The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7e art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In 1972, the hippie movement and its proverbial return to the land were still very much in vogue, barely three years after the Woodstock festival. A little everywhere, we chanted the slogans “Make love, not war” and “ flower power ! “. Hence, in part, the shock produced by the film deliverance (Issuance), released on July 30 of that year. Indeed, in this story of four city dwellers who do not emerge unscathed, far from it, from a canoe trip, nature is anything but idyllic. Fifty years later, deliverance has lost none of its terrible power.
The protagonists are named Lewis, Ed, Bobby and Drew, and they are businessmen from Atlanta. Two of them will be injured, a third will suffer at the hands of rutting mountaineers and a fourth will perish.
The film is based on a novel by James Dickey, known and celebrated until then as a poet, who wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. A big success when it was published in 1970, the book attests to the author’s evocative power:
“Nature unfolded in silence. I told myself that it was time to be afraid, and the fear came immediately. What struck me most was the magnificent impersonality of the landscape; I would not have believed that she could hit me like that all of a sudden, or with such force. This silence and this noise of silence had nothing to do with us”, can we read, precisely, about this nature that the protagonists wrongly believe they can dominate.
Autobiographical origins
The novel is said to have autobiographical origins. A larger-than-life — no pun intended — character, James Dickey had an adventurous side and had made such odysseys by canoe. In a 2012 article by Men’s JournalDoug Woodward, who was a technical advisor for the canoe sequences as well as a stuntman for certain scenes, recalls an evening in the company of James Dickey and some friends of the latter in these terms:
“Dickey was an imposing figure, and his presence filled the room. But it was more than physical. A mystical aura surrounded him—hidden, perhaps sinister things—that he liked to nurture. There were references to the canoe trip that he and [Lewis] King had made years before with another close friend, Al Braselton. »
Impressions and memories that would have, in part, inspired the novel deliverance.
“Dickey did not describe the details of this trip,” continues Woodward. With a knowing smile, he simply said, “There’s a lot more truth to the story. [de Deliverance] than you think.” »
This canoe expedition took place on the Coosawattee River in northwest Georgia:
“With truth now eerily mimicking fiction, the Coosawattee was being dammed and the valley behind it would slowly fill in over the next two years, drowning out all traces of the history of those lives once tied to the river. »
Lewis King, co-guest and former crew member, later told Doug Woodward more.
“On what we have come to regard as the facts of this river voyage, now vanished into the mists of time… First, [King] pointed out: “You may think southern Appalachia is wild now, but in the 1930s and 1940s this country was really wild. A man who was perceived as a threat to the mountain people could simply disappear, permanently,” he said. “Murder was always a viable option, as few outsiders would snoop around these forests in search of the missing man.” »
For the account, it is this idea of a dam suddenly containing, and therefore taming, a river that appealed the most to John Boorman (Excalibur) — much more than the misadventures of the protagonists. Then a young English filmmaker living in Hollywood, Boorman set his sights on the novel after a friend recommended it to him. In a documentary about the film’s production, the director explains:
“My interest may have diverged from Dickey’s. Dickey belongs to this Southern tradition of survivalism; of American man forced to survive in the woods. For me, the fact that the river [de l’histoire] was about to be destroyed was a fantastic symbol of man’s attempts to conquer nature. »
Hectic production
Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox were cast in the lead roles. Between recklessness, casualness and arrogance, here is Ed, Lewis, Bobby and Drew, respectively, launched without their knowledge into the heart of darkness.
Shot in Georgia, the film experienced a production, like the river that inspired Boorman so much, hectic. Drunk, James Dickey burst onto the set one day and, angry that John Boorman had rewritten his dialogues, he broke his nose. The two men nonetheless became close friends thereafter.
Warner Bros. had allocated a budget of 2 million dollars, a small sum considering that the shooting was done in situ, far from the studios and Los Angeles. So we began to reduce production costs. For example, the actors not only agreed to perform most of their stunts, but also to proceed without being insured: Burt Reynolds almost broke his skull and Jon Voight risked his life climbing a steep wall during a a memorable scene.
Speaking of memorable scenes: impossible not to mention the now classic “banjo duel”, when Drew launches into an impromptu duet with a local teenager, or the painful scene of Bobby’s rape, which caused a commotion on the way out. . The infamous line of the aggressor “ Squeal like a pig ! » [« Couine comme un porc ! »] was, according to Boorman, improvised at the suggestion of one of the assistants.
In interview at Guardian in 2015, the filmmaker appointed deliverance as his favorite film among all those he had made, deeming it “perfectly composed, without a plan that was not justified”.
In the running for the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing, deliverance was a huge popular success and received wide critical acclaim. In the New YorkerPauline Kael best summed up the singular impact of the film: deliverance keeps audiences captivated with its cumulative, horrifying and alluring mannerism. The film displays the formalism of a nightmare. »
The film deliverance is available in VOD on most platforms.