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[Newsreel-style music playing]
MAN: Tell the truth.
Chain the devil.
NARRATOR: In the battle between good
and evil,
the devil's territory is growing.
Home again, home again, chickity-chee.
[Door closing]
- Thomas? - Yes?
This is Star.
Star's gonna be staying with us for a few days.
Oh, no, don't worry. I don't mind you.
Come in.
She says she's an atheist.
Only God's an atheist.
And when sin and seduction are set free...
- Get off! - [Laughing]
Get... away! Evil woman!
I know this game. [Snarling]
She's a nymphomaniac.
That's just another way she's unfortunate.
[Dramatic music swelling]
It was the filthy, dirty, criminal slut who stole my gun.
- Oh, Thomas don't you-- - You believe me, don't you, Mom?
- [All arguing] - THOMAS: You believe me Shut up!
SHERIFF: Fleas come with the dog.
- [Gunshot] - [Woman screaming]
NARRATOR: Mystery, thrills.
scandal
with today's most electric stars.
[Music crescendos]
[Pages flapping]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: The sky was underpinned
with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding.
[Typing on typewriter]
And behind it were thousands of stars
still moving slowly,
as if they were about some vast construction work
that involved the whole order of the universe
and would take all of time to complete.
[Typewriter dinging, carriage returning]
But no one was paying any attention to the sky.
[Woman inhaling and exhaling]
[Grunting]
[Thudding]
Damn.
[Woman whimpering inside car]
[Whimpering]
The world was made for the dead.
[Woman whimpering and gasping]
[Typewriter keys clacking]
[Typewriter dinging]
[Typewriter keys clacking]
Think of all the dead that are there,
so many more dead than there are living.
And the dead are dead much longer than the living
are alive.
[Typewriter keys clacking]
And they don't seem to mind.
[Typing]
- [Gunshot] - [Thudding]
[Sighing]
[Door thudding]
[Traffic sounds outside]
[Horn honking]
[Church bell tolling]
FLANNERY: Dear God,
I am so discouraged about my work.
I want to write a novel.
A good novel.
I want to do this for a good feeling
and for a bad one.
The bad one is uppermost.
Please, help me get down under things, where you are.
WOMAN [Whispering]: Obadiah Elihue.
MAN: Obadiah, Obadiah, Obadiah Elihue.
What, Obadiah Elihue?
Obadiah Elihue.
O-- Obadiah Elihue.
[Chuckling] What does that name mean?
Servant of God.
Miss O'Connor, I...
I respect you, so I'm gonna be honest.
Sometimes, I feel like
you're trying to stick pins in your readers.
I don't think you need to make them suffer
in order to introduce them to the unusual way your mind works.
It feels a little like
you're trying to pick a fight with your reader,
when all they ever did was open the front cover of your book.
I'm also not sure
if all the rewriting that you're doing is helping.
[Chuckling]
I mean, I only say that
because the book, as it was on the whole, is very strong.
I'm wondering if you want to get into some specifics.
I'm amenable to criticism.
Okay.
Well, these are just
some of our initial thoughts and reservations
about your book so far.
You can take it home with you.
I do think... an outline would be useful at this point,
just to give us a sense of
what the final chapters will look like.
[Lighter clicking]
I'm amenable to criticism,
but only within the sphere of what I'm trying to do.
All right, the real question is,
do you want me to be specific and work with you
the way that I work with all the writers on the payroll,
or do you prefer to go it alone?
Think about it.
Take some time, and I'll follow up with Miss McKee.
Um...
it was really, really nice to meet you in person,
Miss O'Connor.
- Uh-- - Safe travels.
- Thank you. - Take care.
[Inhaling and exhaling]
Oh, you're back.
Before I go,
I think my position on the novel
and on your criticism should be made plain.
I don't outline.
I-- I have to write to discover what I'm doing,
and I don't know so well what I think
until I see what I say.
Then I have to say it over again.
I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have
are very much connected with the limitations you mentioned.
To develop at all as a writer,
I-- I think I have to develop in my own way.
I will not be persuaded to do otherwise.
The objections you raised suggest that
you would like to rescue the book at this point,
and train it into a conventional novel.
But I'm not writing a conventional novel.
Wise Blood, when finished,
will be hopefully less angular, but just as odd, if not odder,
than the nine chapters you have now.
So, the question is...
Is Rinehart interested in publishing
a new kind of novel?
FLANNERY: He says to me,
"Miss O'Connor, you seem like a straight shooter,
"but I'm disturbed by the hardening of the arteries
"of your cooperative sense.
"It is most unbecoming in a woman writer so young."
- A straight shooter? - Yes.
[Laughing]
You know, I think I'd rather throw myself
in front of the Dixie Limited than write an outline.
MAN: I know.
If they don't think I'm worth giving more money to
and just leaving alone, then they should let me go.
MAN: He is an idiot.
[Laughing]
FLANNERY: I don't know.
He and I came up with the expression
that I was "prematurely arrogant."
I had to supply him with the phrase.
Of course. That's good.
It's edit-proof.
If he has any sense, he'll publish it.
Thanks, Cal.
I try to turn the other cheek, but my tongue is always in it.
I do need that advance, though.
I need cigarettes.
Oh, all right.
Will you get me a New York Times, please?
Two of 'em.
- CAL: Two? - Two.
[Spitting]
- [Crow cawing] - [Spitting]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: The tramp swung both his whole
and his short arm up slowly
so that they indicated an expanse of sky,
and his figure formed a crooked cross.
[Door hinge squeaking]
[Crow cawing]
[Door closing]
Although the old woman lived in this desolate spot
with only her daughter, Lucynell,
and had never seen the one-armed man before,
she could tell, even from a distance,
he was a tramp and no one to be afraid of.
I'd pay a fortune
to live in a spot as pretty as this one.
I'll bet that sunset...
is something to see.
Happens every evening.
[Chuckling] Yeah.
Well...
You ladies drive?
Oh, that car ain't run in years.
Well, nothing's like it used to be.
World is almost rotten.
Where are you from, mister?
Well...
Well, I could tell you anything.
I could tell you that I'm Tom T. Shiftlet
from Tarwater, Tennessee,
but how would you know I ain't lying, hmm?
I could be Aaron Sparks
from... Singleton, Georgia.
You don't know.
I don't know nothing about you.
[Birds chirping, crow cawing]
Maybe... the best I can tell you
is that I'm a man.
Well, not a whole man, but...
...but what is a man, you know?
Well, you could hang around here,
work.
I'll pay you in food,
you don't mind sleeping in the car yonder.
[Train horn in distance]
The monks of old slept in their coffins.
They wasn't as advanced as we are.
[Laughing]
Yeah.
[Laughing]
CAL: Oh, hey, I-- I have something for you.
- Oh? - Mm-hmm.
Here it is.
What is this?
This is courtesy of Bob Giroux at Harcourt.
I showed him your story in the Partisan Review.
His exact quote was,
"That young Catholic writer is an astonishing talent."
He wants to meet you.
- Thanks, Cal. - Mm-hmm.
Hey, we can go together.
You-- you're back next week?
I'll be back, if it wasn't for my mother,
I'd never see Georgia ever again.
MAN OVER INTERCOM: Now boarding on Track 7,
Crescent Line to New Orleans, now boarding.
Oh.
I should come down and visit it sometime.
You would return with the curled hair.
[Train signal bell dinging]
- Cal. - Oh.
You are an angel.
I don't want to be an angel...
...though my relations with them have improved over time.
You speak with them?
When I was in Catholic school,
I had what the Freudians would call anti-angel aggression.
I would seclude myself in a locked room every so often,
and ball up my fist, and whirl around in circles
knocking out my guardian angel.
At least trying to dirty up his feathers a little.
Well, haven't they suffered enough?
I don't know what angels are,
but I know what they are not.
And what they are not is a great comfort to me.
I love you, Flannery.
Well, that's not a proposal.
You know me, I have-- I have a lot of eggs to fry.
You let me know when you're done with breakfast, then.
[Train horn blowing]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Speaking with Lucynell
was like speaking with a dog who has been trained
to say a few words,
but once addressed,
becomes overcome with inadequacy and forgets them.
That's a bird.
Bird.
Yeah.
[Stumbling over pail]
[Chickens squawking]
CONDUCTOR ON INTERCOM: Now arriving, station stop.
Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington, Delaware.
[Paper crinkling]
[Train horn blowing]
LUCYNELL: Bird.
Bird!
Teach her to say something else.
LUCYNELL [In distance]: Bird.
What you want her to say next?
LUCYNELL: Bird.
Teach her to say...
..."sugar pie."
LUCYNELL: Bird.
Sugar pie.
LUCYNELL [Voice echoing]: Bird.
[Crow cawing]
Bird.
[Train horn blowing]
[Train rumbling]
LUCYNELL: Bird. Bird.
That'll be $3.50.
Sugar pie.
LUCYNELL [Voice echoing]: Bird.
Yeah okay. We got three dollars...
Well, that didn't satisfy me none.
That was just something a woman in an office did,
paperwork and blood tests.
Well, it satisfied the law.
Well, you can cut my heart out.
You can look at my heart,
and you wouldn't know a thing about me.
Well, just look how pretty Lucynell looks.
She looks like a baby doll.
Hey, listen.
You got a prize.
What do they know about my blood, huh?
I mean, what--
hey.
Now, I ain't never been
parted with her for more than two days before.
Mm-hmm.
So, I wouldn't let no man have her but you,
'cause I've seen you. You do right.
All right. I'll see you in a couple of days, okay?
- Okay. - [Engine starting]
Bye-bye, sugar baby.
- Bye-bye. - All right, bye.
Take care of her.
Take care of my car! You hear?
[Horn honking]
["Come Softly To Me" by The Fleetwoods playing]
The life you save may be your own.
♪ Come softly, darling ♪
♪ Come softly ♪
Your mama thinks $17.50 is enough for two days.
[Laughing]
It takes money.
You got me, girl?
I said--
you know, some people--
some people, they'll do anything anyhow these days.
The way I think, I wouldn't marry me a woman
if I couldn't take her on a trip
like she was somebody.
You know?
I mean, you know, take her to a hotel,
treat her.
♪ I love, I love you so ♪
Hey, stop it. Hey!
I wouldn't marry the Duchess of Windsor
if I couldn't take her on a trip,
and get her to, like, a hotel,
and get her something nice to eat.
[Tires squealing]
God damn it. Stop! See, I almost crashed.
God!
I'm sorry. You hungry?
You want to get something to eat, huh?
How about that?
[Train horn blowing]
[Breathing unsteadily]
Can I help you?
Can I get, uh, two plates of ham and grits,
please, sir?
Coming right up.
[Train horn blowing in the distance]
[Jingling change]
Hey.
Hey. Yeah. Can I... Just one.
I'll pay for it now.
Just give it to her when she wakes up, okay?
She looks like an angel of God.
No. She's a hitcher.
No time, gotta make Tuscaloosa.
CAL: Thought leads to action, right?
What if I could write a poem about a skunk?
A skunk named Frederick
who smells like a strawberry malted milkshake.
[Shiflet sighing]
[Car starting]
CAL: But I wrote this poem
so honestly,
and I imagine this possibility of Frank,
the sweet-scented skunk, so thoroughly
that people saw each and every black and white creature
slinking around their farmyards in some new, caring way.
They weren't afraid.
They wondered...
"Is that Frank?"
And could their newfound interest and curiosity
positively impact all those slinking, stinky skunks?
I think so.
[Train signal bell dinging]
[Train horn blowing]
CONDUCTOR: Station stop, next stop
is Milledgeville, Georgia.
CAL: And if imagination impacts reality,
then isn't faith where those rivers meet?
[Train horn sounds]
Ah!
Mary Flannery!
Hey, sweetheart.
Well, let me help you with that.
No. I'll take my typewriter, thank you.
- You can take my trunk. - Well, let me take something.
- Thank you. - All right. Are you all right?
Think Milledgeville has improved?
It's still here.
Well, two of the stores have new fronts.
Aunt Katie's sleeping in the car,
so let's keep our voices down when we get up there, all right?
What's Dutchess doing sleeping in the car?
Well, you know,
I don't like to come all the way out here by myself.
No, there are...
more of them now than there are of us.
I'm taking you to Dr. Block on the way home.
I'm not going to Dr. Block.
He will take a personal interest in you.
None of those doctors up there'll
take a personal interest in you.
I don't want anyone taking a personal interest in me.
- I want to go home. - What in the world?
Mary Flannery, what are you a hobo? What is this?
We need to get you a proper Yankee coat.
I know what the temperature is,
and I'm old enough to pick out my own coat--
I know you don't feel well,
but let's try and have a nicer disposition.
There's no need to wake up Sissy.
[Train horn blows]
REPORTER ON RADIO: Many governors on both sides
of the Mason and Dixon line have talked
of the need for unity on the issue of civil rights.
It's suggested that the Stevens-Russell team
might provide the proper balance...
Oh, Mary Flannery. Hey, sweetheart.
Look at you.
...governors here are making large
and enthusiastic noises for General Eisenhower.
Oh, you don't look very well.
Regina, she looks sick.
I know. I'm taking her to Dr. Block.
I'm not going to Dr. Block.
REGINA: She has chills and that rash.
REPORTER: ...would switch to the general on the second ballot.
REGINA: She says her arms are too heavy
to lift up to reach the typewriter.
REPORTER: ...the governors we already talked to
or where the switches might come.
You, uh--
You've been writing any cute stories lately?
No.
Oh, you must be writing something.
I read that last one you sent your mama.
FLANNERY: And?
I-- I must admit, you know, it wasn't for me.
[Chuckling]
Left kind of a-- a bad taste in my mouth.
Well, you weren't supposed to eat it.
- Oh, don't be coy. - REGINA: Oh, come on.
Tell us what you're working on.
I'm writing a novel.
It's called Wise Blood.
It's about an atheist who sleeps with a prostitute,
and then starts his own religion called
The Church of Christ Without Christ.
I'm thinking at the end, he might scratch out his own eyes.
A church without Christ?
Like most of the ones I know.
Well, you can write about nice people this time.
Maybe you'll be another Margaret Mitchell.
We need another good book like Gone with the Wind.
Put the war in it. That always makes a long book.
AUNT KATIE: I love... that... movie.
[Chuckling]
That colored gal that played Mammy,
oh, she just tickles me.
[Both laughing]
It's so nice to see a respectable Negress.
REGINA: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
AUNT KATIE: "Ashley, Ashley. What ever will I do?"
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Sometimes, Ruby Turpin
occupied herself
by naming the classes of people.
On the bottom of the heap were most colored people.
Not all, but most of them.
Then, next to them, not above, just away from,
were the white trash.
Then, above them were the homeowners,
and above them, the home and landowners,
to which she and her husband, Claud, belonged.
Above she and Claud were people with a lot of money,
and much bigger houses and much more land.
But here, the complexity of it
would begin to bear in on Ruby.
For some of the people with a lot of money
were common, and ought to be below she and Claud.
And some of the people who had good blood
had lost their money and had to rent.
And then, there were some colored people
who owned their homes and land as well.
Sit down.
You know you can't stand on that leg.
He has an ulcer on his leg.
[Gasping] My! How did you do that?
RUBY: A cow kicked him.
Oh, goodness.
NURSE: The doctor will see you now, Mr. Mulligan.
[Coughing]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Usually, by the time
she had fallen asleep, all the classes of people
were moiling and roiling around in her head.
And she would dream they were all crammed in together
in a boxcar, being ridden off to be put in a gas oven.
Ooh, Lord.
[Sighing]
I wish I could reduce.
Oh, you aren't fat.
RUBY: Oooh, I am, too.
Oh, Claud, he-- he can eat all he wants to.
He never weighs more than 175 pounds.
But me? I just--
I look at something good to eat, and I gain weight.
You-- You can eat all you want to, can't you, Claud, hmm?
Well, as long as you have such a good disposition,
I don't think it makes a bit of difference
what size you are.
You just...
You just can't beat a good disposition.
You must be in college,
reading a book there.
Lady asked you a question, Mary Grace.
I have ears.
ANNOUNCER ON RADIO: As we start to pray...
It's wonderful weather, isn't it?
Oh, well, it's good weather for cotton,
if you can get the Negroes to pick it.
But they don't want to pick cotton anymore.
But you can't get the white folks to pick it,
and now you can't get the Negroes,
'cause they got to be right up there
with the white folk.
They ought to send them all back to Africa.
That's where they come from in the first place.
Heap of things worse than a Negro.
It's all kinds of them. Like all kinds of us.
Hmm! Yes, indeed.
A heap of things worse.
[Inhaling and exhaling]
Hmm.
MAN: Ruby.
Hmm.
Ruby.
[Sheep bleating]
Ruby.
You will be reborn.
But there are only two spaces available
for you on Earth.
You can either be a nigger or white trash.
No.
Please, Jesus--
please, just let me be myself.
Or let me wait until there's another place available.
- No. - [Sheep bleating]
You have to go right now,
and I have only those two spaces,
so make up your mind.
Oh...
Well, make me a Negro then,
but-- but not a trashy one.
Make me a--
a neat, clean,
respectable Negro woman.
Myself...
but Black.
[Ethereal ringing]
Did you hear that the Mexicans
want to translate the Bible into Spanish?
[Wheels on toy clicking]
I think the worst thing in the world is an ungrateful person.
Hmm.
To have everything and not appreciate it.
I know a girl whose parents would give her anything,
who's getting a good education,
who wears the best clothes,
but who never has a kind word to say to anyone.
It never hurt anyone to smile.
It just-- It just makes you feel better.
Just all over.
Of course.
But there are some people you can't tell anything to.
Well, if it's one thing I am, it's grateful.
When I think of...
who all I could have been beside myself,
and what all I got,
a little bit of everything and a good disposition besides,
I just...
I just want to shout, "Oh, thank you, Jesus."
Thank you. Thank you, Jesus,
for making everything the way it is."
["Battle Hymn of the Republic" playing]
Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you.
[Screaming]
[Whimpering]
[Stammering]
What you got to say to me?
Go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog!
DOCTOR: Nurse! Call the ambulance!
[Squealing]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: A visionary light settled
in her eyes.
She could see souls rumbling into heaven.
There were whole companies of white trash
and Black folks in white robes,
battalions of freaks and lunatics
shouting and leaping like frogs,
all clean for the first time.
She could see by their shocked and altered faces
that even their virtues were being burned away.
[Pigs snorting]
Sooey. Pig, pig.
[Rooster crowing]
FLANNERY: Dear Cal,
I left New York, 24 years old,
and arrived back in Georgia 107.
My bones feel made of charcoal,
and the fever continues to cook 'em.
I aim to get back to New York soon,
but my mama is none too favorable
towards any kind of travel for me at the moment.
But don't worry, I won't be here long.
Everybody around here thinks the height of Bohemianism
is wearing slacks out of the house.
[Ducks quacking]
When I get up there, maybe you'll be ready for lunch.
WOMAN: Oh,
y'all should see our new preacher singing his sermons.
He puts a chair out on the platform
and he'll call out for some biblical character
to come out and testify.
He'll say, "Paul, will you come out and testify?"
And he'll wait for Paul to sit down,
and then he starts to sing:
♪ Rock of Ages ♪
You know, I think I may have something in the kitchen
that'll settle Carramae's stomach,
and you know, I need to speak with Mary Flannery
alone for a minute, so why don't you run on home?
- I'll call you when I need you. - Oh, okay.
REGINA: Okay? Thank you so very much.
Thank you.
Ugh.
You suppose they imagined that the Apostle Paul
is really coming down to sit in that chair?
[Laughing]
I have no idea what they imagined.
DUCHESS: [Laughing] Look at this.
Dr. Wells gave an educational meeting
at the college the other day,
and two Negroes-- teachers or superintendents or something,
they attended.
How'd that go?
Well, everybody's losing their minds.
They burned a cross on Dr. Wells's side lawn.
- You think that's funny? - [Laughing]
Well, it was too damp out for a fiery cross,
so they set up a portable one.
It was lit up with red electric bulbs. [Laughing]
All these people couldn't have gone past the fourth grade.
Nice to know they're so interested
in education all of a sudden.
Mary Flannery, sit-- sit.
Please stay for a minute, please.
No, I-- I need to be working.
You need to rest.
And to get your strength.
I think I'm strong enough to type, Regina.
Well, that is not...
...what the doctor says.
And... Dr. Block is coming out here this morning
to speak with us.
FLANNERY: What's this?
What's this for?
Is this for me?
[Door opening]
WOMAN: Regina.
Chancey says the cow
that's got the bad quarter's gonna have to see the vet.
Oh, all right, okay. Well, then, come on, now. Let's go.
Oh, if there's one thing I don't like, it's needles.
- REGINA: We'll be right back. - WOMAN: I've always said it.
- This is enormous. - [Door closing]
It looks like it's for a farm animal.
I think I'd rather have arthritis.
Mary Flannery.
You don't have arthritis.
You have lupus.
Now, you're an adult now.
And you need to know...
your mama, she didn't want you to worry.
You were already weak,
and she just thought it would...
She doesn't want you to think
that there isn't any hope.
Because it's not like when your daddy had it.
See, nowadays,
nowadays, doctors don't let young people die.
They give 'em some of these new medicines.
People don't die...
...like they used to.
Well, that's not good news...
...but I can't thank you enough for telling me.
I thought I had lupus, and I thought I was going crazy.
I'd a lot rather be sick than crazy.
But don't tell Regina that you told me,
because if you do,
she'll never tell you anything ever again.
And I might like to know something else
about myself sometime.
Okay?
Thank you.
[Knocking on door]
I'm working.
I told you not to enter my room when I'm working.
I know that,
but you need to come on down now, when you're ready.
Rinehart rejected my novel.
I'm sure that's very disappointing,
but the doctor's downstairs now.
How long have you known?
Known what?
I look just like Daddy.
No, you don't.
You go talk to the doctor.
I don't need one. I need a priest.
[Sighing]
[Door closing]
[Clock ticking]
[Rooster crowing in distance]
[Clock chiming]
FLANNERY: The reality of death
has come upon me.
And a consciousness of the power of God
has broken my complacency like a bullet in the side.
[Thudding]
A sense of the dramatic,
of the tragic, of the infinite,
has descended, filling me with grief.
[Church bell tolling]
But even more than grief...
...wonder.
- [Typewriter keys clacking] - [Train passing]
FLANNERY: "Dear Regina,
I have good news.
They tell me I've won
the Rinehart-Iowa Fiction Award.
It means $750 from a respected New York publisher
and gives them an option to publish the novel,
if I can ever finish it.
I hope you and Duchess are well.
Don't let the new yard man demoralize the ducks.
Love, MF."
"P.S. Please restrain yourself
from sending me any more aprons.
I know it will be hard, but please."
MAN: All right, Flannery, the room is yours.
This story's called Parker's Back.
Sarah Ruth was plain plain.
The skin on her face was thin
and drawn tight as the skin on an onion.
And her eyes were gray and sharp
like the points of two ice picks.
MAN: Come on. God...
Damn it! God damn it to hell.
- Hey. - MAN: Jesus Christ.
- We don't talk no filth here. - MAN: Huh?
We don't talk no filth here.
MAN: Oh, okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Hey, hey.
I just-- It's my hand. I hurt my hand.
I think it's broken.
Let me see.
Your hand's fine.
Well, I'm cured.
Oh! Okay.
All right. Be careful with me now, all right?
I'm a Navy man. I've been all around the world.
I could teach you a thing or two, all right?
This right here, got this in Cape Horn.
Got this one in Burma.
I got this one here when I was 15 years old.
Don't tell me. I don't like it. I ain't got any use for it.
- It's idolatry. - Hold on a second.
You ought to see the ones you can't see.
All that there is nothing better than
what a fool Indian would do.
Vanity. Vanity of vanities.
Hold on a second.
You must like one of these a bit more than the rest.
I mean, take a good look at this here.
Chicken ain't so bad.
A chicken?
Girly, this is an eagle.
What kind of fool a would put a chicken on himself?
Well, what kind of a fool would have any of it?
You saved?
MAN: Saved?
I don't really know what I would need saving from.
Would a kiss from you take care of that, though?
What's your name?
Parker.
O.E. Parker.
What's the "O.E." stand for?
Never mind that. What's your name?
I'll tell you if you tell me
what them letters are the short of.
Nah, nah, I can't do that.
You'll just go blabbing it all around town.
I won't.
I swear.
Swear to God.
All right.
All right. I will then.
That's a secret now. You can't tell anybody, all right?
Come here close.
My name...
is Obadiah Elihue Parker.
Means "servant of God."
PARKER: Hey!
You kids want some apples?
- KIDS: Yeah! - PARKER: Come on.
Now, I think I'll come by tomorrow.
I'll bring you some blackberries.
How about that?
- Dive in, everybody. Come on. - [Kids cheering]
SARAH RUTH: Say "thank you."
KIDS: Thank you!
FLANNERY [Narrating]: It was as if a blind boy
had been turned so gently in a different direction
that he did not know
his destination had been changed.
Parker, no. Not till I'm married.
- Oh, come on. - Parker, no!
What, are you, one of them Suffragettes?
A lesbian? [Chuckling]
I don't divide people up into boys and girls.
I divide them up by irritating and less irritating.
Oh.
Well... which am I?
Mm-hmm. There's my answer. Less irritating.
[Chuckling]
Parker, wait, no. No, really. Not till I'm married, Parker.
- Parker, Parker, Parker! - Ow, ow!
- Not till we're married! No! - Come on!
Parker!
Not till we're married, okay?
Ah.
[Giggling]
SARAH RUTH: ...Lo, this is the man
that made not God his strength,
but trusted in the abundance of his richness...
- [Both laughing] - and the strength in himself.
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Sometimes, Parker supposed
she married him to save him.
At other times, he had the impression
she actually liked all the things
she said she despised.
He could account for her one way or another.
It was himself he didn't understand.
But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
At the judgment of God, Jesus is gonna ask you
what you've been doing all your life
'sides drawing pictures all over yourself.
Girly, you ain't fooling nobody.
You're just worried that big hefty blonde woman
I've been working for is going to come around one day
and say, "Hey, Mr. Parker,
why don't you and me just go take off together?"
Now, you are tempting sin.
[Sighing]
You should have seen her
the first time she seen me with my shirt off.
She looked at me and said,
"Why, Mr. Parker, you are a regular old panorama."
Now, at the judgment of God,
you'll have to answer for that too.
Vanity.
See, I'm thinking I'm going to put a Bible verse
right here on my back
so you have something better to read.
[Groaning]
Now, ain't I...
already got myself a real fire.
Yeah, but I want you looking at me.
PARKER: Oh!
All right.
[Both grunting]
Lift up.
[Parker laughing]
[Sighing]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Parker understood
why he married her.
He couldn't have her any other way.
But he couldn't understand why he stayed with her now.
She would be pregnant soon,
and pregnant women were not his favorite kind.
He thought of his own head as a switchbox
where he controlled from.
But with her, he could only imagine the outside in.
The whole black world in her head,
big enough to include the sky and the planets.
Shut your mouth.
FLANNERY: Whatever had been or would be.
I wanna show you something
and then I don't want to hear another word.
FLANNERY: When he closed his eyes,
he could see some type of star.
The kind of star on a Christmas card.
But he couldn't hold the star steady in his mind.
He felt as if he were blocked at the entrance of something,
or as if he was at the beginning of something
that didn't have a beginning.
He saw the star moving farther and farther away
into darkness, until he realized
Sarah Ruth was the pinpoint of light.
[Crashing]
A ferocious thud propelled him into the air.
He landed on his back
while the tractor crashed sideways
and the tree burst into flames.
He could feel the hot breath of the burning tree on his face.
If he had known how to cross himself,
he would have done it.
[Tree cracking]
Hey! Hey, open up!
God.
FLANNERY: Parker longed miserably for Sarah Ruth.
Her sharp tongue and ice pick eyes
were the only comfort he could bring to mind.
She can't say she don't like the looks of God.
[Needle buzzing]
[Laughing]
[Billiard balls clack]
FLANNERY: Then, a calm descended on him,
as nerve-shattering as if the long, barn-like room
were a ship from which Jonah had been cast into the sea.
It was as if he were himself, but a stranger to himself,
driving into a new country,
though everything he saw was familiar.
That blonde woman was here and she ain't as hefty as you said.
You're gonna have to pay every penny
on that tractor you busted. She don't keep the insurance on it.
What you doing wasting electricity in the daylight?
- I ain't got to look at you. - Shut your mouth!
You ain't gonna have none of me this morning.
Look at me, all right?
Look at me. I want to show you something, okay?
I wanna show you something
and then I don't want to hear another word.
- Not another word. - Don't touch me.
I should've known you was off putting more trash--
Well, just look at it, all right?
- Just look at it. - I done looked.
PARKER: Don't you know who that is?
Look! Don't you know who that is?
Who is it? Ain't nobody I know.
It's Him, all right? It's-- It's Him!
- Him who? - Him! It's-- It's God.
Just look at it for a second.
Just look. Huh?
FLANNERY [Narrating]: He felt as though
under her gaze,
he was as transparent as the wing of a fly.
God?
God don't look like that.
What you mean?
How do you know? You don't know what God look.
You ain't never seen him before.
He don't look. He's a spirit.
No man shall see his face.
Come on. This is just a picture of him.
No! Parker, no!
This is just a picture of him.
No! No! That's idolatry, Parker. Parker!
[Clattering]
PARKER: Stop! Stop! Ah!
Idolatry! Parker!
Idolatry!
FLANNERY: 'Idolatry!'
Sarah Ruth screamed.
Still gripping the broom,
she looked toward the pecan tree
and her eyes hardened still more.
There he was, who called himself Obadiah Elihue...
...crying like a baby.
[Crying]
[Rustling pages]
- The thing I struggle with is-- - Hey, Walter...
There won't be any critical dissecting this afternoon.
Workshop's over for the day.
FLANNERY: Creativity is nature
manifest in us.
It is you inside us rising.
Writing is dead without you.
Oh, Lord, please rise in me.
Make this dead desire living.
You are the slim crescent moon that I see,
and myself is the earth's shadow
that keeps me from seeing all the moon.
Help me feel
that I will give up every earthly thing for this.
...every earthly thing for this.
- I do not mean becoming a nun-- - Hey. Who are you talking to?
- [Glass shattering] - Oh, God.
Oh!
- It's Cal. It's you. - I didn't-- I'm sorry.
No. I'm--
I'm scared to death.
- I should be working. - [Music and voices inside]
You know, I don't even like parties.
I think whoever invented the cocktail party
ought to be drawn and quartered.
And I think my ankles are soaked in Beefeater.
Well, uh, I can get you some vermouth,
and they'll be-- they'll be perfect.
No, really, I-- I came to pay my respects to you,
and in some way I've done that.
And I think I should go home.
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Please stay. Please. Please stay. Yeah.
- I won't be any good in there. - CAL: I need--
I need your help.
Uh, I'm finding this party to be so-- so trying.
If you are here, I could be assured of
at least one conversation that isn't sordid
or gossipy,
or about some abstract aesthetic theory.
Well, that's high praise, Cal.
It's true.
You got any food in there?
Yes.
Chicken a la king.
Well, then maybe for a minute then.
It's just that I hadn't eaten all day.
Thank you.
Your story...
Parker's Back.
...it's good.
[Dog barking]
Thank you.
I...
...canonize... you...
...Saint Flannery.
- Take a swig. - Oh.
WOMAN: Ah, there you are.
Of course, your party filled with adoring students,
and you vanish.
I don't even know half of those people, Cal.
Elizabeth, Flannery. Flannery, Elizabeth.
Hi. I-- I've read your book. I liked it right much.
I was very impressed.
Oh, thank you.
Welcome to Cal's party.
He's very important.
He's won a Pulitzer.
Uh...
- Come on. - [Ping-pong balls clack]
♪ What a rare mood I'm in ♪
♪ Why, it's almost like being in love ♪
When I was seven years old,
my daddy and I had a chicken that walked backwards.
♪ There's a smile on my face... ♪
Pathé News came all the way to Georgia
to make a newsreel of it.
I was in it, too.
I was only there to assist the chicken,
but it was the high point of my life.
Everything since has been anticlimax.
- [Laughing] - Oh.
ELIZABETH: Is she good?
She's the most promising writer in the class.
Ouch, Walter, he said that right in front of you.
[Clearing throat]
Congrats on winning the Rinehart.
- Oh, you won that? - Oh, sorry.
- Definitely beating you now. - Here.
Thanks.
Can I give you some advice though?
You should use the word "Negro."
- Ready? - Instead of that other word.
The people I'm writing about
would never dream of using any other word.
MAN: Just a friendly warning.
And I prefer not to tidy up reality.
I'm not tidying up reality.
What you're talking about is propaganda,
and propaganda even on the side of the angels
only makes it worse.
The truth doesn't change
according to your ability to stomach it.
OPPONENT: Guys?
Hey. I was just trying to be nice to you.
OPPONENT: Well, I guess you're up.
Ready?
WALTER: So, my question is,
do Christians, do Catholics,
do whoever, pick-- pick one,
believe that they're actually eating Jesus?
- Like cannibals. - [Laughing]
Walter!
I'm just saying.
And if so, then how can you stand on a moral high ground?
Well, Walter, the question seems to be, to me,
whether a person believes that we are created in God's image,
or whether he believes that we create God in our own.
Hmm?
Now, I don't know the answer,
but I do remember, as a child,
when I would stand in line to receive the Host,
I always thought of it as the Holy Ghost.
GUEST: That's beautiful.
He seemed like the most portable person of the Trinity.
Now, I think of the Eucharist
as a lovely, expressive symbol...
The synecdoche of God.
If it's a symbol, then to hell with it.
Uh, it's a lot harder to believe than not to believe.
What people don't understand
is how much religion costs.
They think that faith is a... big electric blanket,
when really, it's the cross.
["I Got Loaded" by Peppermint Harris playing]
♪ Dropped into a tavern ♪
♪ Saw some friends of mine ♪
♪ The party was gettin' underway ♪
♪ And the truth was really flyin' ♪
♪ And I got loaded ♪
♪ I got loaded ♪
[Cat meowing]
CAL: There are many who say
that a dog has its day,
and a cat has a number of lives.
There are others who think that a lobster is pink
and that bees never work in their hives.
Drink.
♪ I got loaded ♪
- [Women exclaiming] - [Glasses clink]
[Giggling]
[Cat meowing]
ELIZABETH: Your eyes had no bottom.
They can see more.
- MAN: I did not lie. - WOMAN: You lied.
- I didn't lie. - You lied.
MAN: You have your truth, I have mine.
WOMAN: There is only one truth.
MAN: In that there is no truth.
[Door slamming]
FLANNERY: All my thoughts are so far away from God,
He may as well not have made me.
♪ Hmm... ♪
[Chickens clucking]
[Rooster crowing]
♪ Hmm... ♪
♪ Hmm ♪
♪
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Here's Mary O'Connor,
of Savannah, Georgia,
holding the only chicken in the world
that actually walks backwards.
When she advances, she retreats,
to go forward, she goes back.
When she looks ahead, she's going astern,
and when she arrives, she's really leaving.
- [Breathing heavily] - [Church bell tolling]
[Choir singing in Latin]
[Singing in Latin continues]
FLANNERY: Dear God, please, help me
to eliminate my picky, fishbone way of doing things.
I can never seem to escape myself
unless I'm writing, and, strangely,
I'm never more myself than when I'm writing.
Is there no way for me to disappear
into something bigger?
REGINA: Don't slouch. Thank you.
FLANNERY: I don't want to die.
Please, give me one good story.
Let me be your typewriter.
[Typewriter keys clacking]
[Typewriter dinging]
We only live once.
And by-- by paying just a little bit more for it,
I, at least, I won't meet myself coming and going.
I mean, this hat looked much better on me
than any of the others.
And when I bought it, I said,
"Take this thing back. I won't have it on my head."
And the lady person said, "Now, wait till you try it on."
So I did,
and she said, "Now, you do something for that hat,
and that hat, it does something for you."
She said, "With that hat,
you won't miss yourself coming and going."
[Passersby chatting]
I like it, Mother.
With the way the world is,
it's a wonder we can enjoy anything.
I tell you, the bottom rail is on top.
Let's skip it.
You know, I remember this old darky who was my nurse,
Caroline, there was no better person in the world.
For God's sakes, Mother, please come off the subject.
[Choir singing in Latin]
Why must you always dress like this when we go into town?
You look like a gangster.
Nobody cares what I look like.
I care.
I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am.
Nobody gives a damn about your graciousness,
and you haven't the foggiest idea of who you are.
I most certainly do know who I am,
and if you don't, I'm ashamed of you.
Oh, hell.
[Choir singing in Latin]
MOTHER: Your grandfather
was the former governor of this state.
Your grandmother was a Godhigh.
And your great-grandfather,
he owned a plantation and 200 slaves.
Luckily, people are not allowed to be bought and sold anymore.
Except when they dress it up like a wedding.
Hmm. What would you know about a wedding?
[Chuckles]
Colby, come on, baby.
Be still, be still. Come on.
[Choir singing in Latin]
♪
Ooh, isn't he cute?
Peek-a-boo.
[Laughing] Oh, I think he likes me.
BLACK WOMAN: Stop all this mess.
Quit this foolishness, sit up straight.
Sit up straight. Sit up.
[Coins jingling]
MOTHER: I want to give that boy a nickel.
- JULIAN: No. - Uh-huh.
Mother, Mother, he won't like it.
MOTHER: Oh, I can't find nothing but a penny.
JULIAN: Don't do that.
MOTHER: Oh, but it looks like shiny new.
- JULIAN: Put your purse away-- - MOTHER: Little boy?
MOTHER: Hey-hey, woo-hoo!
Little boy, look, I got a bright new penny.
I got a nice shiny penny just for you.
Uh-huh. Ooh, got it? There you go.
He don't take... nobody's pennies!
- [Shouting] - Nobody's.
This...
[Penny clatters on sidewalk]
[Crow cawing]
That's why I told you not to do that.
In the future, please spare me
any more moral lectures on the race problem.
I-- I will no longer allow you to confine my friendships
based on matters of race.
[Crying] I want to go home.
Oh, what? You think that was just one uppity Negro woman?
It wasn't.
That was all colored people telling you that
they won't take your condescending pennies anymore.
Don't act like it's the end of the world, 'cause it ain't.
We are going to your reducing class
'cause you are fat.
- [Crying] - Fat, Mama!
I need to go.
- Mama, come on! - I wanna go home.
[Crows cawing]
JULIAN: Mother, where are you going?
Mother, I'm not walking any further.
- [Crows cawing] - Going home.
Mother!
Tell Grandpa to come get me!
Tell--
Tell Caroline.
Tell Caroline to come get me.
JULIAN: What?
Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama.
Mama. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'll take you home.
Mama, I'll take you.
Mama. Mama, I'm sorry.
JULIAN: Help me!
Well?
Uh, well...
I--
I don't understand...
...why you don't wanna write something
that people would like to read.
I mean, it's not exactly Harper's BAZAAR now, is it?
Harper's BAZAAR?
But do--
Do you really think you're using the talent God gave you,
if you don't write something that a lot--
a lot of people like?
That is a literary magazine.
Do they pay?
Yes, they pay.
They don't pay a lot.
But those are the kinds of magazines
that help establish a writer's reputation.
Well, reputations don't buy groceries.
I'm thinking of ordering me a peacock.
- A peacock? - Mm.
Don't those things eat flowers?
No, they eat Startena, like the rest of 'em.
I-- I don't know.
I'll need a new hobby
if I'm gonna be a decoration around here.
You know,
you might want to consider being a little more friendly.
I'm not gonna let you die.
Hmm?
[Rooster crowing]
[Chickens clucking]
FLANNERY: Dear Cal, I'm making out fine,
in spite of any conflicting stories.
Me and the novel are stuck in the Georgia wilderness
at my bird sanctuary for a few months,
waiting to see how much of an invalid
I'm going to get to be.
In a sense, sickness is a place more instructive
than a long trip to Europe.
I'm writing and revising the novel,
but it's so bad at present
that I'm writing a lot of short stories
as to not have to look at it.
I'm getting up a collection that I plan on calling
A Good Man Is Hard to Find.
If you make any trips,
I hope you will include Milledgeville.
[Crutches thudding against stairs]
Learning to walk on these crutches,
I feel like a large, stiff, anthropoid ape
who has no cause to be thinking about St. Thomas or Aristotle
and instead should be thinking about bananas.
Oh, baby. [Chuckling]
You'll be walking on 'em just as good as new in no time.
You'll get used to 'em.
Hey, did I ever tell you about that time
that my little pony, Patina,
reared up and hit me in the head?
- Did I ever tell you that? - Maybe once or twice.
Well, I was out lunging her-- oh, okay.
I was out lunging her one day...
FLANNERY: Lord, I do not want
to be lonely all my life.
...Well, she'd had enough of it. Just had...
FLANNERY: People only make me lonelier
by reminding me of you.
...reared up on me, smacked me in the forehead,
left a hoof print on my forehead for 37 days.
You should have seen your grandmother.
She came flying out of the kitchen door.
"That pony's gonna kill you. That pony's gonna kill you."
FLANNERY: I'm reading Mr. Kafka,
and I'm understanding more about his problem of grace.
God's love is always available.
[Exhaling sharply]
And the more we suffer, the closer you come.
[Crickets chirping]
But it is still so difficult to want to suffer.
Lord, please grant me grace...
[Thunder rumbling]
...and please, if possible...
[Grunting]
...don't make it as painful as it was for Mr. Kafka.
[Thunder rumbling outside]
[Grunting]
[Thudding, clattering]
[Shouting]
REGINA: Oh, my God. Mary Flannery!
Oh, my God. No. Do not move.
Do not-- I'm calling the doctor.
I'm not climbing those stairs anymore.
[Crying]
MAN: Mary Flannery? Mary Flannery?
Ah, there she is.
[Glasses clinking]
Forgive me for waking you up.
Father Flynn?
Are you... are you here to give me Extreme Unction?
No, no, no.
Regina requested a visitation.
FLANNERY: Oh. Thank you.
Regina, I'd like to speak to the father alone, please.
[Wincing]
[Breathing raggedly]
Thank you for coming.
Happy to do it. Happy to do it.
How do you feel?
I feel awful.
The cortisone shots make me think night and day, and then,
the blood transfusions knock me out again.
- Cortisone? - I feel awful.
I feel like I got no blood.
Ah, you've got enough for a Southern girl.
Confession and communion will sort you out.
[Rain falling outside]
Father, I'm afraid.
Afraid of what?
You'll be the pallbearer at my funeral
like you were for my father,
or worse, I'll be stuck here for the rest of my life.
I wasn't a pallbearer. I conducted the mass.
I'm sorry, Father. I thought...
Now, I want you to read these. That'll sort you out.
"Preserve the Lily of Innocence."
Have you read Joyce?
- Who? - James Joyce.
Haven't met him.
No, he's a great writer.
It-- him.
Yes, he's banned in Ireland, of course.
Are you a-- a writer, yourself?
I want to be.
Well, you'll never learn to be good at anything without prayer.
You can't love Jesus if you don't talk to him.
I do talk to him.
[Thunder sounding in distance]
I try every day.
I say, "Oh, God, please,"
and "I must," and "please, please."
But I don't know him, because I'm in the way.
I long for grace. I see it.
I know it's there, but I can't touch it.
My faith rises and falls in me
like the tide of an invisible sea.
It's torment.
But then I think that might be the process
by which faith can be deepened.
Maybe God finds us in the darkness
and not in the light.
Maybe faith is a little more like marriage,
that when you get into it, you find it is the beginning
and not the end of how to make love work.
But I don't know anything about marriage.
[Breathing deeply]
FLANNERY: I spend my days injecting myself
with the pituitary glands of poor, slaughtered pigs.
And I do know
that mystery isn't gradually evaporating.
It grows with more knowledge.
Right?
Today's Christians, like my mother, for example,
operate by the slide rule.
And the church for them is a poor man's insurance company,
the Elks Club.
[Sniffling]
FLANNERY: But I don't want it to be fear
which keeps me in the church.
I don't want to be a coward,
staying with Him because I fear hell.
Though hell seems a great deal more feasible
than my weak mind in heaven.
No doubt because hell is a more earthly-seeming thing.
If we could accurately map heaven,
some of our up-and-coming scientists
would begin drawing blueprints for its improvement,
and the bourgeois would sell guides ten cents a copy
to all over 65.
I don't mean to be clever.
Although I do mean to be clever.
And I want you to think so.
What I pray for is ridiculous.
My demands are absurd.
I want to be a mystic, but I am cheese.
I am the moth who would be king.
Shh, shh, shh.
[Whispering in Latin]
Amen.
You don't need to see grace. It's always here.
[Flannery sniffling]
FATHER: You resist it because grace changes us,
and change is bloody painful.
This notion that grace is healing
omits that, before it heals,
it cuts with a sword
that Christ said He came to bring.
The way to gladness begins with a hard blow.
Joy is sorrow overcome.
- Father? - Yes?
How can I be a good Catholic?
Give alms, Mary Flannery. Serve others.
A full heart, enriched by honest service,
love, sacrifice, and courage.
[Crying]
You mean like charity.
I fear the only thing I'll ever be able to do is write.
- Then write. - But my writing is scandalous.
Can it still serve God?
People are always imagining themselves
to be scandalized by one thing or another.
Banning choice is your disease.
Is your writing honest? Is your conscience clear?
Then the rest is God's business.
In the end, it's all straw.
♪
I suppose I can take being sick
if I have the strength to write a little each day.
FATHER: Hm.
With God's help, you can even see it all as a blessing.
Now, should we try at a proper confession?
Hmm?
[Speaking Latin]
[Typewriter clicking]
[Typing]
MRS. FREEMAN: Oh, y'all should see
our new preacher singing his sermon.
He puts a chair out on the platform,
and he'll call out for some biblical character
to come up and testify.
MRS. HOPEWELL: Mm-hm.
MRS. FREEMAN: I'm gonna go start on those bulbs
and check on Carramae.
She's thrown up four times after supper.
The Idiot?
You would get something called Idiot.
[Laughing] What's it about?
An idiot.
[Knocking]
Mrs. Cedars?
[Chickens clucking]
- [Knocking] - Mrs. Cedars?
[Footsteps approaching]
Good morning, Mrs. Cedars.
[Scoffing] I'm Mrs. Hopewell.
Oh! I-- I--
Well, I saw it said The Cedars on the mailbox,
so I thought you was Mrs. Cedars.
- Hm. - Mrs. Hopewell.
I hope you are well.
FLANNERY: I've come to speak to you of serious things.
Lady, I've come to speak of serious things.
[Typewriter dinging]
[Ducks quacking]
How may I help you?
Mrs. Hopewell, you believe in the Christian service?
Oh, yes.
And you're a good woman.
- Friends have told me. - Mm.
FLANNERY: What are you selling?
MAN: Bibles.
And you have a beautiful home.
But I see you have no family bible in your parlor.
"Well, you might as well put those bibles up.
"I don't want any."
I don't want to buy a bible,
and-- and I smell my dinner burning.
MAN: Well, lady, I'll tell you the truth.
I'm just a country boy.
Oh, well, I think good country people
are the salt of the earth.
Well, I think there aren't enough
good country people in the world.
It-- that's what I think's wrong with it.
I didn't introduce myself.
[Sighing]
I'm Manley Pointer, from out in the country around Willohobie.
Not even from a place, just from near a place.
I need to see to my dinner.
MANLEY: Of course.
Get rid of the salt of the earth and let's eat.
I can't be rude to anybody.
[Sighing]
[Chickens clucking]
I heard some farms are breeding chickens without wings.
That way we get more white meat.
MANLEY: Mm.
It's a whole society of wingless chickens.
That's why Nietzsche says God is dead.
- Joy, here, is a writer. - Mm.
Yeah. She spends all day long up in her room writing.
- Mm. - Lord knows what.
She looks like a writer. It must come easy for you.
It's like giving birth to a piano sideways.
[Laughing]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Bible salesman
with a bad heart.
Strange, I could seduce him quite easily,
but then I'd have to reckon with his remorse.
[Water pump squeaking]
[Chickens clucking]
You ever ate a chicken that was two days old?
JOY: Yes.
It must have been mighty small! [Laughing]
- How old are you? - Seventeen.
MANLEY: I see you got a wooden leg.
What's your name?
Hulga.
I ain't never heard of anybody named Hulga before.
My mama named me Joy.
I changed it to Hulga when I went away to school.
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Her mind, clear and detached
and ironic anyway, was regarding him
from a great distance with amusement, with pity.
I like girls that wear glasses.
I think a lot.
I'm not like one of these people that serious thoughts
don't ever enter their heads.
Because I may die, Hulga.
HULGA: You and I have the same condition.
I may die too.
Listen, don't you think some people are just meant to meet
on account of what they got in common and all?
[Hulga scoffing]
Like they both think serious thoughts and all?
I don't work Saturday.
Couldn't we go on a picnic?
Say yes, Hulga. Say yes.
Please?
FLANNERY: She decided
for the first time in her life,
she was face to face with real innocence.
I guess God takes care of you.
No, I don't believe in God.
[Birds singing]
No?
That's very unusual for a girl.
[Crow cawing]
FLANNERY: She had never been kissed before
and she was pleased to discover
that it was an unexceptional experience,
and all a matter of the mind's control.
Some people might enjoy drain water
if they were told it was vodka.
- [Horses neighing] - [Cows mooing]
[Manley chuckles]
HULGA: Well, come on if you're coming!
Okay, I'm coming. [Laughing]
I love you.
I said it, now, you gotta say it.
I don't have illusions.
I'm one of those people who see through to nothing.
Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, but do you love me or don't you?
You poor baby. I mean...
[Laughing]
...makes sense you don't understand.
We are all damned.
But some of us have taken off our blindfolds
and see that there is nothing to see.
It's a kind of salvation.
Okay, okay, okay, but do you love me or don't you?
I'm a great deal older than you,
and I have a number of degrees.
I don't care.
I don't care a thing about all you've done.
I just want to know if you love me or don't you.
[Sighing] Yes.
[Wind blowing]
Okay, okay, okay, then prove it.
Okay.
Show me where your wooden leg joins on.
No.
Show me where your wooden leg joins on.
No.
FLANNERY [Narrating]: She was as sensitive
about her leg as a peacock about his tail.
No one ever touched it but her.
She took care of it as someone else would his soul.
[Laughing nervously]
All right.
FLANNERY [Narrating]: She was thinking
that she would run away with him.
And that every night, he would take the leg off,
and every morning put it back on again.
[Horse neigh echoing]
[Breathing deeply]
Now, will you let me show you how to put it back on?
Oh, come on, now. You got me instead.
[Laughing]
- Just give me my leg. - Wait.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
[Laughing]
[Latches clicking]
Take a swig.
Um, uh...
I thought you were just good country people.
Yeah, but it ain't held me back none.
Come on, now,
I'm as good as you any day in the week.
I know.
So give me my leg.
Oh, come on, now.
FLANNERY [Narrating]: Without her leg,
she felt entirely dependent on him.
Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether
and to be about some other function
that it was not entirely good at--
Not very good at.
Without her leg, she seemed entirely dependent on him.
MANLEY: What's the matter with you all of a sudden?
And-- Yes.
And I thought you were a Christian.
A fine Christian.
I hope you don't think I believe in that crap.
Listen, I may sell bibles, but I know which end is up,
and I wasn't born yesterday.
And I know where I'm going.
Hey. Give me my leg!
Please.
[Gasping]
[Horses neighing]
I've gotten a lot of interesting things.
One time I got a woman's glass eye this way.
[Horses neighing]
And you needn't to think you'll catch me
'cause Pointer ain't really my name.
I use a different name at every house I call at
and don't stay nowhere long.
And I'll tell you another thing, Hulga,
you ain't so smart!
Come on.
I been believing in nothing ever since I was born.
[Typewriter keys clicking]
FLANNERY [Narrating]: What's more comic and terrible
than an angular,
intellectual woman
approaching God inch by inch...
[Typewriter clicking]
...with grinding teeth?
[Crows cawing]
[Sighing deeply]
[Train whistle in distance]
[Train signal bell dinging]
CAL: Dear Flannery, you must feel better soon.
I miss you, and I hope your health is safe.
I've been reading that Thomas Merton book I gave you.
I hope you are too.
Listen to this.
"At the center of our being is a point or a spark
which belongs entirely to God."
"It is like a pure diamond...
blazing with the invisible light
of heaven."
[Conductor blows whistle]
CAL: "It is in everybody.
And if we could see it,
we would see these billion points of light
coming together in the face and blaze of a sun
that would make all the darkness
and cruelty of life vanish.
Completely."
[Peacocks cooing]
CAL: "I have no program for this seeing.
It is only given,
but the gate of heaven...
is everywhere."
[Peacocks cooing]
CAL: I wish I could come and visit, but I won't be
making it down there to see you anytime soon,
as Elizabeth and I are getting married.
♪
[Sighing]
[Geese squawking overhead]
♪
FLANNERY: In the very depths of our imagination,
springs forward our reality.
I sense you have implanted in me,
in all of us, a desire irresistible, hallowing,
which makes us cry out,
believer and unbeliever alike, 'Make us want.'
[Footsteps approaching]
Knock-knock.
You didn't come down for breakfast.
'Cause it tastes like a horse blanket.
Yeah.
Well... [Sighing]
Hopefully soon you'll be able to have salt again.
Or milk, or eggs, or cheese, or anything I like.
The treatment is worse than the disease.
You gotta eat.
Have you tried it?
Have I tried-- Lord, no. I wouldn't eat that.
Nothing but plain oats. Tastes like a horse blanket.
[Laughing]
REGINA: Oh, and I saw your peacock
having his breakfast this morning.
You were right about him eating Startena.
He also eats everything else.
No, he got every single one of my Herbert Hoover roses.
And when he's not eating 'em, he's sitting on top of 'em.
Well, what good is he?
He hasn't even put up his tail feathers.
- Now, what ails him? - Nothing ails him.
He'll put it up. You just have to wait.
REGINA: Mm.
I just have to get a wire fence around my flowers.
Eat.
[Breathing deeply]
Oh. [Sighing]
It's nice you got this view while you're writing.
Hmm.
I bet it helps.
Thank you, Mama.
[Footsteps receding]
[Grunting]
- [Table scraping] - [Grunting]
[Panting]
[Chair scraping]
FLANNERY: I used to have the notion
that the life of my writing depended
on my staying away.
I would certainly have persisted in that delusion
had I not gotten very ill and had to come home.
I thought it'd be the ending of any creation...
...any writing,
any work for me.
Now, I see it as only the beginning.
Everything that rises must converge.
♪
♪ To Canaan's land, I'm on my way ♪
♪ Where the soul of man never dies ♪
♪ My darkest night will turn to day ♪
♪ Where the soul of man never dies ♪
♪ Dear friends there'll be no sad farewells ♪
♪ There'll be no tear-dimmed eyes ♪
♪ Where all is love, and peace, and joy ♪
♪ And the soul of man never dies ♪
♪ The rose is blooming there for me ♪
♪ Where the soul of man never dies ♪
♪ And I will spend eternity ♪
♪ Where the soul of man never dies ♪
♪ Dear friends there'll be no sad farewells ♪
♪ There'll be no tear-dimmed eyes ♪
♪ Where all is love, and peace, and joy ♪
♪ And the soul of man never dies ♪
♪
♪ Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord ♪
[Rhythmic clapping]
♪ Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord ♪
♪ Lord, Lord ♪
[Birds singing]
♪