MovieChat Forums > Sorcerer (1977) Discussion > Don't search for positive messages in th...

Don't search for positive messages in this film...(spoilers)

posted 9 years ago by leishayoung
11 replies | jump to latest

This is a film about the worst of human nature.

Every man depicted in this film is repugnant one way or another; driven purely by self interest.

When these men die, the individual is left to decide how much regret they really feel; this is the life these men have chosen, and when you choose that life you can be wiped from the landscape without even the batter of an eyelid.

These men will not be missed, and truthfully, the world is better off without them. They are self serving until the end.

To me the most telling moment was when the French guy writes a letter to his wife (that he has abandoned because he is such a coward); he gives it to the American oil tycoon who couldn't give two hoots for it. This man's grand legacy to his wife is nothing more than a piece of paper that will never reach her. It's just a pathetic scenario, and these guys have given up everything for that pathetic existence...

[–] tenantennae 9 years ago

My favorite of those moments is when the boss suggests Scanlon go to Managua. Scanlon had told Nilo, the assassin, he would go there and fulfill his dying wish of getting laid.

But when the boss suggests going there, Scanlon looks puzzled by the idea, and dismisses it out of hand as though it's something he'd never consider in a million years.

It was a petty wish and I wouldn't blame Scanlon for not actually fulfilling it. But the way it doesn't even seem to register with him is so hollow.

[–] leishayoung 9 years ago

True, but i think the issue was that he couldn't travel to Managua, because he knew people were out to find him and kill him, so in essence, he was stuck where he was in some South American *beep* hole for the rest of his life.

The money means nothing, and it dawns on him that he is a prisoner one way or another.

In any event, if he did have the money to return to America, what would he be going back to? He has nothing, and for what? Money?

As it is, the gangsters catch up with him anyway...so his whole life has amounted to nothing.

It's a very powerful film.

[–] Strangerhand 9 years ago

Sorry, I don't typically have such preconceptions about movies anyway, and I certainly didn't see this great but underrated film just to "search for positive messages" LOL haha no, no hahaha, no. 

[–] leishayoung 9 years ago

I agree, I wasn't searching for positive messages, but there are people that do.

Humanity just ain't that simple.

[–] Strangerhand 9 years ago

Humanity just ain't that simple.

No, they're not. Humans are complicated.

Hmm, ever wonder if the board admins here are any human people? I do hehehehehe

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] milstar 9 years ago

I don't think this movie is about any messages whatsoever. As the director put, it's all about fate and the negative outcome of it. Simple as that. Despite what you do, it's never enough. Characters that we have all did commit some shameful acts, but they again can be worse. While I doubt the someone will side with Arab terrorist, what we got later is French bankar - accused fo fraud (heck, if I am on his place, I'd run too), then Jewish Nazi hunter - pretty common then and driver for Irish mob.

But when adventure starts, you start to root for them for all hazard they stumble onto and struggling to get over it. And once you think it's over, two of them die in unexpected, shocking scene. Another is shot by group of terrorists who probably blew that oil well up earlier. The driver only survives, but he had to keep with his sanity and to carry nitro on foot. At the end he maybe dies... just as that. Friedkin was smart to make the ending more ambiguous rather than open.

The original (French) film is even more cynical.

[–] leishayoung 9 years ago

...I don't believe if fate; I believe in Karma...and not some spiritual form of karma.

It stands to reason that what you give out is what you get in return..no spirituality required.

What these men gave out is what they got in return. A life of *beep* but perhaps most importantly, a death of *beep*

...nobody will miss them or bereave them; they are either smoke and ashes or buried in an unmarked grave.

...hope it was worth it...

[–] lorenzb-2 8 years ago

All for were criminals. No doubt about that. But they were different in their degrees of their transgressions. The worst was Kassem. He may have had a valid cause he was fighting for, but he indiscriminately killed lots of innocent people, and that can never be justified. Nilo was next because he was a professional killer who murdered people for money. Even though probably most if the people he killed deserved it. Like the Nazi war criminal he killed and then replaced as a driver. Jackie was next being a small time crook and hoodlum. But perhaps he never killed anyone in the commission of his petty crimes. At least killing wasn't regular a part of his livelihood and activities. Monzon was a white collar criminal. Meaning his crimes were fraud and dishonesty caused by greed. He didn't physically harm anyone, so I think he's the least despicable. Even though I certainly didn't like these people, I was pulling for them to succeed and survive. In the end they all had some redeeming qualities, though not much. But after it was all over, the world wasn't a worse place without them. Fate is a cruel sorcerer.

[–] balthazar_bee 8 years ago

I'm enjoying this thread, but I'm not sure I'm down with this sort of "quantifying" of character.

When I watch Sorcerer, I'm not moralizing about the decisions the characters make; yes, each of the four is "compromised" to say the least, but they're also human beings, and like all human beings, they make decisions on the basis of values and pressures in their lives. Their values aren't ours, and neither are their pressures, so assessing their worth as people on the basis of the limited view the film affords, well, I don't know.

I guess what I'm saying is we're not really privy to each person's background, but the film renders them in such a fascinating way that you can feel that there is a background, that the characters have each traveled a long road to get to the point that drives them into the jungle -- upbringing, environment, rationalization, the burden of responsibility (to a cause, to a family, to oneself) -- and we're only shown the last act of their "respectable" existences. I figure that, for each of them (aside from Nilo, perhaps) it's the worst day of their lives.

It's not that I want to trivialize murder, whether based on commercial interests (Nilo) or political ones (Kassem), but moral relativism is a slippery slope. And when I watch Sorcerer, what it drives home for me is the fact that we're all one moment away from annihilation or, perhaps worse, the feeling that we're irredeemable. If we're lucky, we get the first without the second; if we're luckier still, it will be our own decisions that lead us there, rather than (as you say) the "cruel sorcerer" of fate.

Maybe I'm some sort of closet sociopath, but I don't tend to feel superiority towards characters like these. They're desperate men, and that's the one quality they truly share -- desperation. I've known a bit of that (as I guess we all have) and it's a humbling experience because it reminds you how close you are to running off into the Parisian afternoon with the clothes on your back, like Manzon, who five minutes earlier was in discussion with his wife about the conditions that enhance the deliciousness of a lobster.

[–] brinsonmh 8 years ago

No hugs, no lessons. It's a flick about nothin'.