Deliverance is a film that is pretty straight-forward in terms of the story. Four guys go into the woods ill-equipped to survive the hardships they face, they must make decisions that will forever change who they are because they are against their nature. The film begins with a lot of noise from the four men traveling in their cars to the deep backwoods of Georgia. They joke with each other in a very manly way that sounds more like insulting one another. And the character we gravitate to initially is Lewis because he is the most manly of the four men as they enter the mountains. He isn’t afraid to talk to the hillbillies with force nor to take charge of a situation that no one knows how to deal with. So, as the story unfolds and we watch the change in Lewis it’s important to see him as the physical of the four men. He operates from a place of physical strength, intimidation. It’s all about the fact that he can do things the other men can’t so that makes him the alpha. Once he breaks his leg though he is incapacitated and no longer the threat that the men need him to be for protection. Instead he’s just another man whose strength has been taken away and now serves only as weight to carry.
When we compare this with Ed’s journey we see that Ed is not a physical man. Though he is Lewis’ friend and wants to come on these trips he has a difficult time crossing over into the “wilderness” so to say. We see this when he is unable to kill the deer one morning. Psychologically he doesn’t have the nerve to cross the line. Thus when Ed must take another man’s life because he is the only one capable at this point--Lewis’ leg is broken, and Bobby doesn’t know how to use a bow and arrow--we see that he pays a great price. He goes from a man lounging on the canoe in the river drinking a cold beer to a man at home who has nightmares about the river and the life he’s taken.
The entire film hinges on the nature of man to be strong physically and mentally, and the fact that when one acts in opposition to his nature he becomes something far different than he could imagine. The “macho” ideal causes these men to go to the river. They want to feel macho and they want to prove they are macho to Lewis. But the reality is that they are only living against their nature. They were not built for the woods, as men who have to survive. They were molded into family men who have nice jobs in the city. Thus Deliverance is a film that analyzes the choice to go against the nature of who one is as a man in order to prove their masculinity. But by doing so the man makes himself vulnerable to great dangers he’s never faced before. Dangers that have life or death consequences which will last with him until the end of his days.
