1977 Directed by William Friedkin
Four criminals from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of unstable nitroglycerin across dangerous jungle.
As a fan of macho movies, I was completely floored by William Friedkin's Sorcerer. It's a story of desperate men doing desperate things set in a desperate situation.
Who needs a bunch of dialogue when you have savage macho men driving and working on big trucks? The trucks, if driven wrong, will blow up. You're driving a truck in the jungle, it's raining, there's no paved roads, trees are down everywhere and the bridges look like they're about to fall down. The scenes on the bridge would give the healthiest of hearts, a sudden heart attack. It's so tense, I'm certain I forgot to breathe. Add in the perfect mood music by Tangerine Dream, and Sorcerer is one of the…
The usual line of attack against The Wages of Fear is that it takes too long to get going, with a lot of wheel-spinning and artless political supertext taking up too much time before the action starts. I love Wages, but I have to admire Friedkin's dodge here, opening on 20 minutes or so of pure crosshatched nastiness, setting up each of his characters' circumstances not so much to explain why they would agree to take on such a dangerous mission but to establish that the world is so inescapably terrible that you might as well go out with a bang anyway. It's as edgy as any of the explosive set-pieces that come later, so much so that the rare…
It's been 40 years since Sorcerer first came to a South American jungle near you, but it's hard to imagine a time when it didn't exist. Three sequels (with many more to come), three misguided yet often misunderstood prequels, one "Sorcerer Story" (last year's Rogue One, about the embezzlement scheme that leads Sorcerer's Bruno Cremer into exile at the beginning of the movie), countless books, video games, animated cartoons, and one infamous Christmas special later, the pop culture crater left by Sorcerer's impact is so large it makes the tree blown up by the film's heroes look more like a twig.
An adaptation of Georges Arnaud's novel that was also the basis for Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer is William Friedkin's entirely compelling, densely atmospheric and at times nightmarish counterpart to Clouzot's classic. While the basic, surface structure of the plot is mostly the same, the suspense is just as poignant and the cynical view, firmly established from the start, remains present throughout, the experience is different but in the good sense of the word. Sorcerer feels more epic and more mythical (due in no small part to Tangerine Dream's hypnotic score) while still very real. This is achieved through a more distant and hermetic approach akin to documentaries that doesn't allow open spaces for cliches or melodrama to…
A cinema of madness. Pure physical detail. Damnation as a form of cinematic spectacle. Man with blood in their hands fulfilling their death wish. What for Clozout is social need, for Friedkin is self-punishment. First world crimes reimagined in a third world purgatory, an amusement park of unforgiven nature. The beauty is that everything is translated in pure action, everything a matter of another form of behavior. Among other things, this is Friedkin’s most compassionate movie, Francisco Rabal taciturn killer is the film’s heart and Bruno Kramer’s masochist banker it is clear-eyed soul.
Every rewatch never fails to reinforce the sheer exhausting brilliance at work here. Friedkin’s command of visual storytelling is like no other. Forever an absolute banger. Now, time to give that iconic soundtrack another rotation on the lp player.
No one ever mentions the scene with the angry mob and the sudden silence when they move the bodies. A terrific scene, in a movie full of them.
Also, can you imagine a movie like this made today? A weightless truck trying to get across a river of pixels. Thank you, no.
They don't make films like this anymore. Proper bleak 70s grit with nail biting moments followed by gut punches of sudden violence.
Edit: Upped the score to the big 5
Recommended by Focus in the Metropolis roulette
With Sorcerer, Friedkin is back with yet another great entry in the 1970's American catalog, consolidating his spot as one of the key member of the New Hollywood movement. Not only that, he also accomplished the rare feat of making a good remake, which is all the more impressive when you consider that: A. The original movie, The Wages of Fear, is a staple of the thriller genre made by renowned filmmaker H.G. Clouzot and B. This remake feels very fresh and of its era.
Friedkin also once again proves he isn't afraid to risk it all for his vision, filming a car chase scene in real traffic for The French Connection wasn't enough, now he has to bring a 1-million-dollars bridge of death into the equation.
Si bien me costó bastante engancharme, cuando lo hice, disfruté mucho de la película. Tiene momentos impresionantes (el cruce del puente, la explosión del árbol) y el director logra transmitir muchas sensaciones a través de la cámara.
As Jackie Scanlon, Roy Scheider, the closest thing to an A-list star in Sorcerer, is all sinew and sorrow, hollowed-out eyes, and thousand-yard stares—a performance of ferocious corporeality and weathered dread, the kind that feels less like acting than simply existing. His face looks like a piece of old leather beaten and sutured back together, his lean arms protruding from rolled-up sleeves and scrawled with veins. Compare his physicality to that of Bruno Cremer's French businessman, who can afford coffee and food in the local café, who's lived a life of affluence and grown discernibly soft around the middle, or Francisco Rabal's hitman, who moves with a languor afforded to those accustomed to comfort. Watch as Scheider grows despondent when…
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