Qt3 Movie Club movie #1: Sorcerer

Friedkin didn’t have anything to do with Exorcist III. It was written and directed by the guy who wrote the novel The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, who also wrote and directed potential future Movie Club pick The Ninth Configuration.

Desslock: As per the anti-Americanism of Wages, if you want you can simply substitute the phrase “anti-capitalism”. Although it does behoove me to point out that neither of us actually live in America.

Can we refer to Ninth Configuration by its original title of Twinkle Twinkle, Killer Kane?

-Tom

Sure.

The jiggling of the dynamite definitely bugged me, but I chalked it up to movie physics. The same physics that allows two half-dead guys with a revolver and a shovel to take out four heavily armed bandits.

What really made me nostalgic was the fantastic camera work and editing. I’ve never thought of Friedkin as an “auteur” - I think of him as a journeyman director who got lucky with a massive box office smash just when the auteur theory was taking root in America - but the fluid camera work of the opening half-hour or so was awesome. (I did notice he seems to really like setting up a scene by focusing on the ceiling and then panning down to show the room, though. He did that exact same movement like four times.) Take a look at how he sets up the physical space between the protagonists once we get to the village, how we carefully see the angles and points-of-view that each of the characters watch each other from. Reminded me strongly of yet another Movie Club candidate, Antonioni’s The Passenger.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned are the performances. Scheider was his usually terrific self - he’s such a weirdly physical actor that it’s always a surprise when the camera catches how short he was. According to Wikipedia, the first choice was Steve McQueen which, quite frankly, I don’t think would have worked as well. But what really struck me was Bruno Cremer as Serrano; he gives a quiet, controlled performance I found completely mesmerizing.

Netflix says my copy of Sorcerer shipped today and will be here tomorrow. I’m thinking of getting a little beret tattooed on my butt cheek.

I don’t think you necessarily have to do that. We don’t really know exactly how much jiggling the nitro can take. We just know for sure it’s going to go off if a) you throw it, b) you bang it with a rock, or c) you turn over the truck carrying it. Sloshing it around as you lurch the final third mile to your destination is obviously allowed. :)

Aw, that worked out pretty well. Nilo got two of them before being shot by the third. Then Scanlon, no stranger to violence himself, takes out the fourth with the shovel. The shovel’s edge, to be precise.

There’s a clear implication that Nilo knows what he’s doing, from the cool assassination/murder in Vera Cruz to being able to murder Marquez in the night and be unfazed that everyone knows he did it. Furthermore, Nilo handily disarms Kaseem who comes at him with a knife. Nilo’s obviously a bad-ass and that’s why I’m so intrigued by his lack of back story and why he’s going to Managua. I have no problem with him taking out three greasy untrained nervous rebels before being shot himself.

-Tom

Ack, While it was listed in our equivalent of netflix, it’s currently unavailable, I shall have to go hunt the shelves of the local virgin store on saturday.

Whelp, I watched Sorcerer last night, I resisted picking up Wages of Fear as well so as to judge Sorcerer on its own merits.

(I have seen both before, but its been over ten years)

Random thoughts…Larry King style…

…I like how in the 70’s, Garish meant wealth. Serrano’s apartment, office and the restaurant where his brother-in-law offs himself are wonderful examples…

…those trucks have more charisma than half of the major actors working in Hollywood today…

…The movie exists in a moral vacuum. Nilo shivs Marqez and they sign him right up…

…While there may not be any baby-raping American Stereotypes madkevin is so fond of, there is enough ambiguity surrounding the oil company (and the oil company’s man) that you don’t actually care if they get their oil well fire put out…

…What you are left with is rooting for the drivers all of whom are skunks…must have been a very hard sell in the black and white morality of the Star Wars days…

…The action is very good, especially getting the trucks over the wet rope bridge …

…man, that refinery blew up good, didn’t it?..

…what kind of gun did Serrano’s brother in law use? A howitzer?..

…Did the guy who did the title script do the title script for The Warriors as well? Was he the lead singer for Tangerine Dream maybe?..

…The intro vignettes - I liked Serrano’s interaction with his wife, it shows how far he has fallen, (which undercut the impact of his death somewhat as he was never going to return to Paris and his beautiful erudite wife). But I can’t help thinking it could have been shorter…

…The others are pretty plain, with the exception of the Arab guy’s, can’t help thinking portraying that guy in any sort of a positive light wouldn’t happen today (even if Steve Spielberg ham-handedly tried to have his Israeli soldier have a nice chat with a Palestinian terrorist, 'cause we’re all so alike in the end…don’t you see? …

…for a movie with a lot of action very little of it has any impact on the viewer - quite a bit of it happens during the character’s vignettes - bomb, car crash, assassination, but before the viewer even know whom the protagonists are, so the violence doesn’t mean much (the exception being Serrano’s brother-in-law’s suicide)…

…I’d of like to have seen more action in the jungle with the trucks and less intro stuff…

…I hate Spielberg…

…I like Roy Scheider in just about anything he is in (even Blue Thunder), he always seems slightly overwhelmed and world weary, but game…

…the manliness factor is very very high here, Nilo’s dying wish that Scheider hump two Nicaraguan whores for him was especially grizzled…as was his mustache…

…why cant Roy go to Managua? Would seeing a whore make him think of poor Nilo the murderer?..

I could go on, but bottom line, its a very good movie, a must see for fans of 70’s style gritty action. While its not easy to actually get invested in the characters, you do empathize with their desire to escape their situation.

EDIT:(one more) …a funny alternate ending would have been for the oil company to give Scheider a giant size novelty check…

Yeah, we call those the 70s. Moral vacuums were all the rage back then, like sideburns and bell bottoms. :)

Also, I think Scanlon can’t go to Managua because he knows he’d be found in a place with so many Americans. Or something. It’s kind of vague what good a bunch of pesos is going to do for each of these guys. They’re all screwed anyway. Where are they gonna go?

Good comments, but you didn’t mention which truck was your favorite! We should have an AmIHot style contest between Sorcerer and Lazaro.

-Tom

Sorcerer got the top billing but I have fondness for Lazaro’s “smiling with a mouth full of broken teeth” charm.

One more thing before I forget.

…The gang’s in-car bickering during Scheider’s intro reminded me of driving to a bank job with the McClearys…

Please grow up and acquire some perspective and common sense.

I did write a lengthy post about recently rewatching it.

i wrote down my thoughts before i read the comments so my memory wouldn’t get affected, then added stuff after reading the comments.

i am mailing the dvd back tomorrow, so that means it will be freed up in two days. just curious, how many of us netflixed it and have a physical dvd as of july 3nd? there’s at least 2 out there: one on my desk, mailed out to bullhajj…

yeah, it was kind of slow at the beginning. a movie about guys hauling nitroglycerin doesn’t actually have them hauling nitroglycerin till 55 minutes in.

i felt the editing was jumpy. for example, when the helicopter was surveying the damage at the oil well there is some musical tone being played which abruptly stops when the next scene cuts it off. i guess it’s explained up above when madkevin said it was heavily edited.

why did the arab guy and roy schneider listen to the french guy when they wanted to not drive over the rickety bridge and take the low road? corrupt banker vs bomber and robber and the banker wins?

i didn’t like the overlay when roy schneider started going nuts. i did enjoy seeing the car crash into a hydrant. was it a cliche back then, too? or was it still new enough that directors didn’t avoid it?

tom’s observation that nilo didn’t fake his first cough makes me think he’s dying, and so he decides, “fuckit, i’ll cash in my savings, head to south america, and waste that nazi asshole who screwed me over in '41.” which would also explain why he could laugh so easily as he laid dying (probably more quickly and less painfully than from whatever he’s dying from).

that bride with the black eye was indeed messed up. should be added to the “memorable little moments in movies” thread.

the bridge scenes were intense, although i did think it was unrealistic that a rope bridge could have held.

the nitro exploding movie physics to me was that if it got bumped (fast and then sudden stop) then it would go boom. so schneider stumbling around wasn’t setting it off didn’t seem off to me.

What’s the deal with “the Baron”, the man who committed suicide, and Serrano’s wife?

i thought the baron was the suicide guy’s dad, and was related to the wife. the banker said his father-in-law was going to guarantee the debt, right? and the banker wanted suicide guy to talk to his dad.

Also, what did Agrippa (the woman Scanlon dances with at the end) give Serrano before the men set out in the trucks? It looks like it might be a crucifix from studying the scene, but why does Agrippa give it to Serrano?

i thought she gave him his watch that he sold. she must have liked him because she smiled at him when he was having breakfast, but i don’t get how she got the watch. can anyone confirm?

While your post was indeed awesome, the bolded part was not in it.

-Tom

Quick thoughts:

One thing that’s definitely been lost in the modern CG era is that movies have lost sight on how to break the shit out of cars. The “production notes” bit of the DVD is worth a read through–apparently, Friedkin had them smash the shit out a dozen identical cars for Mobster’s backstory before getting a take he liked. It also notes they got so far into the jungle that they built their own roads to nowhere, which the trucks commenced to chew up. Also that the principals did most of their own driving.

The rope bridge scene was definitely a highlight.

Also, I think it has the very best “someone getting cracked over the head with a shovel” foley I’ve ever heard.

In all, I could have done without the backstory bits for 3 of the 4, preferring Wages of Fear’s more hinted-cipher approach. Granted, you lose the thematic nature of the deaths, but omelettes and eggs, you know?

The aggressive synth score when they first hit the road made me wince. Some pieces never age well. Thankfully it then went mostly score-less afterwards, until Mobster’s overlay bad trip/psychotic break moment at the end, which is where it basically lost me again.

The trucks had major screen presence. I enjoyed how the snarl of engines got presented–processing or additional sound or something–as actual snarls and howls. You just about expected at least one of the trucks to start projectile vomiting pea soup while its cab spun around 360 degrees.

Pockets of civilization as moral vacuums, and outside of civilization was just a gibbering sea of insanity that was at best gleeful (dig the guy manically harassing the truck early on), and otherwise actively hostile. Gotta love the 70s.

Oh the seventies, is there no movie you aren’t willing to add an abstract flashback montage to?

The film definitely has a “Heart of Darkness” vibe to it that I enjoyed. But having watched a lot of noir and neo-noir over the last 18 months, I was really surprised how 40s the whole thing felt to me in places. Maybe it was the fedoras, but Scheider really felt like he was channeling Bogey in parts of the film.

I was also reminded of the doomed heroes from the noir films. The main characters were all chasing death, and they had that great internalized angst that is such a part of the noir cannon.

What made it different was, of course, the opening half hour. Even though the backstories are abstract, they still give you context for their emotions.

I may get pilloried for saying this, but I have to wonder if all the initial globe-hopping wasn’t a bit of excess the film could have done without. Imagine if all you knew of the french man was his watch, or just gotten Nilo’s story from what you saw during the trip. Of the four of them only the terrorist would have really needed a little more description to give you what you needed, and even that would really have only taken a line or two while he’s rigging up the tree-stump.

The other thing that I disliked was the ending. Honestly I was hoping that he would walk into the flame, like a moth… But either way the trippy montage, followed by crushing nihilism, and then the arrival of the gangsters as the camera flies away was one too many seventies cliches for me.

Oh, and definitely the dragon truck. All trucks should have their exhaust pipes front mounted…

I’m surprised this stands out so much for people. Maybe because it’s a touch of realism that gets glossed over so often. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is get married. Women are far more likely, by a wide margin, to be sexually or physically assaulted, in their home, by someone they know, than out in an alleyway by a complete stranger.

Remember Transamerica? Bree has a black eye the day she gets her sex change operation. That’s what you sign up for.

Actually, I was referring to Wages Of Fear, which was edited to make it more palatable for an American audience. Sorcerer, as far as I know, was left untouched.

The ending is another change from Wages. In Wages the protagonist feels unkillable after surviving such a brutal ordeal; he cockily starts swerving his car all over the road, loses control of the vehicle, crashes and dies.

After everyone’s excellent breakdown of the film, I don’t know if I have much to add.

Favorite truck: Sorcerer.

At first, I thought Nilo was the Sorcerer. He’d be the one to hunt down each of these individuals, so I guess my impression was similar to Tom’s. But when he got co-opted into the journey, that went out the window (and well the truck).

The other thing I thought sorcerer was as I watched is fate. Also perhaps it is what we go to try and change it. So the trucks become the embodiment of it as they try to guide it down treacherous paths. The shots of the rope bridge with the men kneeling before the trucks seemed really evocative of that to me. I know, cheesy and not very insightful. Also, each of these men lived by the sword and basically died by the sword (well explosives and guns). Tom’s definitely right that these men are trapped. There’s several shots of grates on windows, etc, that act as a barrier between the men and the world.

Edit: Well, except for the guy (Nilo?) from Paris. He just committed fraud. Hrmm.

Anyway, I also liked how much the Sorcerer truck resembled the logo.

As for the explosives, they were packed in sand, which I thought kept it from moving for the most part. That’s why they could deal with small bumps. It’d have to be large enough to shift the sand and/or the boxes too.

Oh and the woman does give Scanlon a cross. I couldn’t find it, but I thought he had smiled at her earlier (or made some gesture of kindness) and that’s why she gave it to him. He was also the driver for bingo game robbery so he didn’t carry a gun. Maybe that’s why he lives so long in the film. That’s kind of a stretch given that every character is so amoral.

Great flick, Tom! My pick is going to be so boring comparatively. Heh.

Anyway, I netflixed it as well. It should go out today or tomorrow.

I liked this a lot. It had some problems, so while I’m nitpicking in a few areas, overall I (and my wife) thought it was a good flick. Time well spent. Thanks Tom for introducing us to this movie.

I thought it interesting that as each character is introduced, you are given a location…but when they reach the small south american town, we are not given the country. As we reach the end, I wonder if it should have been labeled “private hell”.

There are few clues as to how long each has been in this small town. It feels like months instead of years and the fact that each will risk so much to leave illustrates their own private hell is much worse than what they left.

The driving was tense. The only time it seemed like the trucks were going too fast was with the shots inside the trucks showing the outside zooming by, otherwise, they felt like they were going a pretty slow speed. The driving was very tense, and the two bridges were definately the highpoints. I’d love to understand more of that rope bridge, because it didn’t look like a special effect at all. There were some points where I thought for sure one of the trucks would tip over. Made me wonder if they were purposely moving the ropes to get it to sway like that.

While I wish I could have seen the contents of the letter Serrano wrote to his wife, leaving it unread lets me come up with my own private version.

A few things to nitpick:

It’s like they got to this backwater town like magic. For one of the guys to ask how much to leave, I wonder why didn’t he know b/c he obviously paid to get there.

How they didn’t know the road must have meant they took a helicopter ride to some other truck depot and fixed up trucks and then drove them one-way, but that part is left out. It gnawed at me during the entire truck ride. I wish they would have filled in that gap.

For the terrorists to be literally there right after the 2nd truck blows up, made me wonder if it wasn’t so much a flat tire as it was the terrorists shooting out their tire, but then the 2nd truck was only 10-15 minutes behind the first, so why weren’t they there when the schneider’s truck went by and they are only there when they come back to the wreck? Perhaps they were close by, but the explosion brought them near?

As the sole survivor, but then gets visited by his mob friends, the only conclusion is you can not escape your own private hell.

Good movie. I hand’t seen it and enjoyed it very much.

I liked how the men had all found their way to the little town in the middle of nowhere. It does seem like some sort of private hell that none may leave. I loved the Arab’s MacGyver fuse and the A-Team like montage of assembling the trucks. The trucks were great, especially the sound of the engine’s roar and how Sorcerer looked like the mask/a beast.

I enjoyed reading about it here before watching it. I am probably giong to come to these movies with a wealth of things to watch for becasue of how soon the discussions start and my poor impulse control.

Were there three names on two trucks? There was something written in Spanish, but I wasn’t sure what it said.

I did like someone’s point about the men kneeling before those trucks, especially on the way across the bridge. It’s interesting because as soon as the men from both team’s seem to bond with one another, they end up dying. It’s sort of like a road trip movie gone horribly awry.

Now that I think about it, some of the characters motivations seemed to change capriciously. Why was Scanlon able to toss the hitman onto the bridge during the storm, but then when they come to the downed tree, the hit man whips out a pistol and starts firing. Also, I was surprised the french husband wanted to leave, but didn’t seem to know how to get out. Perhaps this is all meant to be some sort of dream/hell state, where you don’t know how you got there, but you just unwittingly become a player in the drama. I love that the frenchman’s letter never gets delivered.

Thanks for picking this one Tom. I got my Netflix Wed and sent it back today. Sorcerer is my favorite truck. How can anyone resist that jack o’ lanturn grill?