Deliverance

The best film that Burt Reynolds thought he made was Deliverance. He's close--I'd put Boogie Nights ahead of it, but Reynolds hated that movie (though he never saw it). Deliverance is the kind of movie Reynolds should have made more of, instead of giving in to his lazy habits and making jokey action picks instead of serious ones like this. Reynolds was a good comic actor, but didn't do much with his dramatic talent.

Released in 1972, Deliverance was quite the sensation, mostly due to a scene of male rape. That scene doesn't seem quite so shocking today, and in some ways is an expression of homosexual panic (the worst thing that can happen to a man is not being murdered, but being sodomized by a hillbilly). What interested me in this viewing was the religious references, starting with the title.

Reynolds and three other men are taking a weekend canoeing trip down a river in Georgia that will soon be gone due to a dam going up and creating a lake. Before it disappears, Reynolds wants to explore it, along with his friend Jon Voight, and his friends, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty. The latter two are not experienced outdoorsmen, especially Beatty, who is pretty much out of his element.

The four enjoy a first day on the river, but the next day get separated. Voight and Beatty make a stop in the woods and are approached by two locals with shotguns. The men decide to tie Voight to a tree, while Beatty is stripped down and raped (memorably, he is forced to "squeal like a pig.") Before Voight suffers the same fate, Reynolds arrives and kills one man with a bow and arrow, the other man fleeing. It's also interesting here that Beatty, seen as a less than perfect man--chubby and ill-equipped for survival--undergoes the rape, but Voight, attractive, is spared. It could have never worked the other way around.

The men go back to the river but Cox falls out of the boat (shot? It's never confirmed). The remaining hillbilly has got them trapped, and Reynolds has a compound fracture of the leg (this is more disturbing, with his exposed bone, than Beatty's rape). Voight, not the survivalist that Reynolds is, must kill the other man.

There are all sorts of reading of this tale. Certainly it's man against nature, but while the river is unknowing, the two mountain men are simply generic villains. I don't know if the people of Appalachia have an anti-defamation league, but this surely would provoke it. Earlier in the film the men meet some backwards folks at a gas station, and come across a young boy who looks like a genetic accident. He can, though, play a mean banjo, and the film's other famous scene, "Dueling Banjos," is delightful.

The religious references start with the title, as the men are delivered from evil, and when Voight and Beatty emerge from the river the first thing they find is a small church (later the church is being driven out of town before it's flooded). The hillbilly that Reynolds kills is borne to his grave as if on a cross, his hands outstretched. There are no references to God or do any of the men profess religious beliefs, but they do represent differences of morality. Cox, after the hillbilly is killed, thinks they should take him to the law and do the right thing. The others decide that a jury of the man's relatives would condemn them.

I think the film, directed by John Boorman with animalistic grace, does go on a bit too long, with the surviving men trying to keep their stories straight (the sheriff is played by the author of the novel and screenplay, James Dickey). A final fake scare scene, which would later be used at the end of Carrie, seems out of place as well. But Deliverance is an above-average thriller, nominated for Best Picture that year, with some wonderful location shots. I've never gone canoeing down white water rapids, and I don't think I want to, whether there are hillbillies in the woods or not.