirty years ago, and from the South altogether over twenty years ago, and I have nothing good to say about the South. My criticisms of this movie, then, aren't due to wounded Southern chauvinism.
After I'd rented this movie, I knew I'd want to watch it repeatedly, so I bought it. I don't regret that decision, but the more I watch it, the more suspect the film, and its makers' intentions, become.
From the first, I knew that the film is profoundly inaccurate: to call this a mirror of the South, or a deep exploration of Southern culture, is about like saying the truth about New York City is found in the voodoo subculture of certain parts of Harlem.
But I thought that was probably a mistake of perspective, a matter of the filmmakers not knowing any better--and maybe getting taken for a ride by the Southerners. (That's something Southerners get a kick out of--pulling the legs of outsiders--and it's a well-developed, socially-prized art form.)
I have come to think, though, that some of the errors are just too glaring to be honest mistakes: For instance, the total absence of any reference to race, which is surely central to any story of the South, especially its religion. Or the film's completely omitting the fact that the religion portrayed in the movie is not only generally shunned, but held in contempt, by Southern evangelicals, who are the vast majority of religious people in the South.
Then there's that strange-looking old crippled guy who tells so many stories--like the confabulation about the Sears catalog. On the assumtion that this is a documentary, you might think he's some backwoods poet, some exemplar of hillbilly wisdom, some local wonder that they've found on their search. But he's Harry Crews, the novelist and critic, college professor, playwright, etc. In the context of the movie, the presence of this (imported to the scene, most likely paid) professional writer, without his being identified as who he is, is at least a bit misleading.
I found his stories mostly fanciful, at best. For instance, I never ever knew anyone who did with the Sears catalog what Crews said "we" do. And I certainly never saw a greater proportion of the populace lacking body parts, or suffering "open sores," in the South than in other places I've lived. The arrival of the Sears catalog was certainly a major cultural event, and we *did* all talk about it for days after it arrived--but it didn't signify what Crews said it did, and our conversations didn't take the form Crews claims, in my experience. And the story about keeping birds in the house, or birds spitting, bears no relation to anything like anything I ever heard, saw, or experienced in the South. Harry Crews is a very inventive fiction writer--and he's at it here, I think.
Sometimes Jim White seems very real, with genuine compassion for the people of whom he speaks, but much of his cosmological grandiloquence seems contrived, to me. Occasionally, he seems caught in his own pose. For instance, he declines to go into a bar, telling the film makers, "I got no use for a place like that," and his disgust seems like one of his more spontaneous, authentic reactions, quite genuine. But then in his narrative voice-over, obviously (from the difference in production values) recorded separately, he waxes lyrical about the "great beauty" of such "real" places. His contempt felt more authentic than his affectation of deep insight.
At least one of White's best aphorisms is, shall we say charitably, borrowed--"Between grief and nothing, I'll take grief." (Faulkner, the last page of The Wild Palms.) Leaves you wondering about some of the other good lines--whether they're borrowed, too. My favorite line in the movie, "I was looking for the gold tooth in God's crooked smile"--I certainly hope White didn't borrow that one, uncredited. But I just don't trust that it's original.
The posed musical numbers seem more like a Gothic caricature of someone's overwrought, and ill-researched, idea of the South, since few of them seem to be actual performances by local musicians. This is not documentary--this is affectation posing as discovery.
Now, on the plus side, parts of the film are an invaluable glimpse into the spiritual lives of what Southerners call "white trash." Though I'm the son of a rural Mississippi Baptist minister, I never had a chance to see any of this up-close in real life. This movie is, for a Southern Baptist boy, a nice chance to get to know something about a slim, unhappy slice of the South that ordinary Southern life would never allow him to see.
When the movie goes into local settings, and observes the lives and activities of the people, there's much that's worthwhile. Some of it is touching, some scary, some just bewildering. None of it has much to do with the Meaning of The South, or other overblown non-sense like that. But it has much to do with the hardscrabble efforts of some folks to get through life, well or badly, that most of us (thank God) will never see up-close and personal. To see it is very instructive, and very valuable if you can see it for itself, not as the filmmakers want you to.
Description of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
Synopsis:Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: NR
Street Date: 03/14/06
Wide Screen: yes
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
LanguageENGLISH
Foreign Film: no
Subtitlesno
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: no
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve Please note: This supplier will be closed on 11/24, 11/25, 12/26, 1/2 for the holidays. The shipping cut off is 12/10 to try and have the products delivered by Christmas.
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