The Deer Hunter

**The Deer Hunter** is a UK VHS release by EMI on April 1981. It got re-released by Thorn EMI Video on the 1980s.

## Description

At the end of Michael Cimino's epic film The Deer Hunter, all the characters spared the Vietnam War to return home drift unsentimentally, but movingly, into a rendering of God Bless America. It's more than a requiem for their dead comrade: it's an anthem for a living American tradition of making mistakes, rueing them and starting afresh. When this film appeared in 1978, it struck a national nerve. It sealed an era of guilt, remorse and political division caused by America's involvement in Vietnam and the haemorrhaging of tens of thousands of young lives. It was a healing of the wounds at home as much as a horrifying depiction of the wounds, physical and spiritual, inflicted on four boys from a backwoods steel community plunged into a hell beyond their understanding, or bearing. It isn't a rancorous film: it doesn't encourage Americans to ask 'Where did we go wrong?', but instead celebrates the thing so many felt they did right - their duty. 'Serving God and Country, Proudly' reads the dance-hall banner as the film opens with the wedding of Stevie (John Savage), the rough-housing of his groomsmen-buddies led by Mike (Robert De Niro), and the impromptu sortie of the pals for a deer hunt at dawn which reveals their Hemingway-like attitude to life and death. Then in a billow of napalm flame, we move to Vietnam and watch the capture, torture, escape, separation and homeward journey they all make - some in a box. Out of this grim material, hewn off the macho block of men's suffering and male bonding, Cimino fashioned a huge movie that operates on the senses even more than on the mind. It won many Oscars and immense praise, not least for Meryl Streep's appearance as a war bride. If Vietnam could be said to have produced a Gone With The Wind, proving that courage, love and heroism are still forces in human affairs, this movie would be it. ALEXANDER WALKER

## Cast

* Robert De Niro as SSG Michael "Mike" Vronsky. Producer Deeley pursued De Niro for *The Deer Hunter* because he felt that he needed De Niro's star power to sell a film with a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director". "I liked the script, and [Cimino] had done a lot of prep," said De Niro. "I was impressed." De Niro prepared by socializing with steelworkers in local bars and by visiting their homes. Cimino introduced De Niro as his agent, Harry Ufland. No one recognized him. De Niro claims this was his most physically exhausting film. He explained that the scene where Mike visits Steven in the hospital for the first time was the most emotional scene that he was ever involved with. For the film, he received his first one-million-dollar fee. De Niro was a last-minute replacement for Roy Scheider, who dropped out of the production two weeks before the start of filming due to "creative differences"; Universal managed to keep Scheider to his three-picture contract by forcing him into doing *Jaws 2* (1978).
* Christopher Walken as Cpl. Nikanor "Nick" Chevotarevich. His performance garnered an Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor.
* John Savage as Cpl. Steven Pushkov.
* John Cazale as Stan ("Stosh"). All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, were filmed first. Because of his illness, the studio initially wanted to fire him, but Streep, with whom he was in a relationship, and Cimino threatened to walk away if they did. He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted Cazale in the film. This was Cazale's last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale never saw the finished film.
* Meryl Streep as Linda. Prior to *The Deer Hunter*, Streep was seen briefly in Fred Zinnemann's *Julia* (1977) and the eight-hour miniseries *Holocaust* (1978).In the screenplay, Streep's role was negligible. Cimino explained the set-up to Streep and suggested that she write her own lines.
* George Dzundza as John Welsh
* Pierre Segui as Julien Grinda
* Shirley Stoler as Steven's mother
* Chuck Aspegren as Peter "Axel" Axelrod. Aspegren was not an actor; he was the foreman at an East Chicago steelworks visited early in pre-production by De Niro and Cimino. They were so impressed with him that they offered him the role. He was the second person to be cast in the film, after De Niro.
* Rutanya Alda as Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov
* Amy Wright as Bridesmaid
* Joe Grifasi as Bandleader