Hazard Pay, Pt. 1 — Sorcerer

30:14There's something about that. Inspiring is not the word, but it is a situation. I mean, we're, we're, we're people, you know, we live in a world where a lot of people come, do not have much in common and are distrustful of each other and still have to find some way to collaborate and find a common ground. And the film is in its way, a demonstration of that. so I did come to kind of treasure this opening and that and maybe even more so than Richard's fear also has I think a quite an unusually long build up to along where to when do we get to the fireworks factory section of the movie and you know I think I think it pays off quite well in Sorcerer I think it almost would kind of give the edge to Sorcerer in this particular stretch because I do think I do did find this that part of the film really compelling this time I will say a way in that it pays off that I like.

31:07I basically just sort of feel like the stories are a little inefficient, that there's a whole lot of detail that we don't need and not some of the details I would have liked to make these people come into focus a little more. But it's very utilitarian because what it gets you is an explanation for the particular skills that they bring to bear. You know, we understand now why Jackie is good with machinery and is such a good driver. We understand going in that Kassem knows a lot about explosives. And when he brings that skill to bear, we're not surprised. And we don't have to stop a tense action scene for him to explain his history.

31:45We understand why Nilo is good at gunplay and deception and getting the drop on people. It's with Victor that I see that coming into play the least. And I kind of feel like that's maybe because he's meant to be the heart of the movie. The person whose emotional life we know the most about, when he is willing to give away the watch that his wife gave him, that talks about the eternity that they're going to spend together, you know, as a ploy to get him out of the country, when that's sort of the last thing we see of him is the watch, you know, at the end of his particular story. These are meant to be heartfelt moments.

32:25But I just, I don't see that playing out as much more more so than roy scheider he's the hero of the he's the clear he's not the hero of the heart the the emotional character no no i'm with i'm with tasha no i'm with tasha yeah oh my gosh yeah yeah we need to have you on this podcast especially especially when scott's hosting well i think because for me like to go back to to the motivation question like if i'm remembering incorrectly we get this sort of throwaway mention of victor's father having been working class and so like i line with tasha's reading of like he did all this to sort of like keep his wife in the life to which she was accustomed and that's why he sort of thinks his father-in-law is gonna like bail out this fraud because like i was doing it for your daughter and so there's something there about like the ambition of him when otherwise he's sort of like a good guy and the ambition of him ruining this situation that i think is meant to be the most relatable out of anyone because ultimately like kasim is a terrorist right like jackie does rob a series of churches which i'm laughing at because wow amazing choice um and then yeah then there's like an assassin for hire and i think of those four people you're supposed to sort of see victor as like the softest and like his own worst enemy he's not guided by like a political ideology or like a pure motivation for money he was doing it for the love of his he was just a wife guy caught in a bad situation you know so yeah i'm with tasha but i but i am a i am a softy so like him being the heart of it and everything with the watch really did work on me if we can agree that nilo is not the heart of the movie then okay it's a fun fact we're going to go to a break here in a second but fun fun fact about this movie uh that i want to share courtesy of its wikipedia page is that the actor cast as um nilo is francisco rabal uh who was supposed to be in the french connection of The casting director screwed up his name and Francisco Ray was second lead in French Connection instead, which is an incredible piece of trivia.

34:46And good on William Friedkin for finally getting a chance to work with his preferred actor in Sorcerer. With that, let's take a quick break. We have lots more to talk about with Sorcerer.

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36:45and we're back this is something that i brought up in my keynote as well and i think it's it's it's a you know something that you know i brought it up in connection to francis for coppola which who is somebody that freaking saw himself in conflict with or in competition with or somebody you know uh on his level or something and there's such a strong connection between sorcerer and apocalypse now which is how effective they are as physical productions how does the film sort of strike you in that way as a film in which its creation it's making really um seems to have a bearing on the effect that it has on you as an audience i mean i do think at a certain point i turned to my partner and i was like i bet they all stink there is a level of like there is a level of just everything is wet you know the jungle is humid as hell like there is so much focus on the physical torment and trial of trying to like hack through this location and I think that again is maybe a little bit of why this one just hits me like a little bit more than wages of fears because I think there is like a real emphasis on how this jungle is almost sentient and does not care about them at all.

38:07And there is like an additional layer of challenge to that. I remember while watching the first time, I did think like this must have been hellish and terrible. And I didn't know all of the details of the production stories until later. I mean, it is interesting to sort of think about it in comparison with Apocalypse Now, because for me, Apocalypse Now is the better movie and the one where I do feel all of the toil more. But yes, certainly Sorcerer as like a self-contained thing when I am watching it, I think this must have been hell. You're not tricking me in a way that I'm aware of. I genuinely believe that everything was happening on location and that it was miserable and that you probably hated Friedkin the whole time and he probably hated himself and there's like a agira wrath of god thing happening here which is miserable so yeah i do think that's all effective i don't know how you would take shortcuts here honestly like i don't know how you could tell this sort of like aggressive odyssey and not have it be like this but maybe i'm just incredibly unimaginative and one of you is going to tell me all the ways they could have done this without torturing everyone.

39:26Not in 1977. Yeah, not then. I mean, I've read that this got compared to Aguirre a lot. I mean, for me, Fitzcarraldo came up a lot more when I was watching it because I just had that sensation of they're humping this vehicle through a place that was not meant to be passed through with a vehicle, and they've got to be really doing it because that's the era. There was my own turn to my partner story is that in a sequence where Jackie kind of breaks down, where he's trying to hack through the jungle, and he ends up walking towards what seems to be a puddle and turns out to be like chest-deep mud or quicksand.

40:04And he just, he keeps hacking and thrashing while everybody is soaking wet, completely slathered in mud. And now he's, you know, chest-deep in something that is definitely full of leeches and dysentery and who knows what all else. I turned to my partner and I just said, I'm feeling so dry and clean right now. It's a really, really visceral film and it does look like a miserable shoot. But I mean, it's a very tactile film. You definitely believe everything that you're seeing. And that's something I cannot say about any film that I see these days, no matter what's on the screen. Unless it ends and it was made for$80 ,000, I see something just visually tremendous and kind of think, hmm, wonder how many digital overlays.

40:53That is kind of one of the joys of going back and watching movies from this era is you know that a lot of this had to actually be done. I think there's also this sense that, you know, I think you would certainly watch this film and guess that it indeed had the trouble production that it had because it almost it goes so far out of its way to make trouble for itself in terms of like where it's shot and how it's shot you know and if you read anything about the way the the the wooden bridge stuff was shot it sounds like a talk about dangerous things people ask you to do for money that certainly is that and um you know and then and then you think about how all of this is going on and the film you know to just add to it all it's a raining like hell it has to just it has to absolutely be a pouring rain on top of the other the raging river and all these other uh you know being deep in the muck and smelly and you know and you get that sense that that tactile sense is what is so powerful about this experience of just just you know feeling the setting in a way that you wouldn't certainly in a digital environment I mean to me you know that that that's just you know one of the joys of as you said of watching movies of this era is is kind of knowing that all this has to be a practical effect and in all done with practical effects and in physical shoots and in in seeing that so vividly in the fabric of the of the film it just it works great uh and uh it reminded me that the tipping point for me I the the anecdote I always bring up is is how master and commander and pirates of the caribbean came out the same year and i was thinking like why why did we why did we have to couldn't people feel the difference between one as a physical production and one as a is something that just had no weight at all to it even though obviously they're trying to do different things you know you're always you know when you go out of the way to to shoot things on location you know to make things harder on yourself I'm sure it was a nightmare.

43:05I mean, everything you hear about William Friedkin is he's just barely tolerable, if that, to work with as a director. Absolutely, absolutely miserable tyrant. But, you know, he gets results. And I think Sorcerer is one of his better results. so i wanted to i wanted to actually get to this piece of criticism because we were we've been talking a little bit about the differences between the wages of fear and sorcerer so i wanted to get one one interesting one that i heard was from my friend and uh and our listener mike d 'angelo who likes the friedkin film but prefers the wages of fear and his what he's his basic thing is that he feels like sorcerer forgets about the nitroglycerin a lot of the time and focuses is more like a bad road with major obstacles whereas in the wages of fear you are constantly aware of the fact that any little bump is going to lead to disaster so that there is that sustained unbroken tension that these trucks can blow at any time so so while maybe they don't have to say blast through a tree that is you know across them in the road there are other you know there is that constant threat that maybe uh isn't quite acknowledged or exploited enough in sorcerer what are your thoughts on that i don't agree i don't agree because i think the bad road is still in and of itself a threat it's not just like a bad road right it's like a road that is actively crumbling at numerous points even before you get to the rope bridge there are like other wooden bridges that are disintegrating scott the boxes are in a layer of sand excuse me that protective layer one protective layer of sand in all seriousness i do agree with you like i do think while watching sorcerer i am sort of like this thing would have exploded numerous times but i never really feel the tension let up because i think there are omnipresent other obstacles that could cause them to get like stuck or washed out or yes sink into like a bunch of quicksand they were unaware of like i think the film is still really pressure loaded even if there are some moments where you're like yeah this probably should have blown up i do still think it is very creative in making that bad road and the thing that was interesting actually when we were talking about like the morality of this and i hadn't thought about this before but it did make me think a little bit about like the concept of surat which came out and was about like the muslim concept of like when you pass there is like a bridge that you pass over and you're being like tempted on all sides and you sort of have to like make your way across to like prove your worthiness and i don't know if william friedkin was aware of the muslim concept of surat but i did it made me think about that a little bit more in terms of like what the characters are going on this journey for and what is the possible redemptive quality of that but ultimately i still find that there is tension and danger on this journey even though yes there are some more nitroglycerine-y outs probably than there should be yeah i i rarely agree with mike about anything when it comes to movie criticism, but I'm 100 % with him on this.

46:34I think Roxanne is still right. It's a very threatening movie. It's a very overbearing, tense movie. You definitely think these characters are going to die at any moment. But I do agree with Mike that it does feel like the movie kind of drops the whole nitroglycerin threat to a pretty extreme degree. I will give Yeah, that's somewhat of a pass on that because when it does actually blow, it's for good reason. You know, it's not an ironic, and then we hit a pebble and the whole thing went up where you're sort of left, you know, debating fate and or dramatic irony and or screenwriter cheating effectively.

47:19what I kind of take away from it is that maybe the threat wasn't quite as bad as they thought it was all along which is fine because there were so many other threats yeah so it doesn't bother me as like a issue with the movie per se but I do think that Mike is right and it it feels like the movie gets away from this is the predominant threat pretty pretty easily and pretty often yeah that was the thing about about reading what Mike said about sorcerer that kind of you know And this is his skill often with me as a writer is that he picks up on something and it's like, god damn it. That's a very good point.

47:55Because it's like, yeah, I'm not thinking about the nitroglycerin in Sorcerer. But then I kind of follow up that thought with like, okay, we're getting tension here. It's not like the tension is slackening in Sorcerer because the nitroglycerin factor has shifted a bit to the back of our mind. Friedkin has just found other sources of tension. and that tension is sustained but a little bit different which is fine and effective in its own way so so i didn't really see it as a mark on um sorcerer but i did think it was an interesting point uh to bring up because uh just justice just at a very at the very least to talk about the two films having different sources of tension in different different ways in which they you know put you on the edge of your seat well and this is being like super pedantic but like in wages of fear it is fully liquid nitro right like it's in jerry cans like it is fully like it's like sloshing around but like in sorcerer it is still dynamite sticks that are leaking nitro but aren't they also predominantly solid they well and and padded you know they're in padding and they're in wrapping and that wrapping is in boxes and those boxes are in sand so you know if the threat is is basically just there's a small amount of leaked liquid yeah um it you know it you're right it just doesn't seem as uh dangerous per se yeah now you know i don't blame anybody for not having somebody uh up front say now the threat is actually probably pretty minor but we want to be extra careful here it's actually not that serious don't worry about it you know everything you're asking for about like you know double pay and this taunting you've invented where you get more money if other people die no out the window you're you're getting a flat paycheck and that that's it this is really no big deal can i note note something here to um i mean we're going to talk about the end of sorcerer in a little bit but one kind of interesting tweak i think is that if you recall uh the voices of fear has kind of this ironic i suppose ending where where where our hero has succeeded and uh and he's driving across the same path in a carefree fashion and then of course slips off the path and and dies that way and it reminded me so much here the sorcerer way way of dealing with it is to is to basically make that victor's fate victor and kasem and that and that they are in a relatively not exactly carefree but but in a spot where they where the threat feels alleviated in their attention in the attention to uh the road is slackens a little bit and and uh and that is how they end up and in that moment in that seemingly uh benign moment is when when tragedy occurs you know very something terrible happens very quickly and it's over so it feels like it feels like he's like Friedkin sort of tucked that same kind of moment into uh a different part of the movie I think they're completely different moments scott i don't see them as similar no because i feel like the kasem and victor moment is pure random sheer they pop a tire right they're not doing anything they're not like hell yeah joy let's let's drive with my feet while i put my hands on my back you don't think there's a that's kind of a you know if i recall the sun's out right they're feeling a little bit yeah i think i think they're relieved but i don't think they're like vin dieseling it whereas i think wages of fear he is like hell yeah like i lived bitch like i feel like he he is like really tempting fate and i did not read that in wages okay i read it as purely like you have absolutely no control over this situation whatsoever the tire pops it's completely random there was nothing they could have done which goes back to that question of fate which i think is sort of resolved by the end but no i didn't i really saw end of wages of fear is like this dumbass is so proud of himself for doing this and this is his comeuppance like he invites death upon himself i didn't sense that in sorcerer with sorcerer i mean i do feel like the ending is more parallel with sorcerer's ending where Jackie does kind of drop his guard for a moment and his fate catches up with him.

52:20Now, I don't think that that moment comes across as him being cavalier, but he is to some degree, he thinks the danger is over. And he drops his guard for an emotional moment. And it is sort of implied that if he hadn't done that, like if he had just left, he would be on the plane when his fate shows up for him. So there is, you know, a sense of parallel there. But I do think they're I think they're emotionally different moments. But in terms of of kind of the irony of death comes for us all, and not necessarily when or how we expect it. I think they're very parallel moments. Yeah, for me, it feels exactly like that, Tasha, like Jackie has let the sentiment of the moment be his downfall because he asks this woman who had sort of been like, not like Victor's like main squeeze, but there was like a relationship to a certain degree between her and Victor and Jackie is asking her to dance.

53:19And it feels like he is acknowledging that he had like a past and a relationship with these men who are dead and with this town. And it's like this very like, sort of like resonant, evocative moment. I just, I don't know. Maybe it's just because I hate the guy from Wages of Fear so much. And I like Jackie. I'm like, oh, Jackie is deaf. But yes, I think there is a similar question of like, did they all enter into this doomed pact that they're not going to be able to escape in any way? I think I just like sort of the tragic feeling of sorcerer, The tragic, helpless feeling of sorcerer a little bit more than wages of fear like this guy did it to himself.

54:10That's probably just my own sentimentality making me think of one over the other. And there is maybe a very small degree in sorcerer. We may like Jackie. It sounds like you like Jackie, Scott. Sure. You think he's, quote unquote, the hero. But I mean, this is somebody who is a gangster who robbed other gangsters, which seems very unwise. And then a moment of distraction for him got his, you know, allies or, you know, co-workers or whatever it is you would want to call them killed. And, you know, he was he was in it also. We you know, we don't get a lot of explanation for why he ended up in a lot of life of crime either.

54:52But this is not necessarily, you know, as we'll see in The Wait, this is not somebody who through, you know, mistaken happenstance and poor policing, you know, ended up in this situation outside his his control. So when when those gangsters show up at the at the end, having finally found him, there is a sense of just a delayed fate finding him again that I think isn't really present in Wages of Fear unless you sort of take the movie as he probably should have died earlier in the film and managed to dodge that. But this is the bill for that survival coming due. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I guess we'll, of course, have a lot of time to talk about the matter.

55:37So the real debate question here is which of these movies is more Final Destination? that's what we should have been talking about this whole time the fate question is interesting and i think it's i mean obviously we will have a chance to get into that as well what next week when we do the weight but i'm interested to kind of clarify about fate as it relates to jackie in the sense like do you actually think it's a short like do you think he would have you know dodged his face had fate had he not chosen to stay and take that dance or do you think this was going to happen to him anyway because i i kind of feel like it's the latter i i you know it just based on based on what my based on my feeling about um the rest of the film and the attitude that it seems to have about about you know the faith that all of these characters are facing but tasha you seem to imply that that um this decision the softer decision really on his part may have cost him in the end.

56:36I think it's pretty clear. I mean, the oil company guy literally tells him, you know, the plane will wait on you. And he says, well, hang on a minute, you know, because there's something else I want to do. I think he would have been on the plane and the plane would have been in the air. That doesn't necessarily mean I think the gangsters could have never caught up with him. I mean, they found him in this anonymous hellhole under a false name, wherever he's going that he wants to be, that's more civilized. You know, I believe he's the one that says at some point, like, Managua isn't an option for me.

57:05You know, he can't go somewhere much better than this. Wherever it is he's going, they may track him down there, but his fate would not have necessarily found him that day in that moment. Now, we don't know for certain that it does. We don't hear gunshots. We don't see blood. You know, it's possible that there's a you know sorcerer too that would have happened if this was a bigger box office hit um but you know i think it's implied certainly there is one gunshot right is there i was listening and i did not hear anything there's a there's one gunshot so interesting the transfer that i saw it on was uh the dvd transfer i saw it on was was quite bad and yeah juddered the entire time yeah So it's possible the sound mix was not as good as it could be.

57:51Oh shit, it's on blue right now. Yeah, on the Criterion, there is a gunshot and then the closed captions are like gunshot. Single gunshot in brackets. Yeah. But I'm with Tasha. Look, I think that he was fated either way. So I think that maybe he was fated to have this moment of like romanticism and ask for this dance and still be killed. I also could see a final destination scenario where he gets on the plane and we do like a pan to reveal the two assassins on the plane. I think regardless, he was going to die. And I think there is something there about like their actions in their past lives. They're not really being second acts.

58:36the fact that like what is going on in this village and what this american oil company is doing is corrupting everyone like i actually really love the sort of like villagers uprising scene where they fight back against the oil company it's so good so i think there is sort of this question maybe or a suggestion as well which is like maybe he's also fated to die because he helps this company. I agree with the fate reading. And I think he was fated to die regardless. That's my read. Yeah, we didn't talk at all about that uprising. But my God, what a, you know, the bridge sequence is great and all.

59:16But the uprising against the oil company as the bodies are brought back home from the accident is riveting. Just mesmerizing. And the accident. I was like, how did nobody die while filming this oil explosion that goes on for like two minutes? And it's just this full of people on fire running around. Just a lot of fire stunt work. In an era before they had that Oscar winning gel you can apply to your body to keep it from catching on fire during fire stunts. Friedkin was insisting on everyone's safety. anyway so so our fate is to continue uh to talk about sorcerer next week uh we'll bring it in the wait but for now we need to close this out and move on to feedback

1:00:08now it's time for feedback but first we want to check in with other happenings in the film spotting family of podcasts on the mothership podcast hosted by adam kempenar and josh larson the boys are discussing David Lynch's Blue Velvet as part of their Pantheon project. They're also planning a crossover segment later this month with film-spotting SVU co-host Matt Singer to promote Matt's new book, Funny Business, which covers the studio comedy boom of the early 21st century. Michael Phillips' podcast, The Movie Racket, brings on Rachel Walther to discuss Godard's line that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, while Chris Klemek's latest movie deathmatch pits stop making sense against the last waltz in an argument over which one is the greatest concert film ever made why must we choose chris why must we choose what kind of podcast is this i'm not i'm not even choosing between those two you can't make me now it's time for feedback where we address responses we've gotten to recent episodes in the anything else in the world of film department we get this recommendation from julius that's worth sharing i think because it's a a critical darling that's flown well under the radar.

1:01:16Roxanna, do you want to read this for us? Sure. Julius writes, this summer has been a very queer friendly summer with a number of LGBTQ plus movies coming out between June and now. Leviticus, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, I Want Your Sex, etc, etc. Dreams in Nightmares is one that is flying under people's radars with hardly any fanfare or advertisement in its 300-theater run. I only went to it because of its intriguingly evocative title and a brief description that mentioned a connection to queerness. It's a road movie about the queer Black femme experience for young millennials. Director Shatara Michelle Ford has cited Paris, Texas as her inspiration for a road movie that crosses America, but more of its structural bones stem from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

1:02:06as three black queer friends from New York City and Los Angeles go on a road trip through the heartland to find a friend who has seemingly gone MIA for two months. Along the way, each stop reveals more about them, their families, America, and their place in it. I can see why Ford is citing Paris, Texas instead of Priscilla, as outside the first stop in Pittsburgh, this trip isn't a zany, surreal trip into the great Midwest filled with giant silver outfits and drag rehearsals in the desert. It's a story of pathos and self-discovery. While there are some pacing issues, it takes 40 minutes to leave New York, and that Pittsburgh stop goes on for 12 minutes, the movie is ultimately about why many queer people congregate in big cities and whether you can truly make any other place home.

1:02:55Anyways, I figured this might be too small of a movie to get a pairing, and this comment will probably be read after the movie has left theaters but i thought it was an interesting enough movie to put on as a your next picture show comment yeah thanks julius i i was looking this up after this is one also that escaped not just the next picture show but also our newsletter the reveal and and reviews are great for this thing it's kind of like a high 80s metacritic score people love this movie and uh i i completely missed me and uh and now i definitely want to see it I think an issue is that it does not seem to be playing anywhere near here.

1:03:32I immediately went and looked it up to see if it was on the movie subscription app that I have a subscription to. If it was playing at something like the Music Box, our local rep theater that brings in arthouse movies that don't play elsewhere. And as near as I can tell, it's just not playing in the Chicago area, period, which is a bummer. We need to keep an eye on it for when it hits digital. For sure. but thanks Julius for sending that in.

1:04:04That's it for this episode of The Next Picture Show. In our next episode, we'll talk about a more modest take on a similar story with the Ethan Hawke thriller, The Wait. Look for that episode next Tuesday on your podcatcher of choice. For ad-free versions of the podcast and extra content, find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. You can find us at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The Next Picture Show if you want to keep track of when new episodes drop. Until next time, remember, if you're going to rob a church bingo game, make sure it's not a mobbed up church bingo game.

1:04:50That was a good movie. Yeah, seen here before once.