Deliverence (1972) Queer Film A+

DIRECTOR: John Boorman

Screenplay by James Dickey based on his novel

Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond

Music Eric Weissberg (Dueling Banjos)

Editor: Tom Priestley

It is one of the most discussed and brilliantly directed moments in American cinema because it so bluntly exposes the film’s core themes of vulnerability, masculinity, and the collapse of civilized identity in the wilderness.

Adapted by James Dickey from his novel, the film opens with four Atlanta businessmen preparing to go whitewater canoeing down the Cahulawassee River in Appalachian Georgia before it becomes dammed.  Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is an avid outdoorsman and survivalist who leads the group.  Ed (Jon Voight) has been on several trips but lacks Lewis’s self-confidence, while Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox) are novices.  En route to their launch site, the men, particularly Bobby, are rude toward the locals, who in turn become hostile toward the “city boys”.  At a local gas station, Drew engages a young banjo-playing boy (Billy Redden) in a musical duel – the 1954 bluegrass composition Dueling Banjos by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith  – with his guitar.  The duel is mutually enjoyable, and some of the locals break into dance at the sound of it.  However, the boy does not acknowledge Drew when offered a friendly handshake.

The four friends travel down the river in two canoes, which briefly become separated.  Ed and Bobby encounter a pair of mountain men emerging from the woods, one of whom is armed.  Following a disagreement, the men force Bobby to undress, and the unarmed man rapes him, demanding that he “squeal like a pig”.  Ed is forced to watch, held at gunpoint, until one of the attackers prepares to harm him as well.  The assault is interrupted when Lewis arrives and kills one of the assailants with an arrow.

The event shatters the group’s illusion of control and forces them into a moral crisis about violence, survival, and the thin line between victim and perpetrator.  Bobby’s assault is the moment when the men’s fantasy of conquering nature collapses and, in their attempt to return to civilization, the film strips away their veneer of rugged male competence.

Beatty’s work is astonishingly brave for a debut role.  He plays the aftermath—shame, anger, and the need to reassert dignity—with a precision that keeps the film from slipping into caricature.  Superb work too by Reynolds (his best screen performance), Cox and particularly Voight, who gives a beautifully modulated performance culminating in one of the most impressive crying scenes ever captured on film.

Technically, the film is a marvel from Boorman’s razor-tight direction to Vilmos Zsigmond’s wide-screen cinematography (together with Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller the previous year, this was Zsigmond’s big Hollywood breakthrough, almost sixteen years after fleeing his native Hungary) to Tom Priestley’s immaculate editing.  The soundtrack was a surprise smash, going to number one on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, while the single “Dueling Banjos,” arranged and performed by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, went all the way to number 2 on the Hot 100.

Warner Bros.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube

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