I wish I had read the novel before watching the movie, but I didn't. I've still never gotten around to reading it, but the film itself is one of the most powerful pieces of modern film making in the history of cinema.
Leaving the book on the back burner, 'Deliverance' is a movie in which a group of men find out what they're made of. The primal urge to get away from city life and, join nature at its most coherent level, ultimately ends up being their worst nightmare. The very thing they were trying to get away from confronts them right in the place where it was never supposed to happen.
Not only does the film commentate on risky subjects such as homosexuality, bestiality, and rape, it actually entwines the three into one big ball of shock. A film on survival, will, determination, trials, tribulations - and the heart it takes to overcome them all. Some groundbreaking movie making - not only with the location and casting, but with the true depiction of deep backwoods types.
The banjo scene goes down in history as one of the most memorable. Ronnie Cox and the 'banjo boy' playing 'Dueling Banjos' is probably one of the most sketched scenes ever.
Aside from being groundbreaking on a number of different levels, the modern backwoods slasher film owes a helluva lot to 'Deilverance'. Such films as 'The Final Terror '83', feature a backwoods killer in a remote area alongside a river. The Canadian film 'Rituals', also owes a lot to 'Deliverance'- as a trip in the woods goes horribly wrong for a group of hunters. 'Deliverance' set the stage for a number of cash-ins that still ride its coat tails until this day.
In a nutshell, 'Deliverance' 'delivers' - and it delivers big,
Leaving the book on the back burner, 'Deliverance' is a movie in which a group of men find out what they're made of. The primal urge to get away from city life and, join nature at its most coherent level, ultimately ends up being their worst nightmare. The very thing they were trying to get away from confronts them right in the place where it was never supposed to happen.
Not only does the film commentate on risky subjects such as homosexuality, bestiality, and rape, it actually entwines the three into one big ball of shock. A film on survival, will, determination, trials, tribulations - and the heart it takes to overcome them all. Some groundbreaking movie making - not only with the location and casting, but with the true depiction of deep backwoods types.
The banjo scene goes down in history as one of the most memorable. Ronnie Cox and the 'banjo boy' playing 'Dueling Banjos' is probably one of the most sketched scenes ever.
Aside from being groundbreaking on a number of different levels, the modern backwoods slasher film owes a helluva lot to 'Deilverance'. Such films as 'The Final Terror '83', feature a backwoods killer in a remote area alongside a river. The Canadian film 'Rituals', also owes a lot to 'Deliverance'- as a trip in the woods goes horribly wrong for a group of hunters. 'Deliverance' set the stage for a number of cash-ins that still ride its coat tails until this day.
In a nutshell, 'Deliverance' 'delivers' - and it delivers big,