The Problematics: There’s A Lot More To ‘Deliverance’ Than Its Notorious Rape Scene

You’ll probably think me quite a crotchety old man for saying this, but when I recently rewatched the film Deliverance — which, as of this publication date, is now available to stream on Netflix— the most shocking thing about it was that a film this thoughtful, understated and unconventionally assembled was actually the fifth-highest grossing film of 1972. (Weirdly enough, according to Wikipedia, the fourth highest grosser was Behind the Green Door, the Marilyn Chambers porno. The first was The Godfather, also a pretty thoughtful picture though not inordinately understated.)

When the film came out in that year, it was cited for its fealty to the best-selling-novel by James Dickey from which it was adapted. In that book, a group of four weekend buddies, characters who exemplified what would come to be known as “The New South” (a trope that has sunk deeper than the Titanic by now) decide to take a canoe trip on the Cahulawassee River (note: never a real river) before a damming project turns it and the territory around it into a giant lake.

Working from Dickey’s own screenplay, director John Boorman sketches his main characters on the soundtrack while the images below the opening credits show the damming project in progress. The Cahulawassee is “just about the last untamed, unpolluted unfucked-up river left” (according to the character we will come to know as Lewis). The project, he avers, is “gonna rape” the land around it. This trip — one from which Lewis promises his buddies he’ll get them back in time to watch “the pom pom girls” on Sunday Night Football — is their last chance to explore true wilderness.

Of course, as readers of the book knew —and truly, Deliverance was a very big deal in the “how are they going to make a movie out of THIS” conversations of its time— there is a very real and harrowing rape at the heart of the book, and the movie. The film’s quartet consists of four very different types: Lewis, played in a career-highlight performance by Burt Reynolds, is a self-visualized man’s man who can’t wait for “the system” to fail so his Hobbesian view of existence can play itself out. (These days we call such guys “libertarians.”) Ed, his best friend, is a more “complacent” suburban type who can’t bring himself to kill a deer. He’s played by Jon Voight, who shows himself an absolute master of underplaying here. Drew, played by Ronny Cox in his film debut, is a gentle, conscientious guitar picker. He’s the one who initiates the “dueling banjoes” section of the film, in which he trades furious string licks with a very withdrawn, possibly mentally disabled, hillbilly boy. Ned Beatty also makes his film debut as Bobby, a glib ad man who’s always saying something close to the wrong thing and makes a quick foe out of Drew. He’s a sufficiently grating character that some viewers may wish to see him get a comeuppance. But what happens to him is not something to imagine befalling anyone.

The movie builds so slowly and inexorably that the viewer becomes used to the idea of it being an ongoing water-bound argument between the four men. Then Ed and Bobby make a wrong turn at a bend in the river, come upon two fellows, one with a gun, and say a series of ill-advised things. Their reaction is way out of proportion.

The rape of Bobby is a sickeningly ugly event. Boorman shoots and edits it in an unshowy fashion that nevertheless fills the viewer with dread, because all you want the camera to do as the men force Bobby to strip, mock him, chase him, and then order him to “squeal like a pig” is to look away, and it never does, at least not until the act culminates in its final violation and humiliation.

The toothless grin of the second assailant as he observes of Ed, who has seen all this horror while tied to a tree, that he’s “got a purty mouth,” is cosmically appalling. But Lewis comes to the rescue before anything else is done. Spoiler alert: one of the two criminals dies. And this is where Boorman’s brilliance really hits home. The fellow, played by great character actor Bill McKinney, takes some time to expire. The audience has to wonder: what’s he thinking? Is he now somehow sorry for what he did? Is he trying to reverse time, re-engineer his actions to make the scene turn out differently? He points his hand shortly before he draws his last. What is he pointing to? In the meantime the toothless man has escaped, and he provides the momentum for the film’s remainder of plot.

But first: “There ain’t but one thing to do. Tell ’em what happened.” In most films made today, the characters would immediately unite to bury the body of the dead man, because most films made today have precisely zero concern about the ethics of homicide. (Dragged Across Concrete is a notable exception.) In Deliverance, the quartet argue, and passionately, about what they’re to do next. It’s not a game, Drew says. It certainly is, Lewis counters. For all his macho, he’s actually afraid about bringing in the law. Everyone’s in a fog. Eventually they dig the grave, with their hands.

Dickey’s plot is so well worked out it feels completely organic, and it gives Boorman plenty of room to experiment with atmosphere, and with shrinking and expanding time. We know, because of the scene where Ed can’t shoot a deer with a bow and arrow, that he’s somehow going to be called upon to shoot a man with one. And as he climbs a rock face to meet his mission, Boorman doesn’t shoot or cut the ordeal thriller style; instead, he tells the tale in a series of dissolves.

Ultimately the movie goes beyond harrowing into absolute heartbreak. Once the men who make it out are given shelter by some nice mountain people, Bobby finally can say the right thing, for once: “This corn is special isn’t it?”

While Dickey, who appears in the film near the end in a small but crucial role, would certainly say that his work made a substantial statement about MASCULINITY in the modern world, and while Boorman himself is the last guy to say he shies away from big statements, what makes Deliverance work as a film is its intimacy and specificity. Hence, the idea that the movie is some kind of indictment of “hillbillies” is patently ridiculous.

The presentation of Bobby’s rape, as awful to watch as it is, is endemic to Boorman’s approach. There’s not much music in the movie, aside from the famous guitar-banjo duet and some repetition of its themes; the movie doesn’t need it. The movie casts a spell through images both ugly and beautiful, and other sounds, none of them really reflecting the idea of “nature in harmony.” All here is dissonance, and the best one can do is find a thread of consolation within.

Veteran critic Glenn Kenny reviews‎ new releases at RogerEbert.com, the New York Times, and, as befits someone of his advanced age, the AARP magazine. He blogs, very occasionally, at Some Came Running and tweets, mostly in jest, at @glenn__kenny.

Where to stream Deliverance