Which "Deliverance" character are you?

[ForrestGump]

Or which one are you the most like?



I just watched Deliverance. Finally saw it beginning to end, having bought the DVD last night. It's got to be one of the best films ever made...up there, anyway. I was always more familiar with the somewhat similar Southern Comfort (a film I always love seeing) and it's great to catch up on a long-overdue viewing of this 1972 classic.

Pretty amazing backstory to the filming, too (it was a post here about the banjo-playing kid, whose story is interesting and somewhat surprising, that led me to finally get the DVD when I happened to see it). For one, Jon Voight actually climbed the 200' canyon walls -- no stunt man and no special effects. Crazy.

Anyway, I thought the four main characters were pretty much effective as distinct archetypes. If I had to choose only from the universe of the film, I'd probably rate mainly as Burt Reynolds' character, with a fair bit of backing off on the macho bravado while keeping the nature-boy aspect...more like the dude really is than the macho exterior. Maybe 60% Lewis, 35% Ed, and 5% Drew.

The characters in question are:

a) Ed Gentry (Jon Voight)


b) Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds)


c) Bobby Trippe (Ned Beatty)


d) Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox)


e) Lonny (Billy Redden)


f) Dentally-challenged rural gentleman (Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward)


g) Sheriff Bullard (James Dickey)

[lpbk2713]

1. The old dude that did the jig at the gas station

The one with the floppy hat.

[ForrestGump]

2. Dude, I like your hat

I think that part was played by Al Pacino. You know how these Method actors are...

[enigmatic]

5. I'll choose this, too

I usually dance like that when I find a kitty hairball in my shoe..

[Nomad559]

12. Video

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Banjo

:)

[Maddy McCall]

3. I am so waiting for someone to post that they are most...

like the Ned Beatty character. :silly:

Me? I'd like to think that I'm a survivor like Burt.

[ForrestGump]

6. Any chance you'll post your picture with a half-unzipped neoprene vest?

Just wonderin' :P

Actually, in the end it's arguable that Ned's character was the real ultimate survivor. He certainly got it together and TCB'd and he was perhaps more mentally resilient than either Ed or Lewis. Kind of ironic -- much to the story's benefit -- that the action-man and most capable survival expert was rendered effectively neutral by his injury for much of the most critical and heavy action.

I just found no Bobby inside me on the strength of who he was before his character arc started to, by necessity, wrap around almost to the point that it overlapped the more gritty survival-related qualities embodied by Lewis (and more overlapped by Ed as the situation forced him to become the dwindling group's protector). Bobby's too much like a lot of people I don't like much...my guess is that he'd be the character most likely to vote Bush Jr (Ed and Drew seem like liberals, to varying degrees, and Lewis could perhaps best be represented by a libertarian stripe...of course, even as recently as the '70s the US tended to the 'liberal' somewhat more than is fashionable in our increasingly-rightist society).

I do relate to Bobby in one respect, though, in that my employers have of late been metaphorically treating me the way that the mountain men treated Bobby during that particularly harrowing, famous scene (a scene I'd only seen vastly truncated by network-TV censors). Time to get a new job...

[Maddy McCall]

7. I do have a neoprene swimsuit.

It's a bikini, believe it or not. Kinda pointless to have a neoprene bikini, but I have one. :shrug:

Oooo...that "squeal like a pig" "purty mouth" scene, though. Horrific.

[ForrestGump]

9. Always wondered about neoprene bikinis

Still, I guess they keep important bits warmed up and help the wearer float the right way up.

Yeah, that whole scene is just horrible. It's so much more so because Jon Voight and Ned Beatty -- especially Ned -- perfectly (as in 100% realistically and without any degree of artifice or any hint that the craft of acting is going on) convey reactions that most of us would likely have. It's perhaps perfect acting, in that it does not seem like acting at all -- it's far too real and that makes the proceedings that much more excruciating to witness. Scary. I'm totally in awe of how natural it seems, but it was hard to watch.

The toothless dude wasn't even an actor...I think he was someone that Burt Reynolds had worked with in some wild-west show, down in Florida, and he recommended him to Boorman when the director was finding it impossible to cast the part. Good call, Burt.

[Hissyspit]

4. They are definitely archetypes. And it is definitely one of the best

movies ever. I can't believe you saw "Southern Comfort" first!

I relate to the Jon Voight character.

[ForrestGump]

8. You got a purty mouth?

Really...I never really saw it before, but in Jon Voight's face I could see a lot of Angelina Jolie's features. His lips, too, are rather full for a man, so it's perhaps not surprising that the fair Angelina is so often unfairly accused of collagenizing hers.

I still like "Southern Comfort" a lot. Similar in some ways but perhaps a more direct commentary on the Vietnam conflict. Powers Booth is always cool, too. Both had an evocative soundtrack (the duelling banjo theme and Ry Cooder's slide guitar) and beautiful cinematography and were set in scenery simultaneously beautiful and somewhat foreboding.

[LouisianaLiberal]

10. One of the best.

My favorite parts are in the beginning, in the many small ways that Boorman illustrates the significant differences between the two cultures, and lets you know early on that it is more than just culture shock.

The river cinematography is breathtaking. Have you read Dickey's novel? It is almost like reading perfectly constructed poetry. I read it in high school 25 years ago, and your post has made me want to read it again.

[ForrestGump]

11. Nope, I haven't read the book

I think I'm gonna have to, though.

Fair enough that you now feel compelled to read the book again, too...after all, I felt compelled to scour the Web for information on the film, listen to "Duellling Banjos," and pick up and watch the film as a result of a DU post. :-)

Yes, good build-up on the rural-urban schism, and the supremacy of Nature...also the fact that those people's lives are about to be buried beneath a lake because of the city folks. The question is whether they were being stalked right from the beginning or if the initial violence was the result of a random encounter. My guess is that it was the former.

[LouisianaLiberal]

13. You might be right about the stalking

but I think the strength of that scene is that it is the culmination of little instances shown earlier that hinted at the gulf between cultures and the inability to comprehend each other. Its as if they are different species. Even so, nothing prepares one for the primal horror that confronts the four men who are so removed from what, I guess, is unadulterated man. And you're right about the archetypes - I think Jung would have enjoyed it.

[VOX]

14. Don't forget the main mountain man ("Squeal like a pig!"), Bill McKinney!

And check out his Web site, http://www.squeallikeapig.com
Could I make that up????? While you're there, be sure to listen to his cover of "More (the Theme from Mondo Cane)." I couldn't make that one up, either! :bounce: