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I'm willing to wager that after surfacing from Deliverance, there were plenty of white-collar workers who thought twice about booking a weekend in the backcountry. Rarely has such an unflattering portrait of a sub-culture been sketched out, forever colouring one's opinion. And who's to say that the film's wrong? Out there in the wilds of Georgia, it's easy to believe that different rules might apply; away from the taming influence of modern-day civilisation, anything could happen. Ironically that's exactly the quality that attracts the four urban businessmen of James Dickey's novel, the chance to pit themselves against Nature. Of course what they want is not actual risk but its semblance, a taster sharp enough to remind them that they're alive.
That's why Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds), a true back-to-basics fella, finds it relatively easy to coerce his friends into a river trip. In his mind this is the last untamed stretch of wildwater in the South, and it's about to be dammed; this is their last chance to sup from these heady waters. Ed Gentry (Jon Voight), also an experienced wilderness lover, agrees and packs his fine Canadian canoe. In contrast, Bobby Trippe (Ned Beatty) and Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox) are really along for the ride, ignorant of just what they've signed up for. Until they realise that Lewis knows as little about the river as any of them, the hope is that they'll get back in time for the ball game on Sunday. Afterwards, the consensus is that it'll be a miracle if they get back at all.
From start to finish, Deliverance is a film of rare power, focused towards a single end. It throbs with tension and fear, a reaction to the forces arrayed against our weekend paddlers. As the drama unfolds, Dickey skilfully guides you into contact with the characters, understanding their motivations. The four, Lewis and Ed leading, are well balanced, providing everything that the movie requires. Merely watching them paddle, gaining confidence from their rapid-shooting success, is a delight. When the hillbilly conflict arrives, from the merest bad timing, it propels the movie onto another level; yet the battle is mostly psychological, there's barely any contact between the two sides. This is where John Boorman's direction astonishes, in his conjuring of menace from thin air. He doesn't need to show us the danger, only the suggestion.
A critically important element is Vilmos Zsigmond's stunning photography, work good enough to grace the best natural history documentary. He captures the river in all of its moods, from placid calm to hurricane torrent. In Deliverance this beauty is lethal, drawing one in like a Siren, lulling the entranced into a false sense of security. Run those rapids the water cries, you're man enough to beat the odds, oh foolish adventurer. The beat of the paddles is a calming cadence, bewitching the unwary into a deep contemplation, right up until the point of inflexion. Then Zsigmond's shots become sinister, from an appreciation of surrounding wonder to a stalking menace, hidden and calculating. Peering through the branches, we become the hunter whilst simultaneously recoiling with the fear of their prey.
It's a palpable sensation, a horror so intense you want to curl into a foetal ball. The cast really does a superb job of communicating their terror, the certainty that they're mixed up in something beyond their comprehension. Reynolds and Voight take the ultimate honours in this, modulating themselves through the full gamut of emotion, moving from excitement to happiness to panic to grim desperation. Yet at the same time Deliverance never loses sight of their roots, the cultural decency that becomes something of a liability in this sort of situation. Beatty and Cox very nearly attain the same heights, with the former central to one of the most harrowing scenes in any '70s film. Several times Boorman leaves you open-mouthed in shock, stunned at the enormity of what you're witnessing, yet the actors are great enough to make the material hit home without numbing. This is a world turned upside-down and they're living through it.
In combining these elements Boorman creates one of the great suspense movies. Dickey's narrative is carefully structured for maximum impact, an effect enhanced in Deliverance by Tom Priestley's well-judged editing. The pace picks up with the film's memorable banjo duel and never lets up, not once. The characters are supremely ordinary and the cast, in a fine acting style, makes them believably naive. Thrust into the real-life Tallulah Gorge, the peril that they're in barely seems fictional, thanks to the awesome camerawork of Zsigmond. In his hands the river springs to life, toying with the unwise canoeists, pondering whether it should be merciful or merciless. Around these four there is scenery of intense hue and shade, a backdrop mighty enough to awe a brave man into weeping; yet they don't see it, so consumed are they by the desire to survive. It seems as though the hellish ordeal will never end, and in some ways it never does.
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