Feature article
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Avoid canoeing tips in ’Deliverance’
By Doug Janz
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| Johnson City writer Doug Janz, who writes for GoTriCities about outdoor adventures in the Tri-Cities and beyond, once drank a beer with "Deliverance" author James Dickey at The Cottage in Johnson City |
Not long ago I watched a couple movies that aren’t exactly about outdoor sports, but they involve people who run into big trouble while they’re out there.
The first one is "Deliverance," and there aren’t many movies more well-made. I have no gripe with the realism of the scenes; in fact, the actors really did spend a lot of time canoeing and swimming around in the Chattooga River in Georgia, not far below the Tennessee line.
The water scenes are terrific, but we Monday-morning armchair quarterbacks can offer a few tidbits of game advice on what the poor fools should have done differently.
First of all, don’t go onto a wild river without knowing something about it. And don’t take a group of completely inexperienced paddlers onto a wild river you don’t know anything about.
I blame Burt Reynolds for these mistakes. It’s his character who brings along three buddies who don’t know what they’re doing. He lets them take on Class II-III rapids with no previous experience or instruction.
It was also a mistake for the Ronny Cox character, the guy who gets shot and ends up grotesquely tangled on a tree limb in the river, to refuse to wear his life jacket. A PFD is essential on almost any whitewater river. And he wasn’t even the guy who got bushwacked by the hillbillies; that was Ned Beatty, who still had the sense to don his jacket after he got his pants back on.
Then they eventually get to what’s perhaps a Class IV, actual waterfalls, and, in a moment of desperation, decide to paddle it instead of portage, since they’ve got a toothless mountain maniac out in the woods looking for revenge on them.
Big problems. They flip, lose a team member, a canoe, and suffer a broken leg. This truly is a worst-case scenario.
Oh yeah, their biggest mistake — they should’ve stayed away from guys who think fooling around with a pig is fun and romance. I mean, this can only lead to trouble.
At least Burt and the Jon Voight character are pretty good shots with an archery bow. I really enjoyed seeing those mountain men take an arrow. It’s just that kind of movie.
Ironically, the problems the kids in "The Blair Witch Project" encounter are probably even worse than "Deliverance," because none of them come back alive.
Again, I think this is a really well-made movie, a unique production, and a fascinating study of how people in the woods can completely lose themselves and their wits. (Finding goo all over the place doesn’t help any.)
And again, it’s a matter of a team leader taking her crew into a place she knows nothing about, without telling anyone exactly where they’re going, and she’s the only one who knows how to read the map. And even that’s questionable.
They seem fairly well-prepared for a simple weekend in the forest, not at high altitude or in winter conditions, except one of them wears blue jeans to hike in the rain, not a wise choice for staying warm and dry or to move easily.
Then they get off the trail and things start going bad. Remember never to get off the trail if you don’t know where you are. In this case, they hike all day, then end up right where they started. I did that driving my car in Norfolk, Va., once.
One of the three kids looks at the map and tells the others: "This is Greek to me. This is useless." Later this evolves into shouting and screaming when one of the boys announces that "I kicked the map into the creek. It was useless."
(Note: In the "More Than You’ll Ever Need to Know" category, there’s a deleted scene, set inside the tent, where Mikey says he’s really sorry he kicked the map into the creek, but points out that Joshua actually had the map and threw it onto the ground in frustration, after which Mike finished things off with the fatal kick.)
Obviously, losing tempers, arguing, and sticking a movie camera into everyone’s face is not the formula for getting out of this predicament, but that’s what they do.
Heather, the fearless leader, tells her crew: "It’s very hard to get lost in America these days, and even harder to stay lost. So we’ve got that on our side."
Which, of course, is not true. It’s easy to get lost. The first step is to underestimate your chances of getting lost. Next is leaving the trail, then refusing to admit you’re lost, and then losing your cool.
Also, my best advice here would be not to wander around in haunted woods. You can’t say they didn’t have fair warning. All the creeps in that weird little town told them not to go. It was advice they should have followed.
My favorite line comes during their fruitless wanderings, as they’re about to crack up, when one of them says, "Somebody’s (bleeping) with your head."
"But nobody knows we’re out here," says the other.
"Yeah, but did you ever see ‘Deliverance’?"
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Johnson City writer Doug Janz, who writes for GoTriCities about outdoor adventures in the Tri-Cities and beyond, once drank a beer with "Deliverance" author James Dickey at The Cottage in Johnson City. E-mail Doug at DouglasJanz@aol.com
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