Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Spin-Off Blogathon: Deliverance’s Mountain Man

The Spin-Off blogathon Sati is hosting on her perfect site, Cinematic Corner, is an ingenious idea: choose a minor film character you love, and make them the lead of a movie you create. The moment I read Sati’s prompt, my mind settled on one character that I’ve always longed to understand. The repugnant, confounding, and utterly terrifying Mountain Man from John Boorman’s Deliverance.

Deliverance’s famed rape scene is the most horrifying film sequence I’ve ever witnessed. Much of the fear of the scene is, of course, due to the gruesome act that occurs. But furthermore, the scene frightens me because I have no idea who the Mountain Man (Bill McKinney), and his partner, the Toothless Man (Herbert ‘Cowboy’ Coward), are. I don’t know what drives and motivates them. I don’t know where they came from or what they ultimately want. It’s that fear of the unknown that makes the Mountain Man so chilling.

I’m fascinated by the cycle of violence. Are people constructed into violent beings based on their circumstances (how they were raised, the area of the world they grew up in), or are certain people just born plain fuckin’ crazy? There are so many factors and variables that go into someone’s psyche – chemical imbalance, circumstantial exposure, past experiences, and so on. Sati’s exercise is about picking a character and framing your ideal film around them, but I’m often more curious about where characters have been, as opposed to where they’re going. In this regard, I suppose I’d love to see a prequel shaped around the Mountain Man. I want to know who this guy is and observe the world he came from. I want to try and understand the psychology of someone who sets off to go hunting, comes across some innocent tourists, and immediately decides to sexually assault them.
The way the Mountain Man and the Toothless Man silently choose to commit the rape makes it appear as if they’ve done it before. But how many opportunities could they really have had? How many tourists have gotten lost canoeing on this river, near where these guys hunt? If it has happened before, under somewhat similar circumstances, what did the criminals do with their victims? Were the Mountain Man and his toothless partner going to kill Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Ed (Jon Voight), or were they going to have their way with them and simply leave?

The basis of my desire to know more about the Mountain Man is credited to a brief moment late in Deliverance. Shortly after Ed, Bobby, and Lewis (Burt Reynolds) arrive in Aintry, they are stopped by the town sheriff, played by James Dickey, who wrote the book on which Deliverance is based.  The sheriff, skeptical about the men’s story, tells Ed that the brother-in-law of one of his deputies has gone missing. He went off hunting a few days ago, and hasn’t returned. That’s the moment. That’s the moment when the Mountain Man (and the Toothless Man, for the matter) becomes human. He’s a real man with a family who worries about him. This doesn’t justify what he did (nothing justifies what he did), but it does humanize him in a way I find immensely disturbing. (Note: this is all predicated on the assumption that the missing person the sheriff is talking about is either the Mountain Man or the Toothless Man. There are many things left purposefully ambiguous in the film.)
If I made a prequel about the Mountain Man, it would start at the exact same time as Deliverance. I’d shape the narrative so that the stories run concurrently. That gives us a day to discover who this guy is. A day of him shuffling around his home, monitoring the way he behaves around his wife and kids (if he has any), and listening to him shoot the shit with his toothless friend about crimes past.

In that time, we could learn when and how the cycle of violence began with the Mountain Man. If he does have children, we could see if he is continuing the cycle with them. Make no mistake, death does not always break the cycle of violence. Maybe the Mountain Man’s children will grow into adults that remain enraged over the disappearance of their father. Dennis Vinyard, the patriarch of American History X, was a dinner table racist, quietly infecting his children with bigotry and hate. When he was killed, his oldest son, Derek, didn’t grieve in silence. He turned himself into a beacon of hate. A leader for the lost. A killer for cause. If the Mountain Man’s reign of terror is forever buried under a massive lake, then so be it, world’s a better place. But if his children grow up behaving like daddy, then, well, I suppose that’d be cause for another spin-off movie entirely.

18 comments:

  1. That I would pay to see. Mountain Man was fucking scary. SQUEAL!!! SQUEAL!!!!!

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    1. Scary old bastard, wasn't he? Seriously though... what in the hell makes a guy like that tick?

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  2. The whole Spin-off minor character concept is so cool and what a pick, Alex! A truly fucked up character if there ever was one. I have to believe that people like that are some sort of screwed up recipe of biological and environmental error. It would be an interesting study to have a little window into a day in the life, but the whole thing is just wild. It's been over 40 years...maybe a remake is in order.

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    1. Isn't it a nifty idea? I loved that Sati came up with this.

      I love what you said about biological and environmental error. That is spot on for this guy. I fear getting to witness that window of time, but I do think it'd be interesting.

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  3. That scene is so frightening, but this is a fascinating choice! I would definitely watch this.

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    1. Thanks! Really glad you liked the post. A sick bastard, this guy.

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  4. I really need to see Deliverance again. Haven't watched that in years. I am curious though about your reasoning behind picking this man (and his toothless friend). I don't disagree, but I'm curious if perhaps you would have the same sort of interest in someone like the rapist from Irreversible as well?

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    1. Good question. And I actually did think about this one a bit while writing this piece. I personally think we know what drives Le Tenia, whereas with the Mountain Man, we have no idea. Le Tenia is motivated by any number of things: control, drugs, anger. Really, any guy who has a smile on his face while watching another man’s head being bashed in is a guy who is capable of anything. I also think what Le Tenia does to Alex is something he’s done many times, to both men and women. And while I respect the hell out of Irreversible (I called it one of the 10 best films of the 2000s), I suppose I don’t find Le Tenia as interesting and mysterious as the Mountain Man. Does that make sense?

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    2. I read you. I didn't doubt that you thought about it a lot, but that comparison just hit me as I read through this.

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    3. Gotcha man. A fair comparison for sure.

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  5. So glad to have you on board with my first blogahon!

    This is definitely the darkest contribution so far which I love because the entries are just so varied and rich.

    I loved your point about children near the end - personally I don't think people are ever born evil, but evil can seep through, like in the way you mentioned in the last paragraph. I think even the entire movie about this man showing his true colors (rarely or often) in the household he tries to hide his real self would be an extremely interesting movie but I love your idea of just giving one day to explain the character's mind and motivations.

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    1. Awesome, so happy to hear that you're pleased with the piece! I loved participating in this blogathon and will happily contribute to any others you create.

      I knew this guy was a dark character to go with, but it genuinely was my first thought. So happy that you like the narrative of my spin-off movie... one day would surely be enough with this guy. Ha.

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  6. Excellent choice here Alex. Man, that rape scene is one of the most disturbing things I've seen. It'd be hard to watch a film with this dude as the main character but intriguing nonetheless.

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    1. Thanks Mark! I agree, it'd definitely be a tough film to stomach, but I would just love exploring this guy's psyche some more. Thanks for stopping by!

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  7. Great choice! Definitely the darkest contribution yet. Tough film to watch, but you present an excellent case in terms of his character.

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    1. Thanks man! Really glad you like the dark pick.

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  8. Wonderful idea! That's a movie I'd like to see, even if it was guaranteed to be disturbing.

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    1. Thanks! I do like a good, disturbing movie every now and again!

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