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Sorcerer (film)
Encyclopedia
Sorcerer is a 1977 thriller adventure film
, produced and directed by William Friedkin
, starring Roy Scheider
, Bruno Cremer
, Francisco Rabal
and Amidou. It is the second remake
of the 1953 French
film Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear).
Sorcerer followed Friedkin's highly successful The French Connection
and The Exorcist
. The budget was estimated at over $22 million, a substantial sum at the time. The film gained a fairly positive critical reception but with a reported gross of $12 million, the film did not recoup its costs. The film was co-produced by Universal Pictures
and Paramount Pictures
, with Universal handling U.S. distribution and Paramount handling the international release.
Sorcerer is notable for its electronic score
by Tangerine Dream
, which was the group's first Hollywood film score and led to their becoming popular soundtrack composers of the '80s.
whose economy is dependent on a major oil company.
An oil well over 200 miles away has caught fire and can be extinguished only with explosives. The criminals are given a chance to earn a great deal of money, no questions asked, by driving trucks carrying unstable dynamite
to the blaze. Because they were improperly stored, the sticks are now "sweating" nitroglycerin and could detonate if subjected to shock or vibration.
Driving in teams of two, they meet various hazards on their journey, including a dilapidated rope-suspension bridge swinging violently in a huge storm over a flood-swollen river, a massive tree blocking the road, and a number of desperate, dangerous bandits.
, Paul Newman
, Kris Kristofferson
, and Jack Nicholson
to find out if they would be interested, Steve McQueen was the director's first choice for the role eventually taken by Roy Scheider
, a small-time criminal named Jackie Scanlon who ends up a fugitive from the law and the Mafia after a robbery of a New Jersey church. McQueen loved the script but didn't want to leave the country or wife Ali MacGraw
at the time. The stunt coordinator for the film was Bud Ekins, who was Steve McQueen's stunt double in The Great Escape.
Nick Nolte
had an audition with Friedkin for the role that went to Scheider. The two later worked together on Blue Chips
, the first of four consecutive films Friedkin made for Paramount.
Charles Bluhdorn
, whose Gulf+Western
conglomerate owned Paramount, was passionate about turning the Dominican Republic into a movie-making mecca
. Friedkin insisted the film be shot in the Dominican Republic, so McQueen asked if MacGraw could be a producer (giving her a reason to be on location with him). Friedkin refused, so McQueen turned down the role. The director later regretted his decision, realizing that McQueen's star power might have made it a box-office success.
Production notes on the 1998 Universal DVD release tell a different story, noting that the casting of Scheider as Scanlon/Dominguez was a "foregone conclusion" and "the ideal (perhaps the only) choice for the role" since Friedkin had directed him previously in The French Connection.
In an interview with Robert J. Emery (as part of The Directors series), Friedkin says that he wanted Spanish actor Francisco Rabal
for the role of the "Frog One" in the French Connection
because he loved the performance of Rabal in Luis Buñuel
´s Belle de Jour. But the casting director mistakenly got Fernando Rey
instead. Rey's performance ultimately was highly praised by the director and critics. It was not until Sorcerer came along that Friedkin and Rabal finally worked together.
Friedkin stated that, during the bridge sequence, the truck teetering against the ropes actually did tip over into the river several times, causing numerous retakes.
Scheider was angry that in the final cut Friedkin removed a subplot that showed his character in a more sympathetic light; it involved him befriending a small boy from the village. For that reason, Scheider consistently refused to comment on the film.
or magical character or event. This caused confusion (and walk-outs) among audiences at the time of the film's release since Sorcerer was marketed as a follow-up to Friedkin's wildly successful occult
-themed film The Exorcist. Some newspaper ads included a line: "Not a film about the supernatural."
According to Friedkin, the title fit the film's general theme: "The Sorcerer is an evil wizard and in this case the evil wizard is fate. The fact that somebody can walk out of their front door and a hurricane can take them away, an earthquake or something falling through the roof. And the idea that we don’t really have control over our own fates, neither our births nor our deaths, it’s something that has haunted me since I was intelligent enough to contemplate something like it."
' runaway box-office smash of 1977, Star Wars
. Friedkin agreed with this assessment during an interview on the Bug DVD. In Peter Biskind
's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
, which documents the film's development from start to finish, a story is told of a theater in San Francisco doing historic business with Star Wars, only to draw tiny audiences when Sorcerer replaced it for one week. Friedkin's movie was yanked and Star Wars returned.
.
, Robert Glass
, Richard Tyler
and Jean-Louis Ducarme
). Film critic Roger Ebert
listed it at #9 on his ten-best films list of 1977.
The film today is more positively received by professional film critics; Rotten Tomatoes
gives Sorcerer 80% fresh on its Tomatometer.
On August 21 2009, author Stephen King
posted an EW.com article entitled "Stephen King's Reliable Rentals." In his list of "20 [movies] that never disappoint," King placed the original Wages of Fear at #2 and Friedkin's Sorcerer at #1, writing, "Desperate men with nothing to lose set out in a truck convoy through the South American jungle. Their cargo is rotting dynamite sweating nitro, stuff so unstable the least bump may set it off. The original, Wages of Fear, is considered one of the greatest movies of the modern age, but I have a sneaking preference for Sorcerer, William Friedkin's remake. Roy Scheider had two great roles: Chief Brody in Jaws
and Jackie Scanlon in Sorcerer. These films generate suspense through beautiful simplicity."
On 16 March 2001, writer/filmmaker Peter Hanson wrote on his blog, "Whereas many self-indulgent films by ’70s auteurs have been injured by time, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer has actually seen its critical stock rise in the intervening decades... Seen now, the picture is a crazily intense thrill ride that matches the inherent tension of the plot with a probing descent into the psyche of an archetypal character driven insane by circumstance... Sorcerer contains one of the most elaborately filmed suspense sequences in cinema history: The precarious crossing of a hand-made bridge across a jungle river in the middle of a horrific rainstorm. Using a staggering number of camera angles, Friedkin drags the scene out to create an excruciating level of tension, and that cinematic commitment carries through to nearly the entire film.
, Friedkin consistently claimed that he preferred the home video releases of his films to be presented in the fullframe format. However, since widescreen televisions have become popular, Friedkin has allowed many of his other films to be released on DVD in their original widescreen formats (The French Connection
, Cruising
, To Live and Die in L.A.), and therefore it is possible that Friedkin's position on this issue may have changed.
Currently, there are no plans for a newly remastered release; however, Friedkin's controversial 1980 film Cruising
was issued as a deluxe DVD in 2007, with Friedkin indicating that Sorcerer might get the same treatment at some point.
" episode of The Simpsons
featured a parody
of the film as Homer
drives across a rickety bridge. The short scene is scored with vaguely Tangerine Dream
-like music
.
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
, produced and directed by William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
, starring Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
, Bruno Cremer
Bruno Cremer
Bruno Jean Marie Crémer was a French actor born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, who spent a part of his career on stage, but who also found success in the cinema and on television.- Biography :...
, Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
and Amidou. It is the second remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the 1953 French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
film Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear).
Sorcerer followed Friedkin's highly successful The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
and The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
. The budget was estimated at over $22 million, a substantial sum at the time. The film gained a fairly positive critical reception but with a reported gross of $12 million, the film did not recoup its costs. The film was co-produced by Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, with Universal handling U.S. distribution and Paramount handling the international release.
Sorcerer is notable for its electronic score
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, which was the group's first Hollywood film score and led to their becoming popular soundtrack composers of the '80s.
Plot summary
Four international criminals on the run from the law hide out in a remote village in NicaraguaNicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
whose economy is dependent on a major oil company.
An oil well over 200 miles away has caught fire and can be extinguished only with explosives. The criminals are given a chance to earn a great deal of money, no questions asked, by driving trucks carrying unstable dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
to the blaze. Because they were improperly stored, the sticks are now "sweating" nitroglycerin and could detonate if subjected to shock or vibration.
Driving in teams of two, they meet various hazards on their journey, including a dilapidated rope-suspension bridge swinging violently in a huge storm over a flood-swollen river, a massive tree blocking the road, and a number of desperate, dangerous bandits.
Cast
- Roy ScheiderRoy ScheiderRoy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
as Jackie Scanlon - 'Juan Dominguez' - Bruno CremerBruno CremerBruno Jean Marie Crémer was a French actor born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, who spent a part of his career on stage, but who also found success in the cinema and on television.- Biography :...
as Victor Manzon - 'Serrano' - Francisco RabalFrancisco RabalFrancisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
as Nilo - Amidou as Kassem - 'Martinez'
- Ramon BieriRamon BieriRamon Arens Bieri was an American actor who has starred in many films and many TV shows.-Biography:He co-starred on the short-lived 1981 TV series Bret Maverick with James Garner. Bieri appeared in many TV movies as well...
as Corlette - Peter CapellPeter CapellPeter Capell was a German actor who was active on screen from 1945 until 1985.His first role was in Winterset, shortly after the end of the Second World War. His final role came a year before his death, when he appeared in Mamas Geburtstag. Both of these were television productions...
as Lartigue - Karl JohnKarl JohnKarl John is a Swiss orienteering competitor. He received an individual silver medal at the 1970 World Orienteering Championships, and a silver medal in relay in 1972.-References:...
as 'Marquez' - Friedrich von LedeburFriedrich von LedeburGraf Friedrich Anton Maria Hubertus Bonifacius von Ledebur-Wicheln was an actor who was known for Moby Dick , Alexander the Great and Slaughterhouse-Five .Ledebur was born in Austria-Hungary in 1900...
as 'Carlos' - Chico Martinez as Bobby Del Rios
- Joe SpinellJoe SpinellJoe Spinell was an American character actor, who appeared in numerous films in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:...
as Spider - Rosario Almontes as Agrippa
- Richard Holley as Billy White
- Anne-Marie Deschott as Blanche
- Jean-Luc BideauJean-Luc BideauJean-Luc Bideau is a Swiss film actor. He has appeared in over 125 films since 1965.-Selected filmography:* Les Bons Vivants * Mr...
as Pascal - Jacques Francois as Lefevre
- Andre Falcon as Guillot
- Gerard MurphyGerard MurphyGerard Murphy may refer to:* Gerard Murphy , Irish Fine Gael politician, TD for Cork North West* Gerard Murphy , Irish mathematics professor* Gerard Murphy in The Brink's Job...
as Donnelly - Desmond Crofton as Boyle
- Henry Diamond as Murray
- Ray Dittrich as Ben
- Frank Gio as Marty
- Randy Jurgensen as Vinnie
- Cosmo Allegretti as Carlo Ricci
Casting
Although he talked to Gene HackmanGene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
, Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
, and Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
to find out if they would be interested, Steve McQueen was the director's first choice for the role eventually taken by Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
, a small-time criminal named Jackie Scanlon who ends up a fugitive from the law and the Mafia after a robbery of a New Jersey church. McQueen loved the script but didn't want to leave the country or wife Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw
Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw is an American actress. She is known for her role in Love Story, for which she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination.-Early life:...
at the time. The stunt coordinator for the film was Bud Ekins, who was Steve McQueen's stunt double in The Great Escape.
The Great Escape (film)
The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
had an audition with Friedkin for the role that went to Scheider. The two later worked together on Blue Chips
Blue Chips
Blue Chips is a 1994 drama film about basketball, directed by William Friedkin, written by Ron Shelton and starring Nick Nolte as a college coach and real-life basketball stars Shaquille O'Neal and Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway as talented finds....
, the first of four consecutive films Friedkin made for Paramount.
Charles Bluhdorn
Charles Bluhdorn
Charles Blühdorn was a Vienna, Austria-born American industrialist.-Biography:Per a Who's Who in Ridgefield he was considered such a "hellion" that his father sent the 11-year-old to an English boarding school for disciplining...
, whose Gulf+Western
Gulf+Western
Gulf and Western Industries, Inc., for a number of years known as Gulf+Western, was an American conglomerate.- History :Gulf and Western's prosaic origins date to a manufacturer named Michigan Bumper Co. founded in 1934, though Charles Bluhdorn treated his 1958 takeover of what was then Michigan...
conglomerate owned Paramount, was passionate about turning the Dominican Republic into a movie-making mecca
Mecca (disambiguation)
Mecca or Makkah most probably refers to:*Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the holiest site in Islam.**Makkah Province, the province surrounding that city....
. Friedkin insisted the film be shot in the Dominican Republic, so McQueen asked if MacGraw could be a producer (giving her a reason to be on location with him). Friedkin refused, so McQueen turned down the role. The director later regretted his decision, realizing that McQueen's star power might have made it a box-office success.
Production notes on the 1998 Universal DVD release tell a different story, noting that the casting of Scheider as Scanlon/Dominguez was a "foregone conclusion" and "the ideal (perhaps the only) choice for the role" since Friedkin had directed him previously in The French Connection.
In an interview with Robert J. Emery (as part of The Directors series), Friedkin says that he wanted Spanish actor Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
for the role of the "Frog One" in the French Connection
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
because he loved the performance of Rabal in Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
´s Belle de Jour. But the casting director mistakenly got Fernando Rey
Fernando Rey
Fernando Casado Arambillet , best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film, theatre, and TV actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States...
instead. Rey's performance ultimately was highly praised by the director and critics. It was not until Sorcerer came along that Friedkin and Rabal finally worked together.
Filming
Friedkin had serious issues beyond the clashes between him and the cast and crew. He reportedly did not enjoy his time during the section of the film shot on location in Israel. He also antagonized Paramount, using a Gulf+Western corporate photo for a scene that featured the evil board of directors of the fictional company that hired the men. Ironically, between 1994 and 2003 all of his films were released by Paramount.Friedkin stated that, during the bridge sequence, the truck teetering against the ropes actually did tip over into the river several times, causing numerous retakes.
Scheider was angry that in the final cut Friedkin removed a subplot that showed his character in a more sympathetic light; it involved him befriending a small boy from the village. For that reason, Scheider consistently refused to comment on the film.
Title
The film's title refers to one of the trucks, which has the name "Sorcerer" painted across the bonnet (the other is named "Lazaro"). There is no supernaturalSupernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
or magical character or event. This caused confusion (and walk-outs) among audiences at the time of the film's release since Sorcerer was marketed as a follow-up to Friedkin's wildly successful occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
-themed film The Exorcist. Some newspaper ads included a line: "Not a film about the supernatural."
According to Friedkin, the title fit the film's general theme: "The Sorcerer is an evil wizard and in this case the evil wizard is fate. The fact that somebody can walk out of their front door and a hurricane can take them away, an earthquake or something falling through the roof. And the idea that we don’t really have control over our own fates, neither our births nor our deaths, it’s something that has haunted me since I was intelligent enough to contemplate something like it."
June 1977 release
Many point to the film's commercial failure as a result of the movie being released a month after George LucasGeorge Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
' runaway box-office smash of 1977, Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
. Friedkin agreed with this assessment during an interview on the Bug DVD. In Peter Biskind
Peter Biskind
Peter Biskind is a journalist, former executive editor of Premiere magazine, and the author of numerous books depicting life in Hollywood, including Seeing Is Believing, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Down and Dirty Pictures, and Gods and Monsters...
's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood is a book written by Peter Biskind and published by Simon and Schuster in 1998...
, which documents the film's development from start to finish, a story is told of a theater in San Francisco doing historic business with Star Wars, only to draw tiny audiences when Sorcerer replaced it for one week. Friedkin's movie was yanked and Star Wars returned.
Critical reception
Although regarded as a cult film, Sorcerer was not received as well by the public nor film critics as Friedkin's previous two films. In Leonard Maltin's annual "TV Movies" ratings book, the film receives only two-and-a-half out of four stars, with the critique, "Expensive remake of The Wages of Fear never really catches hold despite a few astounding scenes." In Halliwell's Film Guide, the evaluation is even more harsh: "Why anyone would want to spend 20 million dollars on a remake of The Wages of Fear, do it badly, and give it a misleading title is anybody's guess. The result is dire." The film has grown in critical esteem over the years and is widely held in high regard by most movie fans. Sorcerer currently holds a 70% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Legacy
Despite Sorcerer being one of the most infamous financial flops of the 1970s, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound (Robert KnudsonRobert Knudson
Robert Knudson was an American sound engineer. He won three Academy Awards for Best Sound and was nominated for seven more in the same category...
, Robert Glass
Robert Glass (sound engineer)
Robert Glass is an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and was nominated for five more in the same category. He has worked on over 100 films and since 1948.-Selected filmography:...
, Richard Tyler
Richard Tyler (sound engineer)
Richard Tyler is an American sound engineer. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. He has worked on over 80 films between 1932 and 1989.-Selected filmography:* Bite the Bullet * Silver Streak...
and Jean-Louis Ducarme
Jean-Louis Ducarme
Jean-Louis Ducarme is a French sound engineer. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Sound for the film Sorcerer.-External links:...
). Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
listed it at #9 on his ten-best films list of 1977.
The film today is more positively received by professional film critics; Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gives Sorcerer 80% fresh on its Tomatometer.
On August 21 2009, author Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
posted an EW.com article entitled "Stephen King's Reliable Rentals." In his list of "20 [movies] that never disappoint," King placed the original Wages of Fear at #2 and Friedkin's Sorcerer at #1, writing, "Desperate men with nothing to lose set out in a truck convoy through the South American jungle. Their cargo is rotting dynamite sweating nitro, stuff so unstable the least bump may set it off. The original, Wages of Fear, is considered one of the greatest movies of the modern age, but I have a sneaking preference for Sorcerer, William Friedkin's remake. Roy Scheider had two great roles: Chief Brody in Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
and Jackie Scanlon in Sorcerer. These films generate suspense through beautiful simplicity."
On 16 March 2001, writer/filmmaker Peter Hanson wrote on his blog, "Whereas many self-indulgent films by ’70s auteurs have been injured by time, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer has actually seen its critical stock rise in the intervening decades... Seen now, the picture is a crazily intense thrill ride that matches the inherent tension of the plot with a probing descent into the psyche of an archetypal character driven insane by circumstance... Sorcerer contains one of the most elaborately filmed suspense sequences in cinema history: The precarious crossing of a hand-made bridge across a jungle river in the middle of a horrific rainstorm. Using a staggering number of camera angles, Friedkin drags the scene out to create an excruciating level of tension, and that cinematic commitment carries through to nearly the entire film.
Home video releases
A VHS version of the film was released in 1990. The DVD was released in the U.S. and Canada in 1998 in a non-widescreen version, which is not its original theatrical aspect ratio: it was shown in cinemas at a ratio of 1.85:1. During the 1980s and 1990s, like Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Friedkin consistently claimed that he preferred the home video releases of his films to be presented in the fullframe format. However, since widescreen televisions have become popular, Friedkin has allowed many of his other films to be released on DVD in their original widescreen formats (The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
, Cruising
Cruising (film)
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.Poorly reviewed by critics,...
, To Live and Die in L.A.), and therefore it is possible that Friedkin's position on this issue may have changed.
Currently, there are no plans for a newly remastered release; however, Friedkin's controversial 1980 film Cruising
Cruising (film)
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.Poorly reviewed by critics,...
was issued as a deluxe DVD in 2007, with Friedkin indicating that Sorcerer might get the same treatment at some point.
The European cut
In Europe (where the film was released as Wages of Fear), the entire opening, showing the drivers' reasons for moving to the village, and the ending following the delivery of explosive were cut. These 28 minutes were cut, without Friedkin's consent, by the distributor. In this version, the film opens in the village with the drivers already present, and ends without the audience knowing that a hitman has found Roy Scheider's character. The flashbacks that his character has are retained in this version, which was screened on UK television during the 1980s.Parodies
The "Mr. PlowMr. Plow
"Mr. Plow" is the ninth episode of The Simpsons fourth season, which originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 19, 1992. In the episode, Homer buys a snow plow and starts a business plowing driveways. It is a huge success, and inspired by this, Barney Gumble starts a...
" episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
featured a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of the film as Homer
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
drives across a rickety bridge. The short scene is scored with vaguely Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
-like music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
.
External links
- The "Lost" Theme information about a rare NON Tangerine Dream selection from the soundtrack
- On Wages of Fear and Sorcerer