A brilliant, albeit disturbing film. You must see it, if only to understand the pop cultural references to it. Within the context of the movie, though, they’re not quite as funny–whenever I watch the “squeal like a pig” scene, it gives me the creeps. It’s also remarkable as one of the first decent movies in the “modern suburbanite man versus nature/creepy locals” genre. Great performances from Voight and Beatty, and Reynolds seems pretty natural acting as an arrogant jerk.
The beautiful thing is, I’ll soon be moving to the area nearby the Chattooga river, on which they filmed many of the river scenes. If I get lost on my way, though, I don’t intend to stop and ask for directions.
“You done took a wrong turn.” :eek: Perhaps the scariest line ever spoken in a movie.
Duel was based on a short story by an unknown young writer named Stephen King. It opened a lot of doors for him. The story was first published,IIRC, in Playboy.
The theme of characters in conflict with or being alienated from their environment is a one of long-standing interest for Boorman, whether it’s in natural settings (Deliverance, Hell in the Pacific, Emerald Forest, Beyond Rangoon) or man-made ones (Point Blank, Hope and Glory, The General).
Not the easiest film to watch, but one still worth seeing.
I know you meant the analogy in a respectful and admiring way, but I think this comment is terribly unfair to Heart of Darkness.
I can see why you might see parallels. The central theme of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is man’s exploration of his own nature, specifically his potential to be either noble or savage (the secular equivalent of what, in a more religious era, would be considered the fight to achieve salvation rather than damnation). Conrad’s point is that the noble character lives with the comforting and self-serving view that he is comprehensively distinct from the savage, and also superior. However, when the noble character strays from his safe intellectual and moral isolation, and actually encounters the savage, he may find that the distinctions are not as great as he believed, and that ‘superiority’ is an entirely relative term.
Conrad’s exposition of these themes in Heart of Darkness, and also in Nostromo, is masterly and compelling, and many Dopers would enjoy reading both. Conrad’s great gift was to blur the traditional novel writer’s distinction between ‘characer’ and ‘atmosphere’, which he regarded as somewhat artificial and also weak, such that atmosphere is created through character and vice-versa. This is one reason why both books present the reader with an almost overwhelming sense of dark mood and almost unbearable tension.
I think Deliverance is a reasonably good movie. I don’t think it is in the same league as Conrad’s masterpiece, and I doubt it will prove to have the same enduring appeal. There is something for every new generation to discover in Conrad’s work. I remain sceptical that the same can be said of the movie.
When I first saw Deliverance as first-run, before the word was out, I was expecting just another travelogue-pretty film. They did use the big, super-wide screen Cinerama camera (the single-film anamorphic version, not the 3-film one) and the wild river scenes are spectacular. Then I found out there was a lot more to the flick than just raw nature – even raw-er nature. I definately would include it in my all-time 100 list; it’s not a throwaway.
IMDB claims that this story actually relates to the hiring of Herbert ‘Cowboy’ Coward, who is listed as the “Toothless Man”, not the hillbilly rapist. I think the URL is too long to include here without getting cut off, but it’s the last tidbit in the “Trivia” section on Deliverance.
Very debatable. I like Heart of Darkness, but I think the overt racism badly undercuts the message Conrad was trying to convey. It makes too many cultural assumptions that are purely a product of the time in which it was written, which will ultimatly render it more of a cultural artifact than a living work of literature. On a purely personal level, I found Deliverance to be a much more effective exploration of the same themes, although it’s still too soon to know if it will have the same longevity as Conrad has enjoyed thus far.
And we should remember that James Dickey had only published poetry before Deliverance and the novel depends largely on the economy of good poetry and the apparently unconcious comparison between the “higher” and “lower” elements of people’s actions. A reading of some of Dickey’s poetry will show you what he was getting at, He had a beautiful immediacy:
And I to my motorcycle
Parked like the soul of the junkyard
Restored, a bicycle fleshed
With power, and tore off
Up Highway 106 continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth
Wringing the handlebar for speed
Wild to be wreckage forever
In addition to “Squeal like a pig” Deliverance also made a musical icon: the opening banjo lick from “Dueling Banjos.” Used in just about every cheesy comedy to denote being anal-raped by an inbred mountaineer.
Or used simply to denote that the main characters are in some backwoods place better left alone. Like in Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation and some recent commercial for a product that I can’t remember at the moment.
The first viewing had me on the edge of my seat. Spielberg did some ego-tripping in Duel. Watch it closely and in one short scene, you will see a vehicle parked on the shoulder and on its side is send “Grebleip’s Exterminating” (Spielberg spelled backwards).
You know, I was going to post about Tiny Toons…I find it comforting that I’m not the only one who immediately thought of that.
I’ve only seen Deliverance once, and it was the edited-for-tv version, and it really sucked. I hope to get a chance to see it again soon, now that I’m older, supposedly more sophisticated, and can get a hold of it on DVD.