SSC Film Studies

The Deliverance duelling banjos scene 

''Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture.''

This quote from Stuart Hall's book Representation: Cultural representations and signifying can be applied to the duelling banjos scene from The Deliverance due the cultural iconographies of the 'Rednecks' in the film. The iconographies being the sheer look of them and the way they are positioned through the use of cinematography, which at the beginning both cultures are shot through long shots which could connote that the characters from the city view of  the rural community as outsiders and to be looked upon as a threat, which is vice versa for the ''Rednecks'' perspective.

''So there are two processes, two systems of representation, involved. First, there is the 'system' by which all sorts of objects, people and events are correlated with a set of concepts or mental representations which we carry around in our heads.''

This quote which is also from Stuart Hall's book can apply to the duelling banjos scene as the 'Rednecks' are shown to the audience as a stereotype that has been reinforced through the media. This is also due to the iconographies of the 'Rednecks', as due to the media portraying Rednecks almost the same in every media text, it eventually creates a mental image that sticks in consumers minds when someone is to bring up the word 'Redneck'. Having stated this, apparently The Deliverance is one of the first 'Hillbilly Horrors' to of set the trend of portraying 'Rednecks' in such a threatening, psychotic way. This can be reinforced from the quote from Hal Lyons' article Hillbilly horror: Rednecks and their cinematic counterparts, which the quote is ''The key model for “hillbilly horror” would arrive in 1972 withDeliverance.'' This could promote the ideology that The Deliverance is subliminally sending allegoric messages about the decade the film was made in, which was during the Vietnam war. This could imply that the 'Rednecks' share allegorical similarities with the Vietnamese, as both the 'Rednecks' from The Deliverance and the Vietnamese from movies they are portrayed in are both isolated from cities, live in hostile environments and both pose a threat to modern American ideologies.  

In the duelling banjos scene it is quite evident that even though it appears that the characters from the city are getting along with the 'Rednecks', the characters still pose as a threat, as at the end of the 'jam' between one of the characters and one of the 'Rednecks', the 'Redneck' then denies to 'jam' anymore with the character from the city. The cinematography then becomes in favour for the 'Rednecks', as the clearly handicapped 'Redneck' is subtly shot in a low angle shot, which could connote the film is going to change rapidly to the 'Rednecks' being the dominant archetypes.