Deliverance

Four suburban men decide to take a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River just before the land is flooded and turned into a lake.  It’s all the idea of wilderness enthusiast Lewis (Burt Reynolds), the other three would just as well play golf.  Ed (Jon Voight) seems to be closest to Lewis and wonders why he always comes on these trips.  Bobby (Ned Beatty) is the clumsy, chubby insurance agent.  Drew (Ronny Cox) seems to be the soft soul who brings a guitar and enjoys a round of the iconic Dueling Banjos with an odd looking boy from the hills just before they set off to find the river.  Right away, these Hill People seem ominous, but our over-confident suburban warriors aren’t worried.  Lewis especially seems too into his survivor-man delusion to realize that they are not on home turf.

The journey stars off fine, like a weekend scout retreat.  Their first encounter with the rough water leaves the boys feeling like champions, especially Lewis who starts comparing themselves to the first explorers of the American wilderness.  That night, they relax and rest easy, even after a fleeting feeling that there may be someone else in the woods.

The next day is when the trip turns deadly.  When Ed and Bobby paddle ahead and stop for water, they run into a couple of Mountain Men, one carrying a rifle.  The scene plays out slowly, like a tense nightmare and leaves Ed tied with his own belt around his neck to a tree and Bobby sexually assaulted squealing “like a pig.”  When Drew and Lewis finally catch up, Lewis shoots the rapist dead with his bow and arrow.  Now the boys are facing vengeful Hill People, harsh wilderness and a load of dark secrets that they just want to keep buried under the water.  If they make it out alive, how can they hide it from the law, or live with themselves?

The film is as gritty and realistic as it’s rustic setting.  With a small budget, the actors did their own stunts.  Jon Voight really did scale that cliff and Burt Reynolds broke his coccyx when being thrown down the rapids.  For authenticity, many of the hill people were real local residences.

I would not call Deliverance a film everyone can really enjoy watching.  It’s the kind that can make you feel very powerless and if you don’t agree with the decision the men make along their journey, it’s harder to connect to them.  While the infamous “squeal like a pig” scene can seem like a hillbilly cliché, it really is disturbing and frightening.  I don’t plan trusting anyone I find in the woods, whether he’s got all his teeth or not.  Now that my husband has seen Deliverance, I don’t think I can ever convince him to go camping.

“Looks like we got us a sow here instead of a boar.”

Bound for Glory

This film is an biopic of Woody Guthrie, but captures the essence of the Great Depression and shows a spirit that helped so many people through such a tough time.

In 1936 Woody (David Carradine), his wife and two small daughters live in Texas.  He does work now and then as a sign painter, but he never looks for real steady work.  He seems to have an artists mentality and wants to work more for the satisfaction of helping others, rather than money.  After the huge dust storm sweeps through town, one by one people start to leave.  With talk that California is full of jobs, Woody departs as well, leaving his family behind.

The road west is long and unwelcoming.  Woody hitchhikes for a while and then hops aboard trains, but each as their risks.  If you get caught riding the rails, it’s back to walking and hitchhiking again.  And the Arizona desert isn’t very forgiving.

Along the way, Woody pairs up with a young family, traveling from one plantation to the other looking for picking jobs.  The camps setup outside the plantations are such a sad sight, people of all ages are stuck in a dusty limbo and of the thousands willing to work, only about thirty are picked every day and their pay is pitiful.

One day at the camp, a man with a guitar shows up and starts rallying the people, urging them to form a union.  This is Ozark Bule (Ronny Cox), he sings songs to boost the camps moral half the night, but is run off by the plantation bosses.  When he has to flee, Ozark takes Woody with him to record his songs.

Well, it’s been over an hour into the film, and we finally get to Woody’s folk singing career.  That may bother some people, but in order to understand the importance of Woody’s career, we need to see where he’s been and what is happening all around him.  The journey is much more important than the destination.

Anyway, so Woody starts recording, making good money and brings his family out west now that he can finally support them.  But the radio bosses won’t let him sing anything about the Dust Bowl, poor fruit pickers or anything to do with the hard times he came from.  Somewhere along the line Woody will have to decide if he’s a musician for the money or for the people.

The film won Best Music and Best Cinematography.  The way the film is shot gives it a kinda foggy look or vintage feel, like old photographs of your grandparents.  I really enjoyed it though, it makes the film feel authentic, but not gritty.  It’s like the sun is hazing through the dust that has never settled.

Bound for Glory is very enjoyable if you’re up for something that feels like The Grapes of Wrath with a folk music story.  The thing to remember is that the story comes first and the music is secondary, but I think that’s the way to go with this film.  It has its priorities straight.

“Don’tcha ever get embarrassed that you have so much when so many people have nothing?”