Sorcerer (film)
[13] The film depicts four outcasts from varied backgrounds living in a South American village assigned to transport two trucks loaded with aged, poorly kept dynamite that is "sweating" its dangerous basic ingredient, nitroglycerin.[25] After a lengthy lawsuit filed against Universal Studios and Paramount, Friedkin supervised a digital restoration of Sorcerer, with the new print premiering at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2013.A group of Palestinian resistance fighters disguised as Jews cause an explosion near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, after which they take shelter at their hideout, where they assemble weaponry and plan their escape.Other cast members include Peter Capell as Lartigue, Corlette's superior; Anne-Marie Deschodt as Blanche, Victor Manzon's wife, who gives him a specially engraved watch as a wedding anniversary gift, which later on Victor tries in vain to sell in exchange for a way out of Porvenir;[31] Friedrich von Ledebur as Carlos, an owner of the El Corsario bar and a supposedly former "Third Reich marshal;" Chico Martinez as Bobby Del Rios, an explosives specialist[28][31] and Corlette's advisor who assesses the situation at the oil well; Joe Spinell as "Spider", an acquaintance of Scanlon in Porvenir who takes part in the truck-driving test but fails; Rosario Almontes as Agrippa, a bar maid in El Corsario who seems to be fond of Manzon as she gives him a crucifix before his departure; Richard Holley as Billy White, a helicopter pilot who rules out shipping the dynamite by air; Jean-Luc Bideau as Pascal, Manzon's brother-in-law[13] who fails to receive help from his father to save their company from execution of fraud; Jacques François as Lefevre, the president of the Paris Stock Exchange, who accuses Manzon of money fraud; Gerard Murphy as Donnelly, a head of the Irish gang of which Jackie Scanlon is a member; Randy Jurgensen as Vinnie, a friend of Scanlon who directs him to the Baltimore docks[31] from where he has to flee to a yet undisclosed location in order to evade execution from the Mafia; and Cosmo Allegretti as Carlo Ricci, a vengeful Mafia leader and a brother of a priest who was shot in New Jersey during the robbery who puts a bounty on the head of Jackie Scanlon.As director William Friedkin went location scouting in Ecuador and researched the peculiar ornaments on cargo trucks he had seen there, he noticed there were names painted on them, which ranged from relatives to mythological references.[13] He was replaced by Spanish actor Francisco Rabal, whom Friedkin had wanted for the role of "Frog One" in The French Connection because he loved his performance in Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour, but the casting director mistakenly got Fernando Rey instead.[41] Serdar Yegulalp notes distinctive characteristics and traits of each of the protagonists and praises Friedkin's execution by saying that the film "never falls into the trap of having each character shine on cue: they only do their thing when they’re backed up against the abyss, much as we all do in the real world" and adding that "their desperation's not a pose".[55] Unlike The Wages of Fear, in which the main characters were given two trucks in mint condition by the oil company, their counterparts depicted in Sorcerer had to be assembled by the protagonists themselves, using parts salvaged from wrecks.[56][57] Using the knowledge gained from the visits to Ecuador, Friedkin employed a Dominican artisan in order to embellish the vehicles with symbols and paintings based on the names Lazaro and Sorcerer.[58] The director became fed up with the situation and decided to listen to David Salven, the line producer, who suggested that they employ a well-known specialist, Joie Chitwood Jr., whom Friedkin described as "short, stocky, part Indian, self-assured, and fearless".After Friedkin supplied him with all the necessary information about the set's infrastracture, Chitwood meticulously analyzed the surroundings himself, and ordered the special effects technicians to construct a forty-feet long slanted ramp which would allow him to "drive the car at top speed on two wheels, flip it in midair, and crash into a fire hydrant".For instance, since Roy Scheider's character Jackie Scanlon was meant to be a mob's wheelman, he had to undertake a special preparation for maneuvering a vintage truck with the purpose of gaining the necessary driving skills."[65] Friedkin antagonized Paramount, using a Gulf and Western corporate photo for a scene that featured the evil board of directors of the fictional company which hired the men to deliver dynamite.[66] Walon Green recalled the experience in the following way: [Friedkin] put Bluhdorn's picture on the wall in the office in the scene where [the oil company foreman] finds out that the well is blown by terrorists and they can't do anything about it.In a memoir, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob (And Sex), film producer Peter Bart theorized that the owner of Gulf and Western, Charlie Bluhdorn, supported the Dominican Republic financially and intended to create a film-making centre there.It features a surrealistic landscape on Navajo Nation lands in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, New Mexico:[16] The one sequence left to shoot was the last leg of the journey of the surviving truck, the Lazaro, and I wanted it to be different from the other locations… and John Box found it in a place called the Bisti Badlands in northwestern New Mexico, 35 miles south of the town called Farmington… It was the landscape we chose for the end of the journey, in which Scanlon embraces madness, abandons his truck, and carries the dynamite two miles to the burning oilfield.This prompted Friedkin to reach for the services of an arsonist hailing from Queens, New York, going by the pseudonym "Marvin the Torch", who arrived at the Dominican Republic three days after the call and utilizing flammable materials obliterated the tree in one take the following morning.The newspaper El Caribe said that the lawsuit against Cinema Dominica charged that the company had “failed to comply with the rental contract it signed for use of the town's commercial locations.”[71] Friedkin recalls working with Scheider as difficult, stating the actor had frequent mood swings which did not occur during the filming of The French Connection and theorized that after achieving stardom with Jaws he became "difficult", which contrasted with his attitude from The French Connection, where he "would've lied [sic] down in front of an elevated train" for Friedkin.[49] Likewise, Scheider also had his reservations about the work with Friedkin, on the one hand praising him as "extraordinarily gifted filmmaker, who told stories with pictures and shot beautifully" but despite his erudition, he was marred with distrusting attitude which made everyone around him very tense.Rumor of distant thunder trembles along the edge of a galaxy Cascading down infinite corridors of burning mirrors reflecting and rereflecting momentous oceans of stampeding wild horses.Centaurs throb within the blood crossing arteries of storming cavalries that crash though the top of your head Recycle and recur Again and again Reminding of white suns eclipsing oceans of stars shrieking through the midnight dawn.On the other hand, Roger Ebert expressed his disappointment about the movie's box office performance by saying that "you could make more than that just by opening in the first week, people stumbling into a wrong theater looking for Bruce Lee," as well as blamed Universal and Paramount for the lack of support.[30] In Leonard Maltin's annual "Movie Guide" 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.[92] Peter Biskind described the film as "self-consciously arty and pretentious [...] fatally trapped between America and Europe, commerce and art," claiming the result represented "the worst of both worlds", as well as noting that the audience of the time was strikingly different from the one that adored The French Connection.As far as the themes are concerned, his impression of Friedkin's intentions was that "he wanted to show human behavior at its extremes; men in torment to complete a life-or-death mission against all odds and discovering their own limits at the same time".[107] On March 16, 2001, writer-director Peter Hanson summarized that Sorcerer contrasts with frequent self-indulgence of the 1970s and stated that the film is tremendously thrilling with a great deal of tension which he attributed to the plot's construction as "a probing descent into the psyche of an archetypal character driven insane by circumstance".[108] Academy Award nominee, screenwriter and director Josh Olson, most famous for his screenplay for A History of Violence, made a video review of Sorcerer for the Trailers from Hell webseries in 2007.Olson felt that "the movie deserved a huge audience" as well as fantasizing that "somewhere there's an alternate universe where Sorcerer is a massive game-changing hit in Hollywood and I'm doing Trailers from Hell commentary on some unknown cult classic called Star Wars.[129] Bill Gibron marks the demise of unrestrained writer-director creative control in favor of studio-governed film-making with Heaven's Gate, and adds that Sorcerer also significantly contributed to this trend.Furthermore, he states that the last favorable year for New Hollywood was 1976, and "socially critical, stylistically adventurous cinema" would soon be substituted by "ideologically and formally conservative work" of directors like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
William FriedkinWalon GreenGeorges ArnaudRoy ScheiderBruno CremerFrancisco RabalAmidouRamon BieriJohn M. StephensDick BushTangerine DreamUniversal PicturesParamount Picturesactionthriller filmremakeThe Wages of FearSouth Americandynamitenitroglycerinmagnum opusDominican Republicmajor film studiosCinema International Corporationbox office bombStar Warselectronic music70th Venice International Film FestivalWarner Home VideoVeracruzDamascus GateJerusalemIsrael Defense ForcesParis Stock ExchangeElizabethIrish gangCatholic churchItalian MafiaAmerican oil companyNazi war criminalextreme povertyemigrationoil wellColombian passportcharwomangunshotblowoutHumphrey BogartThe Treasure of the Sierra Madreinvestment bankerfrancsIsraelMexicoKarl JohnPeter CapellAnne-Marie DeschodtFriedrich von LedeburThird ReichJoe SpinellcrucifixJean-Luc BideauJacques FrançoisGerard MurphyRandy JurgensenCosmo AllegrettiNew Jerseylocation scoutingLazarusMiles DavisSorcererworking titleThe ExorcistFrench Foreign LegionSteven SpielbergClose Encounters of the Third KindFrancis Ford CoppolaPhilippinesApocalypse NowSam PeckinpahThe Wild BunchGabriel García MárquezOne Hundred Years of SolitudeWerner HerzogAguirre, the Wrath of GodFitzcarraldoJohn HustonFrench New WaveGillo PontecorvoThe Battle of AlgiersTom StempelKen DancygerRobert Altmancinema veriteHenri-Georges ClouzotBrooklyn Academy of MusicSteve McQueenMarcello MastroianniLino VenturaAli MacGrawRobert MitchumEcuadorClint EastwoodJack NicholsonWarren OatesThe Brink's JobCatherine DeneuveLuis BuñuelBelle de JourFernando ReySidney SheinbergThe French ConnectionWilliam Peter BlattyCosta-GavrasSection spécialeClaude LelouchJean-Paul BelmondoF. Scott FitzgeraldThe Great GatsbyKorean Wardirector of photographyKen RussellGustav MahlerLindsay AndersonPrincipal photographyIsraeli security forcesElizabeth, New Jersey