The Deer Hunter starring Robert De
Niro, Christopher Walken, John
Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep
Wow
Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director,
The Deer Hunter is simultaneously an audacious directorial conceit and
one of the greatest films ever made about friendship and the personal
impact of war. Like Apocalypse Now, its hardly a conventional battle film--
the soldiers experience was handled with greater authenticity in Platoon--
but its depiction of war on an intimate scale packs a devastatingly dramatic
punch. Director Michael Cimino may be manipulating our emotions with
masterful skill, but he does it in a way that stirs the s oul and pinches our
collective nerves with graphic, high-intensity scenes of men under life-
threatening duress. Although Russian-roulette gambling games were not a
common occurrence during the Vietnam war, theyre used here as a
metaphor for the futility of the war itself. To the viewer, they become
unforgettably intense rites of passage for the best friends--Pennsylvania
steelworkers played by Robert De Niro, John Savage, and Oscar winner
Christopher Walken--who may survive or perish during their tour through a
tropical landscape of hell. Back home, their loved ones must cope with the
wars domestic impact, and in doing so they allow The Deer Hunter to
achieve a rare combination of epic storytelling and intimate, heart-rending
drama. --Jeff Shannon
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
In Final Cut, the documentary about the spectacular failure that was
Heavens Gate, at least one person hypothesized that the reason Heavens
Gate was the flop that it was was that critics were overreacting, feeling th at
they have overpraised Ciminos previous film, The Deer Hunter. Having
now seen both pictures, I do have to say that I much prefer Heavens Gate,
but really, when your main cast consists of Robert DeNiro, Christopher
Walken, and John Savage, how wrong can you really go? Add in a top-
notch script from Deric Washburn that actually justifies the movies three-
hour runtime and a supporting cast containing the best mix of established,
rising, and falling stars that Hollywood had to offer at the time, and while it
may not be Heavens Gate, you certainly cant fault it for trying.
The movie is split into three parts (three acts, as it were), with each one
depicting a different time in the lives of its main characters. The first hour
gives us hometown life in steel-town Pennsylvania on the eve of childhood
friends Michael (DeNiro), Stephen (Savage), and Nick (Walken) leaving for
Vietnam. Other friends have to stay behind, and we get to know them, as
well. The second hour shows their time in Vietnam, and its the part th at
most people who havent seen the movie in a while remember; after a
battle, the three are captured and taken to a Vietnamese prison camp,
where they are forced to play Russian Roulette with both other prisoners
and the guards themselves, who see it as a way to pass the time (and a
reason for gambling). The three of them each handle the stress in different
ways. And in the third act, Michael returns home, fundamentally changed.
Stephen has come with him, but the pressures of life in the camp, as well
as physical injuries, have relegated him to life in a VA Hospital, and hes
terrified of coming back to a town thats remained constant when he has
changed so much. Nick has remained in Vietnam, which preys on Michaels
consciousness until he is forced to go back and try to bring him home.
What impresses me most about The Deer Hunter is that wile its one of the
most powerful anti-Vietnam films ever made, Cimino never stops the story
in order to give us the oh-so-tiring war is bad mmmmkay? speech that you
get from antiwar directors such as Oliver Stone. Cimino lets the story get
the message across, and that is a wonderful, wonderful thing, so rare in
film (or any other medium). As well, the movies three-hour running time
flies by, evidence of a mastery of pace few directors are capable of
achieving in films half as long. Not to say that the pacing is always perfect;
there are pieces, especially in the first hour, that could have used a bit of
trimming. (I assume they were left in in order to preserve the roughly equa l
duration of each act.) But the acting, my lord, the acting. The home team is
represented by such lights as John Cazale (in his final onscreen
appearance before his death at the age of forty-three), George Dzundza,
Meryl Streep (nominated for a Best Actress Oscar; DeNiro was also
nominated for Best Actor, while Walken took home the trophy), and
Rutanya Alda, among others. The visiting team? Four actors playing VC
guards, none of whom ever made another movie: Ding Santos, Ot
Palapoo, Krieng Chaiyapuk, and Chok Chai Masahoke, and all I can say
about them is wow. Why they were never tabbed for more film work is
entirely beyond me. Holding your own against three of Americas most
talented actors in the late seventies? They would seem to have become
stars by default, but it never happened.
Where the movie really wowed the Academy was in its technical details,
however. The film won five Oscars, but only one was given for acting; it
won Best Picture and Best Director, but the two really interesting Oscars
were for the sound and the editing. (Odd, that editing award, given the
minor pacing problems I briefly touched on before.) It was also nominated
for Best Cinematography, losing to (are you freakin kidding me?) Days of
Heaven. It shouldnt have. Vilmos Zsigmonds camerawork here should be
in textbooks. (I have little doubt that it was a big influence on Vittorio
Storaro; there is more in common here with Apocalypse Now than just the
scenery.) And Zsigmonds transformation between the drab blues and
greys of Pennsylvania and the lush greenery of Vietnam have already
been written on elsewhere, so I doubt I need to go into that here; suffice to
say the camerawork is a big part of the movies impact.
An amazing achievement. One wonders what Cimino could have done with
the five and a half hours of Heavens Gate here. **** ½
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