Sorcerer

As I "review" films I often make a note of what my expectations were going into the film, and how those
expectations affect my level of enjoyment. It's typically an inverse relationship with low expectations often resulting in a high enjoyment of the film. That is to say, it's easier to enjoy a movie if you bring in low expectations, as it's harder to enjoy a movie with high expectations. Oftentimes, I think of it as a crutch, and it's easy to dismiss or praise a film based on that binary scale. Every so often though, I bring in expectations not of general quality, but regarding specific elements, which can either be met or not met, and in turn, my satisfaction could go either way. For an early example, I look back to the original Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. In this case, I knew very little and didn't expect very much, but I did want to see some great skeletal action - you could say I wanted an update on the old Clash of the Titans skeleton combat that I so thoroughly enjoyed as a child. I got it, and much more (did anyone expect such a clever performance from Depp though, really).

Over the past few weeks I've been keeping tabs on the latest Blu-ray releases, and saw a movie named Sorcerer come up on a frequent basis. I hadn't heard of the film before, and for some reason, I never sought out any information on it. I would see the cover art - and this is crucial - in thumbnail form alongside other April releases, but I would never click on it. I saw news of different editions, and discovered that the film is from 1977 and directed by William Friedkin, a name of whom I did not recognize (although in retrospect I should have, being the director of The Exorcist). None of this was on purpose, but it ended up being quite the experiment in what your expectations can do to a film.

I'll allow you to stop reading now if you don't want to know more about the movie - an effort for me to pass onto you the ability to view the movie with a completely blank slate. (So spoilers ensue, of course.)

When you take a look at the cover art above, you see the name of the film, a pillar of smoke and something on fire, with an ominous set of eyes in the background. With a name like this, I can only assume that there is a sorcerer in the movie, the eyes belong to him and there is some crazy magic going on that is causing everything to burn. It's a pretty eye catching piece of art, which honestly, convinced me to have a look at the film. I had heard some comments as well that the remaster of this film was well done, with Friedkin being involved and submitting his approval for the release. This makes me think that it's a bit of a neglected cult classic from the seventies, and would fit in perfectly with all the other movies I've been taking in recently.

The first words of dialogue are in French, and continue to be for another five or ten minutes. Halfway through this scene, I seriously questioned whether I had the right movie: there was no sign of Roy Scheider and certainly no fantasy elements that would lead me to believe there is an actual wizard/sorcerer involved. We then cut over to Roy, the sub titles stop and we're treated to another five to ten minutes of unrelated-to-the-first-scene action. The only common theme between these two characters are the trouble their in (although it's different type of trouble), which causes them both to flee the country to fairly ambiguous South American country (well, it may not be ambiguous, I just don't remember which one it was and I don't feel it's important to the story). We don't have a good indication of how much time has passed, but it doesn't matter: these guys, along with some others, are stuck in this town, working as general labour and being hassled by the local authorities. Hassled to the point where they extort a third of their wages, which makes the dream of getting out of here that much more impossible, as money is tight and nobody can afford to travel.

A group of rebels set fire to an American refinery of sorts, our four outcasts are given an opportunity to make a lot of money, at the risk of their lives. They are tasked (voluntarily) with transporting extremely unstable dynamite two hundred miles to the location of the fire by truck. It speaks to their dire desperation for escape, but also to

Do you notice the lack of sorcerers in the film? I sure did, when I realized about a quarter of the way through that this movie has nothing to do with magic. What I end up with may actually be better: a harrowing, tension driven tale of four men desperate to escape their purgatory. The stakes are life and death, with every bump in the road being dangerous. If those creates move too much, death is quick. They drive through some incredible scenery - I believe everything was shot on location - which adds to the gritty texture and realistic tone of the film.

So where does sorcerer fit in? Why, it's the name of one of the trucks; the other is named Lazaro. The trucks become as much of characters as our actors, as they snarl, slip and trudge through all kinds of dangerous terrain. Sorcerer becomes another, prime, example of how I wasn't necessarily expecting anything good or bad. Just something else, and the end result surprises and pleases me quite a bit. It's not very often that I get an opportunity to go into a movie that allows itself to paint upon an empty canvas.

With the movie being pretty good, it was time to hit the research books and see why this movie has sat unnoticed for so long. And the story is somewhat interesting. Sorcerer was released in 1977, about a month after the original Star Wars. Right there, you know that's enough to guarantee a box office failure. It pulled in about half of it's estimated $22 million budget, and with nary a home video market in place, it was destined to be in the red for quite some time. Audiences also felt the same way as I did too with the foreign language opening: they weren't sure what movie they were watching. They had to put warnings on the posters outside theatres to let people know English was coming. The name of the movie certainly doesn't help either, and people who specifically want to see a movie with magic slinging sorcerers would certainly be disappointed by this.

Now, check out the original poster for Sorcerer, and you could see expectations shifting quite a bit. It's entirely focused on the most nerve-wracking scene: the crossing of the rope bridge. When I was watching it unfold on screen, I couldn't help but be impressed at how great this bridge looked. That is to say, the bridge really did look old, unstable and horrifying. I became curious to see how they filmed it, and was pleased to see it was the centerpiece of the budget, costing nearly one million dollars alone (and they had to rebuild it at one point).  An awful amount of effort went into it and it definitely shows on screen. Sorcerer and Lazaro look like they are going to fall through at any time. The whipping rains could blow our travelers off the bridge at any time. The raging water could swallow everything. It's a scene that should live on in the same way as many, being nearly the opposite of many of the famous car chase scenes of the same era.

As it turns out as well, this is a remake of the 1953 movie The Wages of Fear, which is generally regarded as the better movie. Many would point out that Friedkin was pushing beyond his talents in remaking a "masterpeice" although I can certainly appreciate this for what it is, and I'll be sure to check out the original soon.