The Seeds of Destruction

Rating: 8/10 (6 April 2003)

For all its faults (and there are many), Michael Cimino's Vietnam war saga THE DEER HUNTER is a movie that leaves a lasting impression. The story of three steel mill workers who leave family and friends to go fight in Vietnam, become embroiled in the horrors of war and return to their Pennsylvania hometown in varying states of mental and physical breakdown seems more powerful now than when it first premiered in 1978. Perhaps the film's greatest strength is its uncanny ability to convey the everyday milieu of fictional Clairton, Pa. ; its depiction of blue collar workers, most of Russian descent who are closely tied to family and cultural tradition, who unswervingly believe in God and Country, may not appeal to the more Liberal audience. Indeed, the movie was castigated by many Vietnam Veterans as a false depiction of the times, a simple minded multimillion dollar action flick that reduced the Vietnam Conflict to a John Wayne -type polemic with nary a peace sign in sight. Director Cimino had always claimed that his film was a story of how war effects the ordinary man ; the fact that it took place in the Vietnam Era was incidental. With unstinting mastery Michael Cimino guides the viewer on a lengthy journey into the heart of darkness that was Vietnam ; how it broke the spirit of its fighting men and the devastating consequences the war had on those men when they returned home. THE DEER HUNTER is not a casebook study. It plays fast and loose with the facts, nowhere more apparent than in the horrific Russian Roulette sequences that dominate the middle and final third of the picture. These scenes , the first of which is set in a prisoner of war camp, are among the most harrowing ever filmed. As a display of action , violence and unbearable tension, it is a stupendous piece of film-making ; it is also cunningly manipulative. For a movie that covers such a large narrative canvas it is remarkable how the pace almost never flags. But THE DEER HUNTER does have an Achilles heel , and it is a serious one. With a screenplay by Derek Washburn and story contributions by Cimino and two other writers, the film is an incoherent mess. Dialogue tends toward the fragmented and clearly thought -out sentences are discarded when the trite and obvious will do. What goes a long way in saving the picture from disaster, in fact miraculously lifts the movie to another realm is the director's astonishing technical mastery. The great tragedy of Michael Cimino's career was that he was never able to speak as eloquently as he was able to visualize. He got away with it in THE DEER HUNTER because his crudely spoken story was enveloped in some of the most most atmospherically drenched, scenically stunning widescreen cinematography ever put on film. From the dark cavernous interior of an enormous Russian Orthodox Church to the outlying depressed steel mill town and the majestic snow covered mountains that surround it; the verdant greens of Vietnam and the blast of orange fire killing everything in its path; and the smoky, hellish interior behind a Saigon storefront, where the stakes are high and a friend's life lies in the balance. Adding immeasurably to the film's power is a superb cast, headed by Robert DeNiro as Michael, whose "one shot " code of ethics used in hunting deer becomes a metaphor for the entire movie. Also impressive are John Savage as a boyish bridegroom , John Cazale as a hot-headed drinking buddy and Meryl Streep as the girl who's left behind. But the most unforgettable performance is given by Christopher Walken who plays Nick, Michael's loyal, sensitive friend and hunting partner who becomes lost in the murk and mire of Vietnam. Walken 's portrait of a man scarred by life with eyes that seem half -dead will haunt you. The critical and popular success of THE DEER HUNTER emboldened Cimino to try his hand with an even bigger project for his next movie. But implanted in THE DEER HUNTER were the future seeds of destruction. HEAVEN'S GATE, released in 1980, was Michael Cimino's epic western of Wyoming's infamous Johnson County War. The new film had all the elements that distinguished THE DEER HUNTER : brilliant pictorial composition, stunning locales and riveting action sequences. It also had an unintelligible screenplay, one so inept that no amount of technical resources could hide it. A fine cast was lost in a sea of unfocused characterizations and unclear motivations. The result was an unqualified disaster that brought down a studio (United Artists) and stalled a promising career. Michael Cimino had an unparalleled gift for visual composition equaled perhaps only by David Lean and a few others. HEAVEN'S GATE is worth a look just for that fact alone. Profligate film-making is what got Michael Cimino in the end. But he is without doubt a born film director, and with THE DEER HUNTER he reached boldly, if perhaps imperfectly, for greatness.