Actor Brad Dourif, this year’s recipient of the Asheville Film Festival’s Career Achievement Award, will not be able to attend the film festival, due to work-related issues.
While Dourif will not be able to attend, tonight’s “Evening with Brad Dourif” festivities, including a screening of Wise Blood and reception afterwards, will continue as planned. For more information, contact Film Festival headquarters (located in Pack Place) at 778-2060.
— David Forbes, staff writer
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This is a very disappointing thing, but it’s one that is inherent when dealing with working artists, and we’ve actually been very fortunate that it hasn’t happened before. For example, if our 2005 honoree Ken Russell had been slated for this year, he’d have been contractually committed to be in New York City working on the play he’s staging there.
I know Brad and his girlfriend, Claudia, were looking forward to being here and are as disappointed as we are by this turn of events.
However, the extremely rare screening of Wise Blood is still underway at 7:30 tonight and the reception will follow. Humboldt County, a film Brad also requested be screened, follows at 10:30. Also, the Child’s Play screening — with a Q&A;by the screenwriter Don Mancini — is still on. And, of course, Brad is still the recipient of the Career Achievement Award.
I’m happy to report that the “Evening Without Brad Dourif” screening of Wise Blood went over well even without Brad. And anyone who saw and knows the film only from the VHS copy that came out years and years ago had a revelatory experience. The film isn’t available on DVD or 35mm, but the festival’s film buyer, Greg Gardner, was able to locate a copy on HD-cam, and it looked terrific.
There’s rumors that with Paramount FINALLY licensing films to Criterion and their recent release of Huston’s UNDER THE VOLCANO that WISE BLOOD is not too far behind. I think that this is Dourif’s best performance and I wish I could have been at the screening.
Has Wise Blood ended up belonging to Paramount?
It used to be Paramount in the 80s (I rented the large clamshell version back then). Does someone else own it now?
It was a true independent production and near as I can tell originally handled by New Line. The HD version that we ran was interestingly preceded by ye olde Janus logo.
“The HD version that we ran was interestingly preceded by ye olde Janus logo.”
Good news.