University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

'Deliverance': Brutally Realistic Detail

By DAVE NOZIGLIA

James Dickey's Deliverance
is the story of four men from
middle-class suburbia who
decide to take a trip down a
wild country river before the
river is flooded by a new dam.

Things go well at first. They
get started without any
problems, and go through a
little white water and a typical
night camping out. Then Ed
(Jon Voight) and Bobby (Ned
Beatty) meet up with two
mountain men, who sexually
assault Bobby. They are about
to rape Ed, when Lewis (Burt
Reynolds) and Drew (Ronnie
Cox) show up and Lewis
shoots one of the mountain
men with an arrow.

They bury the body and
continue but have a wreck.
Drew is lost and Lewis has a
broken leg, and Lewis says that
Drew was shot. Ed climbs to
the top of the cliffs and kills
the other mountain man, and
they finally make it back
home.

What makes this film
successful is the fact that it is
so rich.

Visually it is very exciting.
All of the shots are
straightforward, third-person,

medium-distance, except for
some close-ups of Ed during
the last half. Even the action
shots of the men on the river
are elegantly simple.

Talented Camera

The camera is a very
objective, very realistic
observer during the first half of
the movie. Everything is shown
in brutally realistic detail, to
match the brutality of the
climax: the incident with the
mountain men.

When Ed starts to climb
that cliff, however, the camera
becomes impressionistic. It
moves in very close to Ed,
plays trick with the color, and
becomes a part of the action
rather than an observer.

Perhaps the most excellent
aspect of Deliverance is the
pacing. It never hurries, it is in
fact extremely slow, but it is
never boring, because
something interesting is always
being shown. If they want to
take time out for a little
country music, they take time
out, and while they're at it
they show us more about the
characters and their
environment. This attitude
governs the whole movie.

Varied Characters

The characters are all both
clearly defined and realistic.
They are strongly contrasted,
and each has a role to play in
the overall matrix, out they all
share their common humanity.

Bobby is the dumpy guy
who's always cracking jokes.
He is also the one who is,
pitifully, brutally raped.

Drew is the voice of
civilization. His guitar playing
provides the only moment of
communion these men find
with the backwoods people,
and he is the one who talks of
the law when Lewis kills the
mountain man. His voice is
overridden, and he ultimately
dies a grotesque death.

Lewis is the leader of the
group. He is the man who
thought up the adventure, and
who is constantly talking of
getting back to nature and
pitting one's raw survival
ability against the elements.
Yet he is in no way separate
from his more "civilized"
friends, basically. His outward
masculinity is commented
upon by the nature of the
whole film, certainly, but no
sort of impotence is proved
when he breaks his leg. He is
still very much a part of the
scene, right to the end of the
film.

But the person Deliverance
is about more than any of the
others is Ed. He is presented
along with the rest of the four
in the first part of the movie,
with nothing to set him apart.
He is the modern suburbanite,
comfortable in the life he is
drifting through. To him this
weekend outing is just another
form of relaxation, calling
upon no deep feelings or
resources. He is at least as
capable as Lewis in the water,
and he accepts his jitters when
shooting an animal very
quietly.

Slow Slide

In the second half of the
movie, after the boat wreck, he
is featured. Drew is gone,
Lewis wounded, and Bobby
incapable. If he is to survive, he
must do everything himself.
And through the whole long
slow slide to the end of the
movie, he never rests again.

No masculine statement is
made when Ed kills the second
mountain man. He kills the
man more by accident than
anything else. What statement
is made is merely a human one,
and that simply by the
incredible amount of things the
man must do to stay alive and
safe.

At several points near the
end of the film the story could
have been ended very
satisfactorily, but James
Dickey really makes his point
by continuing the story as long
as he does.

Ed never rests. He must
keep on rowing, keep on
thinking, keep on holding in
his emotions and is penalized
any time he slips. Even at the
film's end we realize that the
story is not really over, because
Ed must keep on holding in the
truth of what happened, and
the guilt that he feels, and the
fear of being discovered.

Civilized Complacency

James Dickey's characters
sought to find nature when
they went down that river and
to relate themselves as men to
nature. They did it. They
found that which civilization
had taken from them,
especially Ed, and they took it
home with them. And that is
the necessity to struggle.

Modern civilization has
made it possible to just drift
through life without any real
problems, and without any real
satisfaction. Ed is shaken out
of his civilized complacency
and forced to constantly,
continuously, exhaustingly
fight for every minute of his
life and his peace of mind.

The great thing about
Deliverance is that whether or
not you find any profound
statements about modern life
or the masculine mystique, it is
an exciting and enjoyable film.
I recommend it.

(Now at the Cinema)