London, UK (V2 MUSIC) - Upon hearing the debut album by alt-country singer-songwriter Jim White, 'The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus,' British commercials director Andrew
Douglas contacted Jim and the two set out to make Douglas' feature film debut by exploring the Deep South. 'The resulting documentary,' says Variety, 'reps a very European look at quintessentially American milieu, a marriage exemplified by its cool, painterly visuals and Southern Gothic cast of characters.'
SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG-EYED JESUS is a thought-provoking road trip through the American South – a world of Churches; prison; coalmines; truckstops; juke joints; swamps; and mountains. Along the way the viewer encounters various musicians, including the Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, 16 Horsepower and David Johansen; old time banjo player Lee Sexton, Rockabilly and Mountain Gospel churches and novelist Harry Crews telling grisly stories down a dirt track. The film is a collage of stories and testimonies, almost invariably of sudden death, sin or redemption: Heaven or Hell, with no middle ground. And all the while, a strange Southern Jesus looms in the background.
Alt-country singer Jim White reflects upon exactly what it is about this baffling place that inspires musicians and writers, whilst at the same time working through his own preoccupations with his muse – or, as he puts it, 'trying to find the gold tooth in God's crooked smile.'
As a child Jim was the last of five kids, born late to an itinerant, middle class military family. Conceived on a cross-country journey, he'd traversed the US no less than six times by the tender age of five, when his family put down roots in the muggy, buggy, Jesus-happy backwater of Pensacola, Florida. "This is one hell of a churchy town." Jim notes. A fact confirmed by statistics recognizing Pensacola as the leader in the United States in density of churches per capita.
Of his inevitable experience in the church Jim recalls, 'At a certain point it became the only way I could see to survive was by going to the church. I was an oddball and the oddballs fell into two categories – those oddballs that were getting saved and the oddballs that were strung out on heroin and starting to shoot people. I went in the direction of the criminal for long enough to see that I didn't fit in there and was going to come to a bad end. I have no self-control and I would have been a junkie. If I'd have taken one hit of heroin I'd have been dead because I wouldn't have been able to stop. So I went to church. I figured that excess in search of God can't be that bad of a thing. But it's its own drug.'
The music in SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG EYED JESUS adds a haunting melody to the already unforgettable imagery on screen. This collection of songs is a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack of blues, gospel, and "sadcore" indie tunes.
THE PLAYERS:
JIM WHITE manages to coax sounds from his ten-dollar guitars and banjos that naturally drift off into the ether where they belong. His songs are reflections on the Great Mysteries normally obscured by human details and the debris of everyday life, as seen by a connoisseur of the absurd. Jim was wonderful throughout.
In his songs and conversation, JOHNNY DOWD is a great 'serious comedian,' with a wit so dry and laconic that you sometimes don't catch it. His confessional songs are mostly a parade of losers, laced with irony and a tenderness that never excuses his character's awful mistakes. John's singing divides opinions, but there's no denying the authenticity it brings to his small-town narratives. In some songs he sounds like the bewildered ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald.
THE HANDSOME FAMILY are Brett and Rennie Sparks, a husband and wife team whose continual bickering is both immensely entertaining and the foundation of their creative process – Brett's minimalist Country-flavoured soundscapes and affecting voice are undercut by Rennie's spooked short stories. It was below zero when they were playing al fresco, and there were alligators in the bayou.
SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER performed two great songs that unfortunately didn't survive the brutal editing process, for reasons that were entirely our fault. This was a great disappointment, as their Southern Gothic Hungarian Hillbilly Grunge Blues music is unique and sublime. They'll be on the DVD. David Eugene Edwards' solo songs were spine-tingling, echoing through the woods. He looks and sounds like something that stumbled out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.
DAVID JOHANSEN isn't very 'Southern,' but has at least been to jail in Memphis (as a New York Doll) and he inhabits every single character in those old songs with his wonderful warm rough old voice. He brings the Anthology of American Folk Music to glorious life.
