1972 Directed by John Boorman
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Amargo Pesadelo, Un tranquillo week-end di paura, 서바이벌 게임, Den sista färden
That part where Jon Voight second guesses who he just shot thinking he sees real teeth in the mouth. He feels the face, plays with the dentures that come out and he quietly sighs with relief. Finally something went right. Just an incredible little ice breaking moment of clarity. The way the characters grapple with the enormity of their situation, it becomes such a heavy burden, one almost big enough to slip out of their control. When Ronny Cox draws the line with the first murder. Where was his Oscar that year? Such a heavy scene, you're just sweating with them along every decision. Staggering film.
"Deliverance," John Boorman's stomach-churning and now-iconic observation of the savagery of nature, man, and conscience is a film built upon and defined by its conflicts. The conflict of man versus nature gives way to the conflict of man versus man and, in turn, man versus self and, finally, nature versus man. It is a poetic progression of the how these conflicts and the destruction imparted by human beings leads only to human destruction. Boorman couches this progression in a heavy-toned, chilling adventure-drama, but the thematic poetry of its conflicts is writ large throughout.
Revolving around four friends who take a canoe trip down a remote river before it is damned, the four soon find themselves damned. Traveling into an off-kilter…
Well, it's no Zardoz. Pretty amazing the same director made this film; a taut adventure thriller that combines gritty realism, stunning photography, nerve-wracking action sequences and existential subtext to dynamite effect. When four city slickers take to canoes and attempt to navigate the fierce Chattooga River (re-imagined as the Cahulawassee, a soon-to-be-dammed and vanished natural wonder Lewis and his buddies are determined to experience before it's too late), it turns out their biggest challenge comes not from the elements but their fellow man.
First off, the film looks fantastic, exploiting to the fullest the natural beauty of the Chattooga, powering through the Appalachians. Brilliantly edited, and DP Vilmos Zsigmond mixes static wide shots with water-level close-ups and rapid tracking that…
Tja, von dem wollte ich mir eigentlich nur den Anfang anschauen, weil ich in "Private Ryan" drinhänge - aber der hier hat so gute Bilder mit einem fixen Pacing, da bleibe ich natürlich doch dran hängen. Interessante Anmerkung, jetzt gerade mittendrin im Film: Ich hatte den immer als etwas lahm in Erinnerung, bis es dann zum Höhepunkt kommt. Ist aber gar nicht der Fall, ganz im Gegenteil, bisher war jede Szene interessant, gut bis top gespielt (inkl. der Impro-Arbeit) und schön anzuschauen ist der allemal. Die Framings sind teilweise sooo sehr wunderbar "newhollywoodish", dass meine glücklich-glotzenden Augen tränen. Vilmos Zsigmond rockt. Vieles schaut besser aus als zB. 3Billboards, der visuell auf ähnlich grafischem Terrain operiert.
So, drei in die Kasse und ab ins Bett.
A whirlpool of crystal clear cultural reflections, Deliverance is a brooding, boundary breaking journey down the river to hell. Despite his British ethnicity, in 1972 John Boorman proved his ability to capture the unrelenting horrors of the cantankerous South better than many American filmmakers could. He drew constant allegories on a world that we change as much as it changes us, embedded in the story of four businessmen from Atlanta, slowly regretting how they left their suburban, concrete jungle for a real one.
Poet James Dickey deserves copious credit for his source material and Southern insight, if it hadn't been for his novel and screenplay Boorman would've directed a different picture. Dickey's dialogue provides a realistic perspective on an industrialised,…
Despite not being a Vietnam movie, I feel like this is a companion piece of both Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter. Maybe I'm superficial and think so only because this is a famous dark 70s movie. Or maybe I'm even more so because this is a movie set in a jungle with loads of water. Who knows.
But whatever it is, it still is a great movie. Movie is a sum of it's scenes and this movie has loads of amazing scenes. Actually, almost every individual scene I thought was just amazing. I was constantly going "wow, this particular scene is so good" - and it happened almost every moment in the movie. I think the one I liked…
55 Movies, 55 Years, 55 Directors #7: Deliverance (John Boorman. 1972)
Rating: 8 - This movie like AMPS the FUCK up. I thought the whole mountain climbing scene was eh though. Jon Voight is spectacular. Burt Reynolds, acts as Burt Reynolds in a canoe. The hicks were scary I was scared. Loved the ending.
Random Thoughts:
David Letterman lookin ass
Dueling Banjoes was epic
but like for real that mountain climbing scene
like how'd he do it
So, I grew up in Maine and played in a bluegrass band for a couple years which meant Deliverance had a sorta legendary status in my circle as a kinda of “stay out of the woods” horror story. After seeing the poster way too many times in my childhood, I had always imagined a backwoods Rambo complete with banjo music. That’s not really what this movie is? It’s either the banjo scene that happens in the first couple of minutes or the massive rape scene. Blair Witch made me reasonably scared of the woods whereas deliverance just made me not wanna hangout with horny rednecks which, to be perfectly honest I wasn’t planning on doing anyways.
This isn’t necessarily being fair to a movie that does have some interesting themes of justice blah blah blah it’s mostly either banjo music or male on male rape and that’s pretty much all this has to offer.
John Boorman's tense study of masculinity and man's failed attempts to triumph over nature. It's still thrilling even when you know where it's going. The most impressive thing about this film is its relative minimalism. Boorman's direction eschews stylization, placing the viewer directly into the natural setting - note the sound design, which is often so spare, consisting just of the rushing of the water or the sound of insects buzzing overhead. This is a rugged movie, and its best moments are those that are about pure physicality and the feeling of total isolation. Boorman's wide shots are disorienting; he's so deliberate in making the viewer feel unfocused and unsettled, in a way that mirrors the experience of his characters.
Banjo scene was this movies peak unfortunately. Though I do appreciate the slow-burn pacing.
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Pessimistic worldviews. For when you want to wallow in despair.
It doesn't matter if we all die.
Suggestions welcome.
