ADDITION: Warner - Region FREE - Blu-ray January 15': Basically, I agree with Leonard's comments (below for the BD). This is one, early Blu-ray, title I would love to see get a better treatment - dual-layering and lossless audio is certainly called for with Deliverance. The 1080P via VC-1 is less green than the Deluxe DVD - but still looks muddy. This very visual film deserves much better! - Come one Warner!

NOTE: The Digi-book HERE is reported to have lossless audio and is dual-layered. We'll try to get a copy and compare further. (Thanks Hugh!)

Gary W. Tooze

Leonard's comments: Reviewers are fond of saying things like: the image looks pretty good, or better than I expected, for a film of this age. Hooey! It's not the age, but the materials employed and how they were preserved. Deliverance is easily the weakest image that has yet been put out on Blu-ray. But it was not all that good to start with. The colors are deliberately desaturated, a little, yes. There is a considerable amount of what passes for film grain in color, yes. But my complaint is with the overall vagueness of the image. It looks like the result of extreme push-processing in order to get every possible amount of depth of field even in difficult conditions. Worse yet is the blue bleeding that occurs in the night shots as Ed climbs the mountain and especially across his face once he gets there. I don't recall seeing anything quite so egregious. I have many an SD DVD that looks better – and some of those are in color, pre-1970. That said, the Blu-ray picture seems to be free of blemishes and artifacts, and has never looked this good on video when projected large, as mine is.

Audio: Never designed to be a special effects sound design or anything remotely like it, Deliverance operates at a quite different level: it's the drama and performances that either reach you or turn your stomach. Even the background music track is as subtle as it is a perfect outgrowth of the Dueling Banjos bit from the opening scene.

Extras: A new one-hour docu-featurette that reunites all the principle actors, plus Bill McKinney; Boorman; Vilmos Zsigmond, his cinematographer; and Chris Dickey, son of the author tells the story; and in addition, a running commentary by Boorman. The vintage featurette is mercifully short – I say that because it is so poor in terms of image – but worth a visit.

Leonard Norwiotz

***

ON THE DVDs: Hmmmm.... frankly, I think I am somewhat disappointed by the new Deluxe SD transfer. In most respects it excels above the original DVD release from 2001 which had a large black border (picture-boxed) circumventing the anamorphically enhanced frame (see image below) and is rife with digital artifacts on a single-layered DVD. In many scenes the image is shifted slightly to the left in comparison to the new Deluxe release. What looks odd to me are the colors and detail. It can look very green at times but skin tones are less red than in the original. I never saw this theatrically so I can't talk with any assurance about the colors - I'll just say I am suspicious and will investigate further when I have it in Hi-def in a few days. Hopefully it will retain some of its sharpness. It is dual-layered, progressive and 16X9 in the impressive 2.35 scope. Both have the same 5.1 boosted track and a French mono DUB. The deluxe adds a Spanish subtitle option on top of English and French.

Supplement-wise the new deluxe DVD has a decent Boorman commentary. It has many healthy gaps and he tends to narrate a bit - but when he does talk about the production (acting and the narrative interpretation etc.) it is quite informative. A new 52 minute featurette is broken up into 4 separate segments:

Deliverance: The Beginning - Takes a historical look at the novel and its adaptation to the screen.
Deliverance: The Journey - Along from the early stages of filming to the creation of classic moments, such as the Dueling Banjos scene.
Deliverance: Betraying the River - The making of one of the most controversial and ground-breaking sequences in film history.
Deliverance: Delivered - A reflective look back on the completion of the film, its impact and how the idea for the shocking ending came to be.  

They have input from Boorman, Reynolds and Voigt among some of the participants. Quite enjoyable. Also included is the original 10 minute featurette; The Dangerous World of Deliverance ( The original behind-the-scenes documentary on the difficult conditions and challenges of making this film) which was the only extra feature on the first Warner DVD. Both have a theatrical trailer and the original has the pan and scan version on the opposite side. 

I guess I was just expecting more from the visual.

Gary W. Tooze