Délivrance

Inspired by an afternoon MSN chat on Django Reinhardt, banjos, and country music, I jokingly recommended Deliverance, that twisted-but-classic American outdoor movie, to a colleague. Within minutes, he located the film file online and the following day, I was the proud recipient of a copy of his illegal download.

Sunday evening, saucisson, clémentines, and a steaming tisane in hand, we settled in for a night of tense, clandestine cinema. JB popped in the disc, and almost immediately, I began moaning and cringing. As the opening credits rolled onto the screen, the voice-over narration accompanying it followed -- en français. Commanding the player to stop, I yanked the defiled disc out of the computer and looked at JB with an apologetic, but firm regard. "I can't," I asserted vehemently, "I just can't."

I cannot watch dubbed movies, in any language. It drives me insane. (Short drive, I can hear my Pop quip.) Particularly a film set in the South, a region of the United States so entrenched in its accent and colorful expressions, that the verbal idiosyncrasies are as inherent to the culture as its music. The idea of watching banjo-dueling, moonshine bootlegging hillbillies use the subjonctif, while ordering their victim squeal like a pig at gunpoint, seemed so absurd, so surreal, and so beyond my capacity to tolerate this type of manifestation of the very real fact that the soundtrack to my life is now in French, my suspension of disbelief came flailing facedown into the bottom of the rocky Appalachian canyon, much like Drew, post-pigsty.

We found another file, and watched Deliverance in English with horror, awe, and revolt. The notorious scene in the woods would have the most hardened cinephiles masking their eyes, but without the twang of the mountain man's menacing provocations, the angry use of "boy" after every command, and the stereotypical poor grammar, the spine tingle and the stomach turn would have been solely based on the - admittedly gruesome - visuals. The exaggerated accents play on every conception - negative or positive - that the audience holds of mountain people in the South, and push just the right buttons to make us squeal right along with poor Bobby. Of course, I am curious to discover how a translator would have re-worked "he got a real purdy mouth, ain't he?"

Disgusting allusions aside, and lest you think that my Southern references reside solely with fictional horror tales of murderous rednecks and inbred banjo genius, my dear ma (once a picker herself!) sent me a few musical recommendations to chew on as antidote: Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Mississippi John Hurt. Brilliant music, to be sure. I still don't think that I'll ever approach a day hike into the Ventana Wilderness with my prior insouciance again.