Why the Deliverance "Dueling Banjos" Scene Still Haunts Filmmakers

There's not much wilderness in Los Angeles, so when I am craving the great outdoors, I like to put on an outdoorsy movie. But this weekend, I put on Deliverance...which set a very different kind of mood.

Now, there are a lot of scenes in this movie that are rife for discussion, but today, I ant to unpack the famous scene. No, not that one. The other one.

The "Dueling Banjos" scene.

Yes, right in act one of John Boorman’s 1972, we get a jam session between an Atlanta businessman, Drew (Ronny Cox), and a young local boy, Lonnie (Billy Redden), that actually sets up kind of everything that follows.

Let's dive in.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Cultural Hubris and the Illusion of Connection

Okay, so at its core, this is a movie about human beings and what separates us from the animals. Are we above them, or are we just advanced animals ourselves?

At the start of this movie, this argument is presented as male bravado.

We have a group of guys who fancy themselves above the rednecks they meet, who are going to take a canoe trip down the river.

At their natural starting point, they talk to a few guys they believe are uneducated and, frankly, stupid.

There's even a little boy there with a banjo who gets approached by one of the clean-cut men, playing a guitar. To his surprise, the boy can not only play what he plays, but can mimic him perfectly.

This becomes a dueling situation, where he's playing the guitar and the boy plays the banjo, eventually soloing and creating this sense that everyone here is more than they seem.

And that the city people who think they have it all figured out might have underestimated what it's like to be in the real wild, and might have also underestimated the people out here.

Boorman clearly plants that these people have much more going on, and even though this ends ambivalently, we can sense tension brewing.

This is classic screenwriting stuff, and it plays so perfectly by subverting the trope of the dumb redneck and instead feeding us an advanced animal that will soon hunt these men, who think they're above it all.

Clever Practical Effects

If you're a director or cinematographer, there are a lot of lessons to learn here just from the practicality of the scene. First, there are no real pyrotechnic complications. It's all framing and staging of the guys.

The scene demonstrates how practical tricks elevate cinema and even skew the audience's emotions over time.

Want to know something crazy?

Actor Billy Redden didn't actually know how to play the banjo.

So in order to do all this shooting, they had another musician hide behind Redden, poke his left arm through Redden's sleeve, and fret the instrument, while Redden simply plucked.

That is so nuts, but it looks so good on camera!

Boorman uses tight framing and precise editing cuts to mask the illusion.

The whole scene is a lesson in a transition of power. We see these men completely emasculated by this kid, and then, in turn, the movie shows the great outdoors and the horrors of the people there also take them.

When you're writing and directing, ask yourself who holds the leverage at the start of the scene and how that leverage shifts over time.

Now, outline a visual way to represent this as well.

Summing It All Up

Deliverance is one of those movies I love recommending to people, because I always know if they eventually watch it. They always tell me, or yell at me, or whatever they need to express their frustrations.

Boorman is a wonderful director who makes things visual, even the awful things. We could all learn from him in many ways.

Let me know what you think in the comments.