Still Too Long But Better Looking Transfer This Time Around

Rating: 7/10 (6 September 2005)

Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) is perhaps the most aggressively critical and monumental critique of the Vietnam experience ever put on film. The story is a frank, brooding and foreboding deconstruction of lives plunged into the horrors of war. Michael (Robert DeNiro) is an honorable loner who doesn't perceive much to be admired from his life as a Pennsylvanian steel mill worker. His one ray of sunshine in an otherwise dismal and inescapable future is Linda (Meryl Streep). She is seemingly pledged in marriage to Nick (Christopher Walken)  if only he'd realize it and ask her to marry him. But Nick is a hot shot first and a lover second. Knowing full well that Linda will wait for Nick, presumably forever, Michael keeps an honorable distance from his own foolish romantic fancies. He also plays big brother to naïve Steven (John Savage), the youngster of their motley crew that includes boorish, John (George Dzundza), laconic Axel (Chuck Aspengren) and meddling Stanley (John Cazale). Indulged by misguided patriotism Nick, Michael and Steven go off to Vietnam shortly after Steven marries his beloved, the pregnant Angela (Rutanya Alda). They are captured by the Vietcong, brought to a prison camp and forced to play Russian roulette against each other. And although Michael's quick thinking affords them the opportunity to temporarily escape, they are soon separated once more  and arguably forever ripped from the binding mindset that once united them. Cimino (whose critical misfire on Heaven's Gate would effectively end his all too brief directorial supremacy in Hollywood), labors intensely on this film and at an excruciatingly slow pace. Indulging is every whim in very long takes (and for that matter, scenes) the story is told around four pivotal events in these character's lives: Steven's wedding, the deer hunt, the nail biting roulette game and Nick's death and aftermath. Clearly, the film is an opus magnum of self-indulgence for the director  shot sometimes in an almost documentary style (as are the opening scenes in the steel mill or the evacuation of Saigon, that actually employs news reel footage to help fill in the blanks). Yet Cinimo has forgotten a fundamental of film making: that economy of the shot is usually best to appeal to the tastes of a wide audience base. For those who are first time viewers more attuned to contemporary editing style this film is a decided change of pace. It refrains from tedious exposition but replaces dialogue with stagnancy of the narrative. Hence, The Deer Hunter is NOT for everyone  even in 1978. But as time rolls on it seems to narrow its fan base considerably. At 3hrs. 9 min. it is apt to put many to sleep.
The Deer Hunter was made previously available from Universal in one unworthy transfer recycled twice in different packaging. This new 2-disc edition is an improvement on the previously issued disc, if only that it has been enhanced for 16:9 displays. When displayed on a widescreen television the resolution on this transfer is considerably improved with rich colors that, on the original disc, were muddy and undistinguished at best. Flesh tones are remarkably realistic (consider the vintage of the film stock). Fine detail is fairly well realized, even during the darkest moments in the film. Only the vintage stock footage of the actual conflict in Vietnam betrays their origin with a considerable increase in film grain and age related artifacts. The rest of the film is, by far and wide a very smooth, grain free visual presentation. Universal has also remastered the audio to 5.1. The new mix exhibits a sonic characteristic that is dated but very well delineated across all five channels of one's home theater.
My biggest bone of contention with The Deer Hunter: The Legacy Series DVD, is that it is embarrassingly scant on extra features  especially for a 2 disc set. Disc one contains only the film with a new audio commentary by cinematographer Vilmo Zsigmond and journalist Bob Fisher. Disc two contains several deleted scenes (not remastered or presented anamorphically) and the film's rambling theatrical trailer. Both are presented without any fanfare or introduction and in the poorest of video and sound quality. Truly, there is NOTHING to recommend the inclusion of that second disc. And for a film that  at its initial release  was hailed as an enduring masterpiece (though arguably, it's not)  the absence of any retrospective documentary or at least interviews with some of its stars is a general embarrassment to Universal DVD. Perhaps we'll eventually see The Deer Hunter: Deluxe 'Absolutely Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Vietnam War But Were Afraid to Ask' Edition somewhere on the horizon.