Hacker Cinema
Deliverance
1972 · Film · 109 min
Directed by John Boorman
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
7 positive1 negative16 neutralfrom 24 commenters
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24 comments on Hacker News
Idk, I’ve seen Deliverance, plus all those horror movies that start out on some desolate road in the woods at night. Seems likely a fair depiction of country living.
No thank you, I’ll stay in Manhattan and not get kidnapped and murdered by monsters tyvm.
It's quintessential-Tarantino, but I don't ever recommend it anymore (start with Django or Reservoir Dogs). Decades ago I shared this movie with college friends — mostly because we enjoyed decadence.
If you've not seen Pulp Fiction by 2026 [0], how can I safely recommend you submit yourself to hours of semi-disconnected robberies, rapes, and deceit? It's a great movie, EEAaO is just better storytelling.
[0] similarly, how does one recommend the acclaimed Deliverance without blushing?
> it’s only about 2-3 times a year that anything comes out worth seeing.
This was probably always true, with some randomly amazing years every now and again, like 1972 (The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, What's Up Doc?,...).
IMDB listing shows 470 films released US in 1972. Google says there are ~3,900 IMDB entries for 1972 (why the 4X discrepancy?). The hit ratio was veeeery small even in killer years.
I punched in 1972 and there were some fantastic movies that year (The Godfather, Deliverance, Cabaret, Solaris, Jeremiah Johnson, Aguirre - the Wrath of God, The Last House on the Left, Silent Running, The Heartbreak Kid, Fat City, etc.).
Also tried 1973 — same (The Day of the Jackal, Soylent Green, Westworld, The Wicker Man, Papillon, American Graffiti, The Sting, Serpico, Mean Streets, High Plains Drifter, Don't Look Now, Badlands, The Long Goodbye, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Three Musketeers, Fantastic Planet, etc.).
I think they simply made better movies decades ago.
It's pretty common for people to watch movies like Deliverance and then think that wide swaths of America are like that.
Banjo players of HN, represent! I’m the banjo player for “You, Me, Everybody” < https://youmeeverybody.bandcamp.com/album/you-me-everybody >. Our song “Stranger” was featured in S02E04 of Netflix’s “Sweet Tooth”, and that’s us (in make up!) playing it at the start of the episode.
My dubious claim to fame is that I believe I was the first person to put banjo tablature on the web, possibly the net as a whole. I used EMACS (eight megabytes and continuously swapping, indeed) in 92 or 93 to make ASCII art of tab:
+———0————— +————————- +-0—————0— +————————- +—————0———
We’re living in a real golden age of banjo today. There are technical virtuosos in all areas, prominent banjo players who don’t use it for yuks, and it’s a sound people recognise but don’t pull back from.
The article author alludes to the terrible times after “Deliverance” was released. For 20 years that movie dominated perceptions of banjo and banjo players. Every banjo player today still gets asked for Duelling Banjos but, in my experience at least, no more “squeal like a pig” comments or associations with inbreeding. Mumford and Sons, “O Brother Where Art Thou”, and Taylor Swift have all done their part to normalise the sound of the banjo.
I love it. It’s hard to be sad when you’re playing the banjo. (Insert obligatory comment about how it’s easier to be sad when someone else is playing the banjo. And yes, I’ve heard all the banjo jokes. And seen the Gary Larson cartoon. And the Thunderstruck video. And the one with the band walking down the train tracks. Every banjo player gets those sent to them on a regular basis, it’s part of the job)
This this this this this. This problem is getting _worse_ in the superstar cities due to immigration: the questions I've had people ask me about growing up in the South from born-wealthy Indians, Brits are absolutely insane.
People genuinely believe that Deliverance is a documentary, and that Now This' representations of the Deep South are 100% unbiased.
The South in many ways sucks and I'm happy to talk about that, but the things that New Yorkers/SF/Seattleites believe about the region has very little overlap with reality.
For example, there's a TON of Korean immigrants on the Georgia/Alabama line from Hyundai Kia plants who stay because it's so religious. People should talk about stories like that when discussing the oddities of the South, not JUST how awful Poor White Trash is.
Blockbuster carried the latest movies from all the studios. Everything newest and most desirable. They had a smattering of classics and art house and older genre films, but mostly it was about everything latest and greatest.
Netflix streaming seemed like that at first, but better! Now, they have a tiny slice of content. And as a content-producer, they seem willing to throw money at anything B-list.
Meanwhile, the studios became more risk averse as people started preferring to watch at home. Then theaters shut down and studios became more risk averse. And Netflix and Amazon arose and started playing studio games and studios became even more risk averse.
That trajectory of fear is mirrored in the content. The 1970s were known for directorial freedom and risk-taking. The 70s gave us Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Star Wars, Animal House, Annie Hall, Rocky, Halloween, Smokey and the Bandit, Deliverance, MASH, and more - not all high art but all complete gems. Every decade since, we've seen a gradual progression toward samey-ness.
From the top of my mind that movie is "Terminator 2".
Runners-up: "Scent of a woman" and "The talented Mr. Ripley". Several Woody Allen movies are worth to revisit. "Deliverance" and "Pulp fiction" also.
> Why would anyone pay to advertise in Economist when they can advertise to "people interested in economics, earning over 150k, last thought about cigarettes three weeks ago" etc.
Isn't the economist subscription-based?
Regardless, I'll bite: Isn't an important reason because someone wants to signal to the world that "everyone knows" their company is a sexy, category-defining beast?
E.g., there are Coca Cola machines that span both physical space (can be found in any region of the country) and time (everything from a machine built yesterday to half a century ago). When a human notices this their long-term memory probably goes, "Oh, Coca Cola has been and must still be one of the most important soft drinks," and-- just guessing here-- that increases the probability that their impulsive choice is for Coke in cases where thirst is involved.
If someone asked the question, "Why would Coca Cola want their soft drink ad in a rickety old gas station in an area of Northern Georgia that's still associated with the movie Deliverance?" they'd be confusing cause and effect.
Same logic applies here. I'd assume that advertising in [old media's digital presence] is an effect of an ad campaign that seeks to deliver an image of said ubuiquity.
Yeah, banjos have high association with hillbilly which in turn doesn't exactly invoke high intellectualism.
As a person who learned some basic music growing up, I like to think I appreciate music more than I would otherwise. That to me is the life win.
And I am utterly awed by a banjo player in full rock out mode!
I mean, Deliverance movie is one of the most well known examples that popularised the stereotypes mentioned above. It practically defined for most people the "da-da-dingdang-dingdang-dingdang-dung" series of notes people think of with a banjo. But even in this most contrived example, damn if it doesn't get going full amazeballs after 2:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsC4kf6x_Q0
A great banjo player is a heck of a thing.
To be fair, Deliverance was a bit more recent of a movie when you left, so one could see why they made such references, unfair as they were and still are (that said, I know for a fact that characters as depicted in the movie do exist, we just don't run into 'em often - good thing - nor really discuss them - bad thing).
Hot Fuzz, U-Turn, Dogville (others already mentioned them).
Deliverance (of course)
The Lottery ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116924/ tv movie, based on a great short story)
The Wicker Man
Twin Peaks
Cold in July
Have you actually ever lived in Alabama? Or are your views based on anecdotes and stereotypes of the South? I lived there for a short while and it's not Deliverance. In my experience it's a lot more integrated than the Bay Area.
Note: (spoilers?) Deliverence doesn't actually paint the negative picture of the south that people associate with the movie. It's just as much about prejudices people have against rural people.
This is one of those movies I used to watch every now and then with my dad when I was a teenager (although it's way too long to watch in one sitting). It's one of my father's favorites, along with Rio Bravo, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Deliverance (I wholeheartedly recommend all of them, the last one is some heavy shit). Such a shame that most people get to experience it in the butchered version. And to think we were getting the real thing on Polish cable TV and didn't even appreciate it...
From an old IT guy, none of this is new ... Scott Adams (of Dilbert) noted it in 1998: http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-04-06
That was 18 years ago.
Particularly raw for Dilbert: "Squeal like a pig" is from the 1972 movie "Deliverance" and refers to a assault that was one of the most disturbing US mainstream movie scenes of the 1970s.
The only real improvement in all that time that I can think of: password managers. I almost said Single Sign On, but that comes with its own security issues.
I have a friend I grew up with in Florida that for some reason developed an extremely thick southern accent (I didn't).
He never finished college but started a machining company making parts for the food industry and has done very well making many times the money I have. He is a reasonably smart guy but most people wouldn't guess it talking to him. He sounds like he stepped directly out of the "Deliverance" movie. I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw him a year or two ago and even though he hasn't lived in the south in years, I swear his accent has gotten worse.
Obviously this would be a huge negative in certain professions in certain locations. But it certainly hasn't prevented him from succeeding. In fact, my theory is that it has helped and this is why the accent has gotten stronger.
His employees are mostly machinist/welder types. No way to say sissy to those guys more than speaking properly without accent. So maybe it give his some credibility with that crowd. He also does high dollar contracts for major companies. I bet more than a few times he has been sized up as "dumb hick we are going to take advantage of" and been severely underestimated in negations. Point being, in some times and places appearing a dumb hick might get one further than talking smart. Not in the software industry in California necessarily. There appearing smart might be more important than actually being smart:)
My favorite movies, but for no particuliar reason:
Platoon
Wall street
Three days of the condor
Chinatown
Sunset Boulevard
The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies)
Any Andy Griffith episode
Bicycle thieves 1948
Niagara
Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films)
The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.)
Giant
Rebal without a cause
Leaving Las Vegas
Blow out (all three)
Saturday night fever
Yes, even Urban Cowboy
One flew over the cocos nest
Deliverance
Hanna and her sisters
East of Eden
Dr. Strange love
Back to the future
Jaws
In cold blood(with Robert Blake)
In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name)
The asphalt jungle 1948?
All about eve
The hot rock
Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.)
A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.
"I find this fear of city denizens exists almost exclusively in people in rural areas"
I saw Deliverance, a documentary about life in rural America, and have the same worries about that part of the country. I don't want to squeal like a pig.
> "People come here because they say they can hear the electrics"
That phrase is straight out of a Deliverance-like horror film.
Well the Congressional Cinema Club could put on some special showings and ask for sponsorship
- Car Manufacturers Lobby: Bullit
- Anti Car Lobby: Duel
- Trans-Atlantic Airlines Lobby : Titanic
- Construction Lobby: Bridge over the River Kwai
- Elon Musk : Iron Man 1 or 3 (but not 2)
- The Hamptons Tourist Board: The wicker man
- The Banjo Players association of America: Deliverance
- Tesla Car Showrooms: Death of a salesman
- Climate Change Deniers Lobby: Some Like It Hot
- Liberal Atheists for a kinder America: Any Harry Potter
This is a large category.
There are tricky cases of defensible portrayals of sex involving children, e.g. Schlöndorff's adaptation of The Tin Drum (which was banned in Canada as child pornography), and narratives that document the child sex industry, but they are rare by comparison. With artistically and morally defensible portrayals of rape, the range is huge. sspiff mentions A Clockwork Orange; even Jeffrey Archer (former senior Tory politician) wrote a novel with a rape scene. I also recall that when Virginia Bottomley (another former senior Tory politician) was asked to name her favourite film, she named Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is quite voyeuristic, and Hitchcock has filmed what I would class as morally indefensible rape scenes. The idea that moral guardians go about forbidding various classes of transgressive art forms that they themselves admit to enjoying is quite ironic.
For the sake of having some sort of a list: Bandit Queen, Deliverance, and Leaving Las Vegas all have hard-to-watch, defensible, and narratively necessary rape scenes. The victim in Bandit Queen I think was supposed to be prepubescent. And didn't Slumdog Millionaire have a child rape scene?
Bugsy, I don't doubt that a lot of really horrific stuff has gone down in Saipan, owing in large part to the US's willingness not to enact labor laws there until just recently. But can you see how your method of saying this out overshadows the point your trying to make?
If someone were to walk up and say "Mexicans are lazy," most of us would consider that person racist. Nevermind that "lazy" is a culturally relative term, but you go way beyond that when you describe the Saipanese as "the worst fundamentalist christian ignorant half retarded hillbilly sex fiend town straight out of the movie Deliverance...", and you only hedge that toward the end by saying your comments apply to the people in power.
You getting downvoted has nothing to do with people trying to promote political beliefs. (Most of us didn't have any opinion on Saipan until now.) It's about maintaining the otherwise typically high quality of discussion on HN.
Want to point out that Saipan's lack of labor laws led to terribly exploitative behavior up into this decade? Please do. Want to share your personal frustration in dealing with Saipan's corruption? Sure, I'm interested. But please leave the abusive ranting for someplace else.
Apart from those already mentioned by others, some challenging classics:
Zorba the Greek Ikiru (Living), by Akira Kurosawa Babette's Feast La Strada La double vie de Véronique Lawrence of Arabia It's a Wonderful Life Jakob the Liar Citizen Kane Deliverance Dogville
Worth noting that none of these are "feel-good" american movies. They're "kick you in the balls and get you busy living" movies. I much prefer those to simple feel-good movies. If you want feel-good, just go watch some reruns of Friends (I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing; I do it quite often; but those are not the best inspirational movies by a long shot).