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| Deliverance (1972) | |
| Background
The exciting box-office hit, most remembered for its inspired banjo duel and the brutal, violent action (and sodomy scene), was based on James Dickey's adaptation of his own 1970 best-selling novel (his first) of the same name - he contributed the screenplay and acted in a minor part as the town sheriff. The stark, uncompromising film was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing), but went away Oscar-less. The beautifully-photographed film, shot entirely on location (in northern Georgia's Rabun County that is bisected by the Chattooga River), was the least-nominated film among the other Best Picture nominees. Ex-stuntman Burt Reynolds took the role of bow-and-arrow expert Lewis after it was turned down by James Stewart, Marlon Brando, and Henry Fonda on account of its on-location hazards. The increasingly claustrophobic, downbeat film, shot in linear sequence along forty miles of a treacherous river, has been looked upon as a philosophical or mythical allegory of man's psychological and grueling physical journey against adversity. It came during the 70s decade when many other conspiracy or corruption-related films were made with misgivings, paranoia or questioning of various societal institutions or subject areas, such as the media (i.e., Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976)), politics (i.e., The Parallax View (1974), All the President's Men (1976)), science (i.e., Capricorn One (1977), Coma (1978), The China Syndrome (1979)), and various parts of the US itself (i.e., Race with the Devil (1975), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and later Southern Comfort (1981)). A group of urban dwellers test their manhood and courage, totally vulnerable in the alien wild, and pit themselves against the hostile violence of nature. At times, however, they are attracted to nature, and exhilarated and joyful about their experiences in the wild. (Director Boorman pursued the same complex eco-message theme of man vs. nature in other films, including Zardoz (1973) and The Emerald Forest (1985).) As they progress further and further along in uncharted territory down the rapids, the men 'rape' the untouched, virginal wilderness as they are themselves violated by the pristine wilderness and its degenerate, inbred backwoods inhabitants. Survivalist skills come to the forefront when civilized standards of decency and logic fail. The film's taglines were tantalizing:
The river is the potent personification of the complex, natural forces that propel men further and further along their paths. It tests their personal values, exhibiting the conflict between country and city, and accentuates what has been hidden or unrealized in civilized society. The adventurers vainly seek to be 'delivered' from the evil in their own hearts, and as in typical horror films, confront other-worldly forces in the deep woods. The flooding of the region after the completion of a dam construction project alludes to the purification and cleansing of the sins of the world by the Great Flood. The film was also interpreted as an allegory of the US' involvement in the Vietnam War - as the men (the US military) intruded into a foreign world (Southeast Asia), and found it was raped or confronted by wild forces it couldn't understand or control. The StoryThe film opens with voice-overs of the main characters discussing the "vanishing wilderness" and the corruption of modern civilization, while the credits play over views of the flooding of one of the last untamed stretches of land, and the imminent wiping out of the entire Cahulawassee River and the small town of Aintry.
The four characters include:
Lewis lectures his friends and anxiously bemoans the dam construction that will soon destroy the ('damned' or 'dammed') Cahulawassee River and town. He urges his friends to take a ride down the river before a man-made lake will forever flood it:
His friends Bobby, Ed, and Drew label Lewis' views as "extremist." In voice-over, Lewis coaxes his three, soft city-slicker friends to join him for a weekend canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River - to pit themselves against the US wilderness. (The film's major poster declared: "This is the weekend they didn't play golf.") They leave behind their business jobs and civilized values for their "last chance" to go back to unspoiled nature for a weekend of canoeing, hunting, and fishing, in northern Georgia's scenic Appalachian wilderness. Their two cars, Lewis' International Scout 4 x 4 and Drew's station wagon with canoes strapped on top, drive into the hillbilly wilderness to their odyssey's starting point:
The first view of the city-dwelling buddies in the film occurs when the vehicles pull into a junk-littered, backwoods area that appears "evacuated already." The men reveal more of their believable personalities by their reactions to the community of mountain folk they meet in this first scene:
From behind a dilapidated, squalid shanty building, the first primitive hillbilly emerges, suspicious that they are from the power company. Lewis asks the old mountain man (Ed Ramey) about hiring him to drive their two cars to a point downstream at their landing point of Aintry:
As the mountain man pumps gas, Bobby ridicules the strange man's repulsive look:
He is told: "You don't know nuthin'." Possible drivers are suggested to Lewis for hire: "You might get the Griner Brothers...They live back over that way." One of the film's highlights is a lively, captivating banjo duel of bluegrass music, "Dueling Banjos" (actual title "Feudin' Banjos" - arranged and played by Eric Weissberg with guitarist Steve Mandell). [The song was authored by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith in the 50s, and copyrighted by the Combine Music Corp.] Drew begins by playing chords on his guitar. A deformed, retarded, albino hillbilly youngster (Billy Redden) (on banjo) appears on the porch and answers him. Under his breath, Bobby criticizes the cretinous hillbilly boy: "Talk about genetic deficiencies. Isn't that pitiful?" From behind him, one of the backwoods folks asks: "Who's pickin' a banjo here?" The impromptu song is played as a rousing challenge between the two. Toward its furious ending, Drew admits to the grinning boy: "I'm lost." When Drew, seen as a suspicious stranger, compliments the moon-faced winner when they are done - "God damn, you play a mean banjo," the mute, inbred, half-witted boy resumes his stony stare, turns his head sharply, and refuses to shake hands with the interloping foreigner. Drew is obviously disappointed that the boy ignores him. As Lewis drives to the nearby Griner Bros. garage, he ridicules Bobby's means of making a living - insurance sales, thereby tempting fate: "I've never been insured in my life. I don't believe in insurance. There's no risk." In an edgy, volatile encounter, Lewis bargains firmly with one of the grimy, poverty-stricken Griner brothers (Seamon Glass and Randall Deal) to have them drive their vehicles to Aintry for $40 - and receives a second ominous warning about the hazardous river:
Ed fears that they have pushed too hard: "Listen, Lewis, let's go back to town and play golf...Lewis, don't play games with these people." With Ed as his passenger, Lewis races his Bronco against the Griner's pickup truck to the river's launch point a few miles away through the dense woods - in his station wagon, Drew follows at a safe distance behind with Bobby. The reflections of leaves from the colorful canopy above shrouds and obscures a clear view of Ed and Lewis through the windshield - the jostling ride frightens Ed: "Lewis, you son-of-a-bitch, why do we have to go so god-damned fast?...Lewis, you're gonna kill us both, you son-of-a-bitch, before we ever see any water." When they reach the peaceful water's edge, Lewis philosophically contemplates the view:
They finally venture onto the river in two canoes: Drew with Ed, and Bobby with Lewis. Through the trees, they are observed at the water's edge by the Griners - inhabitants of the area before 'civilization' took over. The neophyte canoers are unsure of their direction:
At first, their encounter with the river and nature is peaceful and tranquil as they paddle along - on a sunny day. Above them on a cross-walk bridge high above the placid river, the banjo-playing lad silently but intently watches them - the camera shooting from Drew's perspective. Before the first of many, increasingly-exciting sequences on the water, Lewis stands upright in the canoe and announces: "This gonna be fun!" They confront the twisting and turning white-water rapids of the swift-moving Chattooga River. They are exuberant and euphoric after victoriously navigating the challenging but not overwhelming wild-flowing water - under Lewis' expert instruction. Bobby is thrilled about shooting the rapids:
But Ed isn't as certain: "Damn, I thought we bought the farm there, for a while." Lewis reminisces about how it must have been for the original pioneers, while Bobby foolishes thinks they've masterfully beaten the river:
With a high-powered bow-and-arrow fishing rod, Lewis takes aim at a fish, misses and then warns:
Lewis remarks that the mild-mannered, secure-in-life Ed has all the comforts of civilization, but does he know how to survive in the wild like a man? His implication to his companion is that only the strong survive:
The comrades camp at night by the river's edge, setting up tents, sitting around a campfire, listening to Drew's guitar playing, drinking beer, and roasting a fish that Lewis has speared. Bobby expresses some appreciation for the virgin river and the wilderness surrounding it:
Tension is heightened when Lewis senses "something or someone" in the blackness of the night around them. The three tenderfoots criticize Lewis' affinity to nature as he disappears to investigate: "He wants to be one with nature and he can't hack it." Ed drunkenly philosophizes about their isolation from the world:
The next morning after rising early, Ed takes his bow and arrow and stalks a deer - emulating his buddy. But his hands tremble at the moment of the arrow's release toward a live animal, and the shot veers into a tree trunk. Drew sensitively comments: "I don't understand how anyone could shoot an animal." Ed later explains his reason for faltering: "I lost control psychologically." No longer intoxicated by the thrill of the outdoors, Bobby complains about his mosquito bites: "I got eaten alive last night. My bites have got bites...I'm a salesman, Ed." Further down the river, Ed and Bobby become separated from the other two behind them. They pull their canoe out of the river when they decide to rest in the thick wilderness next to it. More threatening than the untamed river are two evil, violent, primitive, degenerate and hostile mountain men, a gay hillbilly (Bill McKinney) and a grizzly, toothless man (Herbert "Cowboy" Coward) armed with a 12 gauge double-barreled shotgun who suddenly appear from the woods and confront the intruders. [The wilderness isn't populated with romantic survivalists or enobled, heroic characters as in adventure stories, but sadistic brutes.] The two inexperienced, naive adventurers, assuming that the menacing backwoodsmen (who are harrassing them) are hiding a still to manufacture bootleg whiskey, promise not to tell anyone where it is located. Even away from his urban citified element, Ed maintains an inappropriate decorum of decency and ineffectually calls the animalistic rednecks 'gentlemen':
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Deliverance (1972)
is British director John Boorman's gripping, absorbing action-adventure
film about four suburban Atlanta businessmen friends who encounter
disaster in a summer weekend's river-canoeing trip. It was one of
the first films with the theme of city-dwellers against the powerful
forces of nature.