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Deliverance

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This article is about the film. For the novel by James Dickey, see Deliverance (novel). For other uses, see Deliverance (disambiguation).
Deliverance
Movie poster by Bill Gold
Directed byJohn Boorman
Written byNovel:
James Dickey
Screenplay:
James Dickey
Uncredited:
John Boorman
Produced byJohn Boorman
StarringJon Voight
Burt Reynolds
Ned Beatty
Ronny Cox
James Dickey
CinematographyVilmos Zsigmond
Edited byTom Priestley
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
July 30, 1972
Running time
109 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,000,000
Box office$46,122,355

Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman. Principal cast members include Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty in his film debut. The film is based on a 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey, who has a small role in the film as a sheriff. The screenplay was written by Dickey and an uncredited Boorman.

In 2008, Deliverance was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

Four Atlanta businessmen–Lewis (Reynolds), Ed (Voight), Bobby (Beatty), and Drew (Cox)–decide to canoe down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded over by the upcoming construction of a dam and lake. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the de facto leader. Ed is also a veteran of several trips but lacks Lewis' machismo. Bobby and Drew are novices.

From the start, it is clear the four are aliens in this unknown location. The locals are crude and unimpressed with the presence of outsiders, and the film implies that some of them are inbred. While attempting to secure drivers for their vehicles (to be delivered to the takeout point), Drew briefly connects with a local banjo-playing boy by joining him in an impromptu bluegrass jam. But when the song ends, the boy turns away without saying anything, refusing the impressed Drew's handshake. Whether the boy is in fact blind is possible but never revealed. The four "city boys", as they are called by one of the locals, exhibit a slightly condescending attitude toward the locals; Bobby, in particular, is patronizing.

The men spend the day canoeing down the river in pairs before camping by the riverside at night. Shortly before they retire for bed, Lewis tells the others to be quiet and disappears into the dark woods to investigate a sound he heard. He returns shortly after and says that he didn't find anything. When asked whether he heard "something or someone," he tells them he doesn't know. While traveling the next day, the group's two canoes are briefly separated. Pausing briefly to get their bearings, Bobby and Ed encounter a pair of unkempt hillbillies (Bill McKinney and Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward) emerging from the woods, one wielding a shotgun. Bobby speculates that the two locals have a moonshine still hidden in the woods and amicably offers to buy some, but the hillbillies are not moved and Bobby is forced at gunpoint to strip naked. McKinney's character chases after and physically harasses Bobby as he tries to escape. Bobby's ear is twisted to bring him to his hands and knees, and he is then ordered to "squeal like a pig" as McKinney's character rapes him. Ed is bound to a tree with his own belt, helpless as McKinney's character violently sodomizes Bobby.

Hearing the commotion, Lewis (who is wary of danger in the woods) secretly sneaks up and kills the rapist with an arrow from his hunting-bow; the other captor quickly escapes into the woods. Lewis and Drew argue about whether to inform the authorities. Lewis argues that they would not receive a fair trial, as he claims that the entire local population are related to one another, and the jury would comprise the dead man's friends and relatives. Likewise, Bobby does not want the incident of his sodomy to become public. Lewis tells them that since the entire area would be flooded by a lake soon, the body would never be found and the escaped hillbilly could not inform the authorities since he had participated in the incident. The men vote to side with Lewis's recommendation to bury the dead hillbilly's body and continue as though nothing had happened. During the digging, Drew is obviously agitated, and screams at each exertion.

The four make a run for it downriver, cutting their trip short, but soon disaster strikes as the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. In the lead canoe, Ed repeatedly asks Drew to don his life jacket, but an unnerved Drew ignores them without a word of explanation. As Drew and Ed reach the rapids, Drew's head appears to shake, perhaps from being shot, and he falls forward into the river.

After Drew disappears into the river, Ed loses control of his canoe and both canoes collide on the rocks, spilling Lewis, Bobby, and Ed into the river. Lewis breaks his femur and the others are washed ashore alongside him. The badly-injured Lewis believes the toothless hillbilly shot Drew and is now stalking them. Ed climbs a nearby rock face in order to dispatch the suspected shooter using his bow, while Bobby stays behind to look after Lewis. Ed reaches the top and hides out until the next morning, when he sees the man he was looking for standing on the cliff holding a rifle, looking down into the gorge where Lewis and Bobby are hiding.

Ed, a champion archer who nevertheless earlier lost his nerve while aiming at a deer, now freezes in spite of his clear shot. The man notices Ed and fires as Ed clumsily releases his arrow. Ed falls to the ground in a panic and accidentally stabs himself with another one of his arrows. The man reaches Ed and is about to shoot him when he collapses, revealing Ed's arrow sticking through him. Ed lowers the body down the cliff with a rope and climbs down after it. His rope breaks and he falls in the river, but he swims to shore and meets back with Bobby and Lewis.

Ed and Bobby weigh the dead hillbilly down with stones and drop him into the river. Later, they come upon Drew's grotesquely-contorted corpse and, after being unable to find any definite gunshot wound, they also weigh it down and sink it in the river to ensure that it will never be found.

When they finally reach their destination, the town of Aintry (which will soon be submerged by the dammed river and is being evacuated), they take the injured Lewis to the hospital while the Sheriff comes to investigate the incident. One of the deputies has a missing brother-in-law, who may have been the man that Ed killed, and is highly suspicious. The three hastily concoct a cover story for the authorities about Drew's death and disappearance being an accident, lying about their ordeal to Sheriff Bullard (played by author James Dickey). The sheriff clearly doesn't believe them but, having no evidence and perhaps sensing the truth of what happened, simply tells Ed: "Don't ever do nothin' like this again...Don't come back up here... I'd kinda like to see this town die peaceful," to which Ed readily agrees. The men vow to keep their story a secret for the rest of their lives, which proves to be psychologically burdensome for Ed; in the final scene, he awakes screaming from a nightmare in which a dead man's hand rises from the lake.

Reception

Critical reception

Deliverance was well received by critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1972.[1][2][3][4] The film currently holds a 94% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.[5] Widely acclaimed as a landmark picture, the film is noted for the memorable music scene near the beginning that sets the tone for what lies ahead: a trip into unknown and potentially dangerous territory. In the scene, set at a rural gas station, character Drew Ballinger plays the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" on his guitar with a hillbilly youth named Lonnie (implied as being an inbred albino in the novel[citation needed]) who is portrayed by Billy Redden in the film, though a body double actually played the banjo.[6] The song won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance. The film was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, while the viewers of Channel 4 in the United Kingdom voted it no. 45 in a list of The 100 Greatest Films.

Awards and nominations

Nominated for:

American Film Institute

Production

Deliverance was shot in the Tallulah Gorge southeast of Clayton, Georgia and on the Chattooga River, dividing the states of Georgia and South Carolina. Additional scenes were shot as well in Salem, South Carolina and Sylva, North Carolina. A scene was also shot at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church cemetery, which now lies 300 feet under the surface of Lake Jocassee, South Carolina.[7]

John Boorman's gold record for the "Dueling Banjos" hit single was later stolen from his house by the Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, a scene Boorman recreated in The General (1998), his biographical film about Cahill. In addition to the movie's famous theme, there are also a number of sparse, brooding passages of music scattered throughout, including several played on a synthesizer. Some prints of the movie omit much of this extra music. Other than Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel's credit for "Dueling Banjos", no one is credited for any of the incidental music.

The original stars slated to play the two main parts were Lee Marvin and Marlon Brando, who turned down the parts when they heard about the dangers of filming on the river, which gave chance for Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds.[citation needed]

Differences from the novel

Although the film closely follows the novel which is written 'in persona', some sections are different. Examples include the character description of Ed (in the novel, Ed was bald and in his late 40s), the missing introduction (explaining why they decided to go on a canoe trip instead of playing golf), and an epilogue after the events. There is also no mention of the infamous 'Squeal like a pig' sentence in the novel. In the film, only Bobby's line of work is mentioned (he is an insurance salesman). The novel additionally reveals that Ed is a graphic designer or art director for an advertising agency, Drew works as a sales representative for a large Atlanta-based soft drink manufacturer (most likely The Coca-Cola Company, though it's not referred to by name), and Lewis is simply an unspecified white-collar worker. The first section of the book describes a day at the office for Ed, which (except for the opening voice-over) is omitted from the movie.

Ned Beatty states that he created the infamous "squeal piggy" line while he and actor Bill McKinney were improvising the scene.[8] James Dickey's son, Christopher Dickey, in his book, Summer of Deliverance, said that it was one of the crewmen who suggested that Ned Beatty's character, "Bobby", "squeal like a pig" — to add some backwoods horror to the scene and to make it more shocking. According to Boorman's running commentary for the HD DVD and Blu-ray editions, the studio wanted the scene shot two ways, one of which would be acceptable for TV. Boorman didn't want to do this, and as "Squeal like a pig" was a good replacement for the (presumably obscene) dialog in the script, it was substituted, as it would work for both the theatrical and TV versions. Actor Bill McKinney, who once was an accomplished grappler in high school, trained martial arts for the humiliation scene.[citation needed]

Cast

References

  1. ^ http://www.filmsite.org/1972.html
  2. ^ http://www.films101.com/y1972r.htm
  3. ^ http://cinepad.com/awards/best_70s.htm
  4. ^ http://www.imdb.com/year/1972/
  5. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deliverance/
  6. ^ Heldenfels, Rich (2009-11-05). "Body double plays banjo". Akron Beacon Journal. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  7. ^ "Cable network to detail history of Lake Jocassee". Retrieved 2009-02-25.
  8. ^ Burger, Mark. (2006, March 19). "BEATTY GIVEN MASTER OF CINEMA AWARD; CHARACTER ACTOR IS A VETERAN OF MORE THAN 200 FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS", Winston-Salem Journal, Page B1
    "Regarding his debut film, Deliverance (1972), in which his character undergoes an unforgettably vivid sexual assault, Beatty said: 'The whole "Squeal Like a Pig" thing ... came from guess who.' As the audience laughed, he theatrically put his head in his hands and silently pointed to himself, before elaborating how director Boorman encouraged him to improvise the scene with his onscreen tormentor, Bill McKinney."
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