'Deliverance' Remastered
Burbank, California—Producer and director John Boorman's Deliverance (1972; 109 minutes) was recently released on a Deluxe Edition on DVD by Warner Bros. Besides Mr. Boorman's crisp, intricate work in prefacing the fable—four men canoe through hillbilly country and all hell breaks loose—and the movie itself, the remastered version is worth a look for several reasons.
Vilmos Zsigmond's (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) photography, with ample shots of northern Georgia, is on display, as is the author of the original source material, James Dickey, who wrote the novel of the same name and quite convincingly plays the lumbering sheriff. Casting by Lynn Stalmaster is one of several familiar Hollywood credits.
As many know, Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox portray the four suburban voyagers. Mr. Voight is spot on as ever as Ed, a reasonable fellow who has his wits about him and knows his limits, a good combination for this grueling outdoor adventure. In his first cinematic role, Ned Beatty, who went on to appear in Network and Rudy, plays Bobby, a character that figures prominently into one of the screen's most notorious scenes. Interviewed in the features, Beatty observes that, in his experience, women tend to understand Deliverance from the start.
Ronny Cox (Taps), in one of his first roles, plays Catholic Drew, who strums a guitar in a key pre-canoeing encounter with a banjo-playing backwoods boy whose face looks like it hurts. "I'm lost," Drew mutters to the silent boy after their musical duel, and Cox's character pays a heavy price for having intruded upon the kid's primitive, insular neck of the woods. Finally, there is Burt Reynolds, whose role as macho, sleeveless Lewis liberated him from his television roles as Hawk and Dan August. Mr. Reynolds fits Lewis to a tee.
Everyone probably knows someone like Lewis—exciting and adventurous but reckless—and it is Lewis who insists that the foursome rile half the hillside to get down to that river, Lewis who draws them deeper into dangerous deeds and Lewis who later slows the team's flight from nature. With his athletic ability and bravado, Mr. Reynolds, on the eve of dominating the Seventies' box office, nails the part. His lively comments about making Deliverance pepper the DVD's bonus bits.
All the principals participate in the five-part documentary, which is a logically arranged account—with Messrs. Zsigmond, Boorman, Voight and Reynolds—of this physically exhausting motion picture. The remastered print is very good and, while this is not the movie to watch with the wife and kids before the family camping trip—Mr. Boorman's Excalibur, even his British World War 2 movie, Hope and Glory, is more uplifting—Deliverance remains powerful.
A scratchy, old promotional piece with James Dickey signals the U.S. public's passive acceptance of environmentalism's premise that nature holds intrinsic value. Long before mandated recycling programs, the early Seventies was the era of environmentalist campaigns featuring Woodsy the Owl and the weeping Indian and it shows. Deliverance, which mines psychological and cultural themes, is often touted, even on this disc, as a warning against man's supposed encroachment on the wilderness. But it primarily works as a lesson for men to choose their company based on character and to honor the Boy Scouts' directive to be prepared. Deliverance is what happens when men aren't.
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RELATED ARTICLE
• 9/8/07 - Interview: Jon Voight
RELATED LINKS
• DVD: Deliverance (Deluxe Edition)
• Scott Holleran Column Index
Vilmos Zsigmond's (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) photography, with ample shots of northern Georgia, is on display, as is the author of the original source material, James Dickey, who wrote the novel of the same name and quite convincingly plays the lumbering sheriff. Casting by Lynn Stalmaster is one of several familiar Hollywood credits.
As many know, Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox portray the four suburban voyagers. Mr. Voight is spot on as ever as Ed, a reasonable fellow who has his wits about him and knows his limits, a good combination for this grueling outdoor adventure. In his first cinematic role, Ned Beatty, who went on to appear in Network and Rudy, plays Bobby, a character that figures prominently into one of the screen's most notorious scenes. Interviewed in the features, Beatty observes that, in his experience, women tend to understand Deliverance from the start.
Ronny Cox (Taps), in one of his first roles, plays Catholic Drew, who strums a guitar in a key pre-canoeing encounter with a banjo-playing backwoods boy whose face looks like it hurts. "I'm lost," Drew mutters to the silent boy after their musical duel, and Cox's character pays a heavy price for having intruded upon the kid's primitive, insular neck of the woods. Finally, there is Burt Reynolds, whose role as macho, sleeveless Lewis liberated him from his television roles as Hawk and Dan August. Mr. Reynolds fits Lewis to a tee.
Everyone probably knows someone like Lewis—exciting and adventurous but reckless—and it is Lewis who insists that the foursome rile half the hillside to get down to that river, Lewis who draws them deeper into dangerous deeds and Lewis who later slows the team's flight from nature. With his athletic ability and bravado, Mr. Reynolds, on the eve of dominating the Seventies' box office, nails the part. His lively comments about making Deliverance pepper the DVD's bonus bits.
All the principals participate in the five-part documentary, which is a logically arranged account—with Messrs. Zsigmond, Boorman, Voight and Reynolds—of this physically exhausting motion picture. The remastered print is very good and, while this is not the movie to watch with the wife and kids before the family camping trip—Mr. Boorman's Excalibur, even his British World War 2 movie, Hope and Glory, is more uplifting—Deliverance remains powerful.
A scratchy, old promotional piece with James Dickey signals the U.S. public's passive acceptance of environmentalism's premise that nature holds intrinsic value. Long before mandated recycling programs, the early Seventies was the era of environmentalist campaigns featuring Woodsy the Owl and the weeping Indian and it shows. Deliverance, which mines psychological and cultural themes, is often touted, even on this disc, as a warning against man's supposed encroachment on the wilderness. But it primarily works as a lesson for men to choose their company based on character and to honor the Boy Scouts' directive to be prepared. Deliverance is what happens when men aren't.
$
RELATED ARTICLE
• 9/8/07 - Interview: Jon Voight
RELATED LINKS
• DVD: Deliverance (Deluxe Edition)
• Scott Holleran Column Index
