Underground film column: ‘Sorcerer’

Director: William Friedkin
Release Date: 1977

This is another example of well-executed cinema from the 1970s. This oft overlooked and forgotten film from one of American cinema’s finest decades is an instantly captivating and tense thrill ride. I am not usually one to advocate filmmakers remaking other filmmakers’ works, but this one is an exception. This is a remake of French director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 film “Wages of Fear,” and yes, I believe William Friedkin’s interpretation is better.

This film has gritty 1970s cinematography at its grittiest, directed by the master of gritty filmmaking, William Friedkin. You can almost feel the heat and humidity of the jungle emanating from your screen. The film also asks viewers to keep up on their own with little to no exposition, and I can never get enough of that.

The plot of the film is simple. Four criminals from four different backgrounds are hiding out in a squalid and godforsaken village in the Dominican Republic. The region is being exploited by oil companies, which provide employment for the men of the village. An oil derrick ignites and can only be extinguished by dynamite that is more than 200 miles away and that has also become unstable. These four men volunteer to undertake the suicide mission of delivering the volatile load in order to receive legal local citizenship and a big cash bonus.

Friedkin is able to take this seemingly simple plot and turn it into quite a captivating and thoroughly entertaining piece of cinema. The trials and tribulations that lie ahead for the protagonists of the film are many and the tense action as the film unfolds is superbly controlled.

The film was a commercial disaster upon its initial release, and since this was before Kevin Costner decided to become a director, “Sorcerer” was often referred to as the ultimate box-office bomb.

The film seemed to have a perfect storm of opposition working against it when it was originally released in 1977 and struggled to barely make half of the $22 million back that the film cost to make.

First, the name of the film, “Sorcerer,” is the name of one of the trucks used to deliver the deadly cargo and it is not a reference to a master of magic. Apparently, this utterly confused audiences and once they realized their folly, many simply walked out of the theater, never giving the film a chance. Friedkin’s prior film, “The Exorcist,” dealt with spooky, occult-themed material and most movie-goers were expecting a film titled “Sorcerer” to include wizards and warlocks.

Friedkin also had the misfortune of having his film released right after George Lucas had unleashed his mega-hit “Star Wars” into theaters. A lot of theater owners passed altogether on “Sorcerer” or only screened it for one week in order to free up more screens for “Star Wars.”

One of Friedkin’s few ill-advised directorial choices was to commission the Krautrock/New Age electronic band Tangerine Dream to compose and perform the film’s score. This was the band’s first foray into doing music for film, and many have praised the group’s freshman effort. I have to disagree. Not only is the music terribly dated, but the contrast of synthesized soundscapes and remote Latin American jungles is just way too distracting.

Alas, “Sorcerer” has sadly remained under the radar for the most part. Every once in a while I see it making the rounds on IFC, but aside from the tiny cult following the film has garnered, it is mostly forgotten.