So, it’s been quiet around here lately. Gorjus has been working on some sitar solos to fill the space left in his Huey Lewis cover band by the departure of its lead singer, and I’ve been frantically prepping for classes, which begin next week. That’s soon.
But the PF train keeps rolling down those tracks. We’re even equipped with one of those hot-water guns to shoo away any loitering bovines. But speaking of Jim White, as we just were not, has anyone else seen the previews (or the whole thing) for this new film, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus? Go ahead, follow that link, enter the site, and watch the preview.
Something, huh? I’m anxious to see it, even though I know there’s a good chance that it’s going to be the sort of movie that will end up aggravating me to no end—that’s going to unproblematically perpetuate a bunch of ooh-spooky-gothical-South cliches, say these cliches are the “real” South, and then declare victory and go home. As ever, I’m not saying this part of the South isn’t real, believe me, and it’s not that I mind it getting some air-time, I just cock an already crooked eyebrow at how conveniently filmogenic the South’s alleged “essence” is. The measure of the film will be whether it turns into a kind of sideshow tourist trip, where we’re encouraged to point, and, by pointing, keep the pointee comfortably at arm’s length, or if instead it inspires not sympathy but empathy, identification, a sense of our own freakishness. I note that, judging from the website, the focus here is primarily on poor white Southerners, which is a-ok of course, but one hopes that the film won’t end up ascribing the deprivation and desperation of many of its subjects to “the enigma of the South” and ignore, say, you know, the possible contributions of exploitative capitalism. And I’m a little dubious of the filmmakers’ stated intent to find the essence of the South but without examining the issue of race, which is kinda central, you know.
Still, though, Searching is going to be beautiful to look at: that shot of the vine-strangled bus just about breaks my heart—I can lead you right to a couple of similar settings some Saturday—as do the shots of Harry Crews. What a face that guy has—is it possible for a surface to be nothing but crag, or would that require some kind of hyperspatial 4-d geometry? I taught his autobiography a while back, and it went over like gangbusters. Mostly. I mean, the students loved it, but it was the end of the semester, so their minds were already in a bleak and hungry place, and it was really unfair of me to punch them in the gut with that text and then expect them to think critically about it. The class would start, and I would say things like, “So what kinds of limitations or opportunities does the autobiographical—” and someone would interrupt me and say “OH MY GOD WHEN HIS SKIN ALL BOILS OFF OH MY GOD.”
Also, that Jim White song, “Still Waters,” in the trailer just knocks me out every time I hear it (and the soundtrack, available in stores near you, is great). In part I’m curious to see the movie just for the chance to try to figure out White; I’ve never been sure how seriously we’re meant to take his cosmic trip-folk lapsed holy-roller persona, never been sure how much of an act that persona is, and, if it’s an act, whether it’s done for love or lucre. Sometimes his music sounds genuinely mysterious and mystery-seeking, sometimes calculatedly so. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
So, has anyone seen this thing? It’s traveling the country. My reservations aside, I’m looking forward to catching it when I can.
Hmmm…
Again, I turn to the Drive By Truckers: “the duality of the Southern thing.”
“Essential truths?” Is there such a thing? On some days, and depending on if I’ve been drinking, I’ll tell you yes, yes indeed.
But, like our dear host Prof. Fury, I doubt that this film will go much beyond the already established tropes and the kudzu-cinched cliches.
The South (and even a term like “the South” is pretty difficult; granted, I unfortunatly make sweeping generalizations about “the North” all the time; a fault, I admit)) is like the murcury from a broken thermomenter: try and pin it down and it scatters and spreads. A film like this seems like it’s trying to demarcate clean, neat boundaries of filmic freakishness.
But yeah, it sure looks purty. And I’ll go see it if it’s around. But in this town, the only cinematic examinations of southern culture involve a 68 Dodge Charger with a rebel flag.
oh….my…..god…..
that was hauntingly cool. i was completely mesmerized by the music and the scenes!! wow, how many of those places i have been and called them comfort.
So, what, are you guys competing to see who can be the most poetic commenter on this post? Because you’re both doing great.
It’s hard to argue with the trailer while it’s going on. I keep trying to put on my scholarly cap, and the trailer just keeps knocking it off.
I’ve just moved up north from TN (I’m a yankee by the way, didn’t know it for the longest time, I always thought I was just from Oregon).
I should watch that trailer but not yet I wanted to comment on the ‘68 Charger first. I can’t like anyything about the Dukes of Hazzard movie (though I’ve only seen the trailer). It looks stupid and makes the South look stupid, and kids around here think its cool but its like Al Jolson thinking blackface is cool, mimicking what they don’t understand. Plus the Southerners are no longer just clueless, rascist hicks, but now they’re the seducer’s of purebred yankee’s (read some of the conservitive stuff about DOH and Gretchen Wilson).
Just to clarify: Didn’t say I liked the movie, although I was a huge Dukes fan as a 9 year old. I dunno, something about cars jumping ravines.
My grandfather ran shine and raced cars for awhile, but no one on that side of the family looked like Daisy. More like Cooter, who I always thought got the short end of the stick in the original series. Oh well.
About the blackface thing: ever seen a Zulu crew Mardi Gras parade? That stuff is odd, interesting, etc.
Hope all is well. Just a good old boy, never meanin’ no harm…
So, does that look like the truth about the South you know? The one you grew up in?
Because… me? Um, not really.
I’ll leave it to you poetic types to describe what it really is.
Nice music, though.
Well, yes and no. I mean, I spent a lot of time at the mall, the movies, the comic book shop, San Destin—locales that go unrepresented in this movie, it looks like, and that’s part of what bugs me—that those things are somehow not seen as “Southern,” even though they’re central to the growing-up-Southern experiences of a whole generation of southerners and more to come. But they’re not as aesthetically interesting, I suppose, and I really don’t begrudge White and co. indulging in a little mythographizing if it’s done with a generous spirit.
That said, I wouldn’t say that everything in the trailer was unrecognizable to me… I remember a few years ago, sitting in my dad’s truck while he talked to a neighbor—a man who lived just down the road from another neighbor who’d threatened to shoot our cows if they got in his rye grass again—about barbed wire and coyotes…and then switched to talking about which cell phone company gave you the best coverage in their part of the county. It’s those weird trad-mod moments that interest me the most, and I suspect—and now I feel like I’ve really overburdened this 2-minute trailer, sorry trailer, I didn’t mean for it to go down like this, I really did like you—that the movie is going to be ignoring a whole lot of the mod. Which, as I say at the beginning of this insanely long comment, might be okay.
Another good instance: when we lived in Knoxville, we had a friend who was on the committee of the Foothills Crafts Guild, in charge of making sure that the crafts were appropriately authentically Appalachian. He had a dilemma when an older woman, from the mountains and with impeccable Appalachian bona-fides, wanted to display a blanket she had stitched with a giant Mickey Mouse pattern.
And so on.
“Does that look like the South you grew up in?”
Hmm…some of us grew up in places that are a little more “southern” than others. Ocean Springs and Clarksdale MS were just about night and day different for what most of us would call the south.
I’m from Clarksdale, MS. its very much a hard life place. its also a hard drinking place, and a place filled with lies—some of which are actually pleasant.
La Federala is constantly amazed/baffled when i point out the local rule and quickly brush that aside for the exception. it usually starts out with words like “now, here’s what you do…” Sometimes i like to think of it as the principle of the ‘go cup’. there is the way its supposed to be, and then there’s the way you can do it if you choose to. I think that’s why a lot of us think we can talk our way into or out of things when we probably shouldn’t be able to do it.
there are some parts of that the are very much the South that i grew up in. me and gorjus, our favorite playing place? a water drain and a pile of rocks from some torn down something.
and every, single first sunday of the month – we were at the flea market, AFTER going to our uber-religous, non-baptist church that morning.
our dad used to put blankets in the back of the truck and drive all of the cousins around at night, in our pj’s, so that we could watch the stars.
we were actually born in a town called Sandusky, not the booming metropolis of Birmingham. so, yeah, i can totally relate.
Wait—the rocks on the corner, in front of the school?? WOW. I forgot about those!
Well, Sandusky is part of Birmingham. I was telling Slata how you could drive to the top of our street (Tower Drive) and see all of downtown, especially the fireworks on 4th of July and New Year’s.
I had forgotten about riding around in the truck! It was an old blue Chevy, if you remember. Do you remember the “underwater bridge” we’d go over??
OF COURSE!! i asked dad just last month if the bridge was still there so he could take Sarah to see it, sadly, it is no more.
Well, I actually was asking if it looked like the truth about the South you grew up in (quoting from the subtitle on the trailer).
Yes, you can find the stuff in the trailer in the South if you look hard enough—scary snake-handling preachers, whirling-dervish Pentecostals, vine-enshrouded gothic soggy bottoms, decay and mold and humidity and all the rest of that—but showing JUST that stuff, and not the shopping malls and museums and restaurants and libraries and theatres and golf courses and race tracks—it doesn’t look like the Truth (capital T) to me.
I agree with most everyone else on this subject, the South is poorly represented in it’s growth. I believe that we are often short-changed due to misinformation and ignorance. Most of the nation perceives us as backwoods, un-educated, dirty people. However, how many films have been produced to portray us in another light?
Unfortunately, there isn’t much. Until we can stop just being angry about what the world prints about us, and actually do something to change that personification, I choose to find the beauty in the backwoods.
Terrific post and dicsussion. I must say I’m psyched about seeing this movie after watching that trailer. But the lack of African-American faces in said trailer (are there any at all?) is seriously distressing, because the idea that anyone could attempt to make such a movie without at least touching upon black-white friction (to put it mildly) is beyond frivolous. Maybe the omission is limited to the trailer, though. I hope so.
this seems to be oriented towards (and take place in) those Appalacian bog/swamps. you know the ones…. Not many black folks there i guesss.
heh.
KoE—I recently corresponded with a friend who saw it, and she said that it was great as long as you thought that the only reason black Southerners were important was for producing music for white people to analyze. Yikes.
Ouch. Well said.
[...] Anyway, I hope it stays there for a while–I want to watch it decay. Related posts here (the bus in the Wrong-Eyed Jesus trailer), here, and here. This entry was posted [...]
[...] y got around to seeing Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the film whose preview inspired this post and subsequent fun discussion in the comments. It’s a frustrating film, in many ways: essentially a lon [...]