Sorcerer - The Criterion Collection 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

The premise behind Sorcerer is such an irresistible one: What would you do if you were desperate to escape from a place? How far would you go? What miserable depths would you plumb? In William Friedkin’s 1977 classic, Sorcerer, we find desperate men at the end of the world, trapped in a small South American village, who fled a situation only to find themselves trapped here, in a sort of hell of their fates.

Fate. Such an interesting concept, one that Sorcerer plays with a lot. None of these men seem to have any control over their own lives. They were thrust into the plot through outside forces and what Friedkin refers to as an evil sorcerer who controls fate. How they got there seems to be beyond their control. There’s a Palestinian freedom fighter who was born into a sociopolitical movement he had no control over. A French businessman who’s going to go to prison because of his involvement in crimes that someone above him committed. An American getaway driver, the only survivor of a heist gone wrong. A Mexican assassin wanted for his crimes. Crime and violence are the life they’re born into, their destiny into a Stygian trek through madness.

And now all four of them are hiding from those pursuing them in a village they can’t afford to leave. They’re constantly shaken down for money or risk imprisonment for violating immigration laws. Just then, as cursed fate would have it, an explosion rocks an oil well, and it catches fire. Due to the political climate and international strife, they’re unable to chopper in dynamite and only have access to explosives that have not been stored properly and have bled out their nitroglycerine. These crates are extremely unstable, and any sudden shift or drop could cause them to explode. Our four damned souls are tasked with dividing into teams of two, one truck each, and driving these unstable crates hundreds of miles through a treacherous jungle road with one horrible obstacle after another in their way–fallen trees, rickety rope bridges, mudslides.

Sorcerer is adapted from Georges Arnaud’s novel Le Salaire de la peur, which had been adapted previously into the film The Wages of Fear. Both Sorcerer and The Wages of Fear are excellent. Although I wouldn’t necessarily call Sorcerer a remake of The Wages of Fear (I’d consider them two takes on the same story), it’s a rare case of both films being equal in their levels of greatness. Sorcerer is a tense, white-knuckle adventure all the way through, with incredible special effects and stuntwork, seamlessly combining full-sized trucks and miniatures in certain segments.

For a PG-rated flick, Sorcerer is gnarly. There are F-bombs, bloody gunshots, and an explosion with a mangled, charred corpse that feels straight out of a Lucio Fulci movie. Unfortunately, as the trickster gods of fate would have it for Sorcerer, for all its technological marvel, opened against another movie that, according to editor Bud Smith, “made [their] film look like this little, amateurish piece of shit,” and Sorcerer flopped at the box office. In a world where Sorcerer hadn’t opened the same weekend as the pop culture juggernaut that is Star Wars, it would widely be considered a classic on the same level as so many other massive 70s hits.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Criterion’s release of Sorcerer on 4K UHD arrives in a three-disc edition with the film available on both a 4K disc in UHD/HDR and a Blu-ray disc in 1080p/SDR, with a second Blu-ray disc dedicated to special features. The external hard case features new artwork commissioned for this release, while the inside booklet (with an essay by film critic Justin Chang) features classic poster artwork of one of the trucks driving over a rickety rope bridge in the rain.

I’m forever grateful that I get to review 4K releases because it allows me to see movies I’ve previously owned (and loved) in a whole new light. I owned Sorcerer on DVD, and I always thought it was a great film that happened to be butt-ugly. Hey, it happens! It was shot on location in the jungle on film in the ’70s. I’m sure production wasn’t easy. I mean, was any jungle production in the ’70s easy? Aguirre and Apocalypse Now come to mind. I assumed some low-light film stock was used, which ups the film grain a hell of a lot. 

Seeing Criterion’s work on this 4K restoration, which included scanning the original film negative (and certain elements from a 35mm intermediate), is incredible stuff. I compared a few scenes from the DVD I own to this new release, and the difference in quality is night and day. It turns out, Sorcerer is quite beautiful! Graded in Dolby Vision HDR, the color palette is understated, so it never pops, beyond a jet of flame in the darkness, but it is varied subtly throughout, awash in a fine layer of film grain. One of my favorite bits of foreshadowing is through its use of color: In the vignettes of our four criminals and how they came to their hellish prison, there are lots of browns and greens, like the jungle they’ll soon be surrounded by.

I try to be an audio purist as often as I can, so I’m glad when Criterion releases a film like Sorcerer with its original 2.0 mix. Criterion has also included a 5.1 surround mix, which I believe is more or less the same as the one that accompanied the DVD all those years ago, albeit cleaned up and presented in a lossless format (both the stereo and surround options are encoded in DTS-HD MA). The thing is, when a 5.1 remix is this good, it’s a work of art. Rear speaker activity is at a constant level, buzzing with chatter at a crowded restaurant, chirping birds in the jungle, the gentle pitter-patter of rainfall, and even the echoes and crashing debris from a large explosion. 

Sorcerer’s soundtrack was written and composed by the synth gods themselves, Tangerine Dream, and this is not only one of their best scores, it’s one of the best movie scores of all time. If you’ve got a proper surround sound setup, do yourself a favor and use the 5.1 mix and get lost in all this insanity. You’re sure to have a... blast.

While I lament a lack of audio commentary, I’m splitting hairs on an otherwise excellent release, lousy with supplements that dive into William Friedkin’s filmography and the incredible production history behind Sorcerer.

• Friedkin Uncut (HD 1:47:26) - 2018 documentary by Francesco Zippel featuring interviews with Friedkin, screenwriter Walon Green, filmmakers Wes Anderson and Francis Ford Coppola, and others
• Interview (HD 28:18) - New conversation between filmmaker James Gray and film critic Sean Fennessey
• Interview (HD 1:17:23) - Conversation from 2015 between Friedkin and filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn
• Archival Audio Interviews (Audio Only 36:27) - With Green and editor Bud Smith, from the collection of Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, author of William Friedkin (2003)
• Behind-the-Scenes Footage (HD 6:09)
• Trailer

Whether you’re a cinephile nerd or if you just like badass movies, Sorcerer is the movie for you, and this release belongs in the physical media library of anyone who collects. The movie is great, the video transfer is astonishing, and the audio options will transport you to a world away. Backed by Criterion’s usual offering of supplements and a great essay included inside, Sorcerer on 4K UHD from the Criterion Collection is a Must Own.