There is an excellent appreciation of James Dickey's Deliverance in Wednesday's New York Times and it's definitely worth your time. I've always enjoyed both the book and film for entirely different reasons. Often you see good films made from mediocre books (e.g., The Godfather), but Deliverance is a brilliant film made from an extraordinary book.
Spoiler below the fold.
While the article makes mention of one of the most lurid scenes in the film, for me the most thoroughly grim moment is when they are about to dispose of Drew's, the Ronny Cox character's, body. Ed, the Jon Voight character, asks if anyone wants to say a few words and Bobby, the Ned Beatty character, replies "I really didn't know him well."
The coldness of his tone sticks with me nearly forty years after I saw the film. There is, in my opinion, no greater evidence of the way their experience transformed those men than that.
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