Deliverance Country vs Planet of the Apes Country

I recently checked another movie off of my “get the DVD when it’s on sale on Amazon.com” list, 1972’s brilliance Deliverance. Set on the fictional Cahulawassee River in northern Georgia, most of the most memorable scenes were made on the not fictional Chattooga River on the border between Georgia and North Carolina.

I made this image from an airplane descending for landing in New Orleans. There are people who spend their entire lives in the swamp, making a living from all it offers.
I made this image from an airplane descending for landing in New Orleans. There are people who spend their entire lives in the swamp, making a living from all it offers.

Contrast this with the movie Planet of the Apes (the 1968 gem with Charlton Heston, not the 2001 version that was a pointless special effects showcase), particularly at the start of the movie when they have crashed and are looking for food and water.

(Note to self: go back in time ten years and buy planetoftheapps.com.)

Both movies take place in wild places of the United States, yet their looks could hardly be more different. I thought of this at the end of May this year as I prowled around the shores of Lake Powell, where some of Planet of the Apes was filmed.

Every taste is different. I’ve been attracted to the desert my entire life. I wrote a short story about it when I was 16. I can’t get enough of it. But I also certainly appreciate that lots of people like the sea, the snow, the jungle, the prairie, the lake, the river, and so on.

I thought of all this today as I dug through tons of images I made a month ago in the desert, and after Abby and I re-watched Deliverance Saturday afternoon.

Stark, angular, colorful, and beautiful, this image made in Forbidden Canyon, an arm of Lake Powell, is similar to some of the scenes in the early minutes of Planet of the Apes.
Stark, angular, colorful, and beautiful, this image made in Forbidden Canyon, an arm of Lake Powell, is similar to some of the scenes in the early minutes of Planet of the Apes.

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