“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. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Deliverance”