Sorcerer, made by William Friedkin in 1977
after his triumphs and numerous awards for both The French Connection
and The Exorcist, was his own Apocalypse Now: a film that went
over budget and took three times as long to film as originally planned, but
one denied Apocalypse's subsequent fame, notoriety, and audience
interest.
A remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's
The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer tells the story of four men, all wanted criminals,
who flee to a nameless Third World country to escape punishment, imprisonment,
torture, or death. When a devastating oil rig explosion offers the chance to
make some big money very quickly (they have to transport old crates of leaking
nitroglycerine over 200 miles of treacherous mountain road), each sees a chance
to get out of this hell-hole country and forge a new life elsewhere, far from
their regrets and old enemies.
Screenwriter Walon Green (who co-wrote The
Wild Bunch with Sam Peckinpah) foregoes a script filled with meaningful
dialogue and concentrates instead on expressionistic imagery to tell large chunks
of the story. This, coupled with Friedkin's flair for jittery realism,
gives Sorcerer an effective and gritty documentary feel.
I greatly admire both Sorcerer and
The Wages Of Fear, but find my preference leaning toward Friedkin's
film, if for no other reason because Sorcerer takes the time to establish
these men in their previous lives so the viewer can have some sense of what
they've been forced to abandon. Sorcerer possesses emotional layers
where Wages opts for the coldly intellectual, and though both films are
potentially devastating to the viewer, Sorcerer remains the more humane
and accessible of the two.
Movie Information
Release Date: 1977
Running Time: 121 minutes
Rating: PG
Director: William Friedkin
Writers: Walon Green (screenplay), Georges Arnaud (1953 novel Le Salaire de la Peur)
Cast:
Roy Scheider: Scanlon/Dominguez
Bruno Cremer: Victor Manzon/Serrano
Francisco Rabal: Nilo
Amidou: Kassem/Martinez
Ramon Bieri: Corlette
Peter Capell: Lartigue
Karl John: Marquez
Frederick Ledebur: Carlos
Chico Martinez: Bobby Del Rios
Joe Spinell: Spider
Rosario Almontes: Agrippa
Richard Holley: Billy White
Anne-Marie Deschott: Blanche
Jean-Luc Bideau: Pascal
Jacques Francois: Lefevre