tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-318433114559203724.post3390334126070550534..comments2023-10-29T16:01:01.077-07:00Comments on Just Another Movie Blog: Wise Blood and RedemptionSteve Kimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14187112520269562190noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-318433114559203724.post-39773318263153619142012-12-22T23:52:54.540-08:002012-12-22T23:52:54.540-08:00Perfect, James. I didn't put the car into the...Perfect, James. I didn't put the car into the whole film. That was just what I needed.Steve Kimeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14187112520269562190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-318433114559203724.post-20779762163033513642012-12-22T21:09:46.719-08:002012-12-22T21:09:46.719-08:00Some great thoughts. I'd add the most importan...Some great thoughts. I'd add the most important element you didn't touch on is the car. Hazel says that no man with a running car needs to be saved. It's the self-reliant, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps mentality that ends up teetering off the edge by the end. <br /><br />By the end, Hazel recognizes there's a price to pay, that he does need to be saved. But even then, he can't accept the grace of Christ, he has to pay penance, the various rituals of anguish and pain are hollow attempts to save himself.<br /><br />I'd say Christ triumphant exists in O'Connor's world, but he's, as she puts it "Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown."<br /><br />He's there, but in an religious Evangelical South, O'Connor recognizes that the system has been so deeply institutionalized with self-salvation, self-works and self-justification, that the grace of Christ is often the undoing of her protagonists, the Biblical stumbling block.<br /><br />"You act like you think you got wiser blood than anybody else, but you ain't!"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com