What States?
I haven't seen this movie and was just wandering what southern states the film takes place in?
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MovieChat Forums > Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2004) Discussion > What States?
Check the filming locations data. But mostly Louisiana, which is southern, but if you're from the south, Louisiana is a different kind of southern.
from what I can gather from the final credits, most was Louisiana (as the previous poster points out). the miners were filmed in Kentucky, and parts were in Virginia and West Virginia.
Although I think it's a great film and a wonderful depiction of the macabre beauty of the rural south, I'm shocked that Andrew Douglas and Jim White would put this film together and yet completely neglect Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. As a Tennessee boy, I might be biased, but I'd say those four states (maybe we could toss in the Carolinas), are as good a representation of the "true south" as one could ask for. In my observation Louisiana and West Virginia, though very different from one another, have their own kinda thing going on. they are "the South" to be sure, but with a twist - especially Louisiana.
(I'm never quite sure what to make of Arkansas - better lumped in with Oklahoma and Texas in my opinion - and Floria simply ISN'T part of the South - I don't care what anybody says!)
Having grown up in Florida I disagree. South florida certainly isn't as it's overrun by refugees of one sort or another be they yankees or from some banana republic. North Florida however is very southern. More southern than the simply rural Virginias and Kentucky.
I can accept that...at least the non-coastal parts of N. Florida are probably more like S. Georgia than they are like the rest of Florida. So point taken. It's too easy to fall into the trap of characterizing (or caricaturizing) Florida as a whole according to the majority, and neglecting those areas that don't fit the "snowbirds/Disneyland/beach party/immigrants" stereotype.
But I'd contend that the Virginias and Kentucky aren't "simply rural" - it might be a nuanced distinction, but the Appalachian "hillbilly" characteristics of these cultures are best understood, I think, in relationship to the south as a whole. And as I just said to someone yesterday (believe it or not), there is a difference between "hillbilly" and "redneck," even within southern culture(s). This film, at least in part, seems more interested in that side of things, which we might broadly call "appalachia," than it is in the kind of boots-n-hats-n-pickup-trucks "redneck" side of the south.
Side note: check out the photography of Shelby Lee Adams as a kind of still-life version of "Wrong-eyed Jesus." (There is a fantastic documentary about Adams' work, too, by the way, entitled "The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia." Very worth checking out. I saw it at the Nashville Int'l Film Festival several years ago - '02 or '03 I think.)
West Virginia became a state for the sole reason its residents did NOT want to be part of the south. Anybody from WV who thinks they are Southerners in heart or in lineage are either misguided, ignorant, or just plain stupid.
shareA lot of this was filmed in my hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana. They had cameras at the Pentecostals of the Miss-Lou church, but they were taunting a very different kind of biography. They said they were making a history of religion doc for BBC. The final product was quite different.
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"I like how you punctuate ignorance with certainty." (Dilbert).
It was filmed in Louisiana, parts in Mississippi and Alabama, the Florida panhandle, the triangle of Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
The film was never intended to be any kind of 'completist' overview of the South, just a tiny aspect of it.
A full picture would take more than one little movie.
The filmmakers never told anyone they were making a history of religion - what they were looking for is the capacity for story-telling in the South, and how some of this came out in music, some in the wonderful preaching. The churches in both Ferriday and Virginia both showed how music and religion came from the same source.
I know for a fact that it takes place partly in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm from the Ferriday/Vidalia/Natchez area. The filming locations also lists Virginia and Kentucky.
shareThe producer from the BBC told our pastor that they were filming a documentary solely on religion. They never said anything to us about it being focused on "the South" in general, or it never would have been permitted to be filmed there. Pentecostals consider themselves "in the world" but not "of the world." That's why they dress so conservatively: to separate themselves from everyone else. It's been that way for many generations. It was that way when I attended. It's still that way now.
shareThe producers had long conversations with the pastor, explaining their aims. He had expressed concerns that the film-makers had been seen filming in notorious local bars and in prisons and didn't want to be associated with those places. However he was reassured that the intention was to show the Southerner's impulse towards the transcendental in all its forms, and identified substance abuse as the main 'enemy' of his church, because it perverted this impulse. It was a dead end he knew personally,
As a young man, he was a rockabilly musician and saw this same impulse in what he called 'the blue note'. It was when he found religion that he was able to fully integrate these impulses.
This is what the film-makers found so interesting, and the pastor appreciated their intention to show the whole range of impulses - he was confident his church was strong enough to stand up in this mix.
He may have been disappointed the film didn't show more of the fine work his church was doing!
I know all about our pastor's history, as he's also my cousin. He never knew that he'd be associated with a documentary called Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. I don't think any pastor would knowingly attach his name to a sacrilegious title like that.
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"You ever hear of Occam's Razor? Keep it simple, stupid."