“Deliverance” is the sort of chilling thriller that would today resonate with action fans, torture porn enthusiasts and even critics and liberals. It’s light on story but heavy on atmospheric tension, and some of its themes of inbred psychopaths using nature to battle invading city slickers would be mighty relevant in today’s film landscape.
Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight were already stars when this movie was released in 1972, and they’re rightfully bad ass in their roles. The image of a very young Reynolds is just awesome: ripped biceps, leather vest with no shirt, dark chest hair and of all things a bow and arrow. He encourages his three friends to canoe down a river set to become a lake, only to be harassed by sadistic, rapist hillbillies.
Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox on the other hand, were not stars. Beatty had his acting debut in ‘Deliverance,” and for him to be raped so gruesomely in such an intensely cinematic moment is a stark debut.
So much of the film is shockingly and carefully paced and photographed by John Boorman. From the opening shots we get a sense of some oddly unsettling natural landscapes. The famous dueling banjos scene sounds peaceful, but the disturbing framing is anything but. The camera loves to frame all four characters in the shot at once, and we get a sense of how this unified party will quickly be at odds with one another.“Deliverance” is noticeably economical. Pay attention to several of the river rapid scenes. The editing is quick, but the camera is still, and the image lingers longer than you might expect to a scary effect. Boorman has a habit of shooting at a distance as though spying through trees before subtly moving to intimate close-ups as the real danger is about to strike. The cinematography is a key factor in making the film’s initial confrontation with the hillbillies along the river so absolutely gripping and twisted.
But ultimately, the film’s ponderous questions about why we decide to embrace challenges and fight nature make the whole film cryptic in nature. There’s something unclear about everything we see, like how Voight’s character manages to shoot himself with his own arrow and manage to kill his attacker in the process. Even as he lies awake late at night safe at home in his bed, there’s an unsettling uncertainty in his mind at what actually transpired along that river and what still could. Or what of Cox’s character? Did he actually get shot, or did he kill himself by jumping out of the canoe and not wearing his life jacket? The movie doesn’t explicitly say, but my guess is for the latter.
“Deliverance” was nominated for three Oscars in 1972, including Best Picture. It lost to “The Godfather,” which is obviously appropriate, but it’s an enduring movie with powerful thrills and precise film making better than most of the horror thrillers it has inspired.