The Deer Hunter (1978) Michael: Two is pussy. Nick: I don't think about one shot that much any more, Mike. Michael: You have to think about one shot. One shot is what it's all about. The deer has to be taken with one shot. I try to tell people that - they don't listen. Do you ever think about Vietnam? Nick: Yeah. I don't know. I guess I'm thinkin' about the deer, goin' to 'Nam. I like the trees, you know? I like the way the trees are on the mountains, all different. The way the trees are. I sound like some a--hole, right? Michael: I'll tell ya, Nick. You're the only guy I go huntin' with, you know. I like a guy with quick moves and speed. I ain't gonna hunt with no a--holes. Nick calls his self-contained, wild friend "a f--kin' nut," "a maniac," and a "control freak." John, Axel, Stan and Michael meet together at Nick's place, attired in their spiffy tuxedos - each accentuated with a white carnation.

Nick's beaten-up girlfriend Linda requests refuge in his place during their tour of duty. While a drunk drinks from a paper bag on the corner street, the tightly-knit Russian-American community joins together for the traditional Russian Orthodox church wedding of Steven to Angela, inside the dirty town's cathedral glittering with stained-glass windows, a giant chandelier, a choir loft, flowers, and candles. [The wedding sequence was filmed in St. Theodosius Cathedral in Cleveland.] In the second row behind the pregnant bride stands Linda - beautiful but bruised. The bridal couple are ceremonially crowned (by best man Nick and bridesmaid Linda) and led around the altar. Outside, the couple are greeted by rice-throwers and soon pull away in Michael's borrowed white Caddy, now decorated with pink crepe-paper flowers and streamers. In the post-wedding reception, guests take vodka shots (and beer chasers) at the door, whirl around for ethnic folk dancing accompanied by a five-piece band, and feast at long tables. Shy Michael, many times standing alone and at the bar by himself, often looks enviously at the off-limits Linda and shares lingering glances with her.

He is infatuated with Nick's girlfriend and wishes that he could be in his buddy's place. Awkward with women, he lurches toward her for a dance, wildly spins her around, offers her a Rolling Rock beer ("the best around"), and then inarticulately asks: "You really like Nick alot, huh?" He almost steals a kiss but halts midway into it. The town's small-town grocer doubles as the white-jacketed, crooning bandleader (Joe Grifasi) who sings the familiar American pop tune: "You're Just Too Good To Be True." He cuts in on Stan during the dancing, and then grabs and squeezes the behind of Stan's bridesmaid girlfriend. Instead of confronting the lascivious bandleader, Stan avenges his manly honor by nastily knocking his girlfriend to the floor. In the public bar area, a sullen, pain-faced Sergeant (Paul D'Amato) of the Green Berets rudely drinks by himself. The jocular Michael, Nick and Steven, Vietnam soldiers-to-be, extend the soldier a drink and a toast, and saunter over to talk.

Nick eagerly boasts about his glorious assignment in Vietnam: "I hope they send us where the bullets are flyin' and the fightin's the worst, huh?" Without even turning toward them, the experienced veteran raises his glass and toasts: "F--k it." Astounded, Michael naively asks: "Well, what's it like over there? Will you tell us anything?" The solitary Green Beret repeats his dark ominous words - he is incapable of describing his war experience. When Angela throws her bridal bouquet, it is caught by Linda - and Nick quickly pops the expected question: Nick: Will you marry me? Linda: Yeah. Nick: (unsure) You would? (She nods) What I mean is, when we get back from...when we get back. I don't know what the hell I mean. Linda: What goes through your mind comes out your mouth.

On stage in a traditional ceremony, the bride and groom link arms and drink red wine out of a double cup, after being forewarned: "If you don't spill a drop, it's good luck for the rest of your life." Another disturbing omen of the bloody dark times to come is foreshadowed by a few fateful drops of the reddish liquid that accidentally spill on the bride's white gown - unnoticed and hidden from the line of sight of witnesses. The wedding party moves outdoors, where Steven confirms, in confidence to Nick, his confusion and unhappiness about his bride's insemination by another man: "I never really did it with Angela, Nicky...It's my life's one true secret...What am I gonna do when she has a baby?" Nick suggests a way to cope: "Hang loose. Just don't worry about it." Completely inebriated by this time, an uninhibited Michael runs in the town's streets before the Cadillac carrying the couple, shedding his clothes until he is completely naked. When Nick catches up to him, his exhausted friend collapses on the wet pavement below a basketball backboard.

After Nick covers his buddy's stark nudity, they talk sitting back-to-back - stripped of any pretense, about their feelings for their hometown and fears about the future - and Vietnam. Nick speaks about his inevitable fear that he might not come home alive following the war, and compels Michael to promise to bring him back and bury him in the Pennsylvania hometown that he loves: Michael: Everything's going so fast. Hey Nick, do you think we'll ever come back? Nick: From 'Nam? Michael: Yeah. Nick: You know somethin'? The whole thing - it's right here. I love this f--kin' place. (Michael laughs) I know that that sounds crazy. If anything happens Mike, you don't - don't leave me over there. You got, you gotta...Just don't leave me. You gotta promise me that, Mike. Michael: Hey! Nick: No man, you got, you gotta, you gotta promise definitely. Michael: Hey Nicky...You got it, pal.

In the darkness of the dawning next day, the five friends (minus Steven) drive toward the glistening mountains [filmed in North Cascades National Park in Washington state] for a final deer hunt, their favorite past-time, before three of them are sent overseas. In a long, drawn-out scene, after stopping to piss off the many beers they've all been drinking, Michael drives off and playfully deserts John on the road - three times. By the side of the road, they swig more beers, and gorge themselves on Twinkies and bologna sandwiches. Talking to himself, Michael is perturbed by the adolescent, immature behavior of his unskilled, disrespectful 'asshole' friends, who don't take the hunt seriously: "I don't believe this. What am I doing?" Still dressed in his tuxedo and wearing a furry hunter's cap, gun fetishist Stan is unprepared for the hunt as they pull out their gear from the trunk and he's once again missing his hunting boots: "Every time he comes up, he's got no knife, he's got no jacket, he's got no pants, he's got no boots.

All he's got is that stupid gun he carries around like John Wayne." Michael vents his anger and steadfastly refuses to loan Stan his extra pair, while holding up a rifle bullet and exclaiming: Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain't somethin' else. This is this. From now on, you're on your own. Affronted and recklessly waving his small hand-gun, the sniveling Stanley insults Michael (who has his rifle poised on his knee), denigrating his masculinity and inferring that he is homosexual: I fixed you up a million times. I fixed him up a million times. I don't know how many times I must have fixed him up with girls. And nothing ever happens. Zero...Nobody ever knows what the f--k you're talkin' about. Huh? 'This is this.' What the hell is that supposed to mean? 'This is this.' I mean, is that some faggot soundin' bulls--t or is that some faggot...There's times I swear I think you're a f--kin' faggot...Last week, he could have had that new red-headed waitress...He could have had it knocked.

And look what he did. Look what he f--kin' did. Nothin'. Nick acts as a mediator, bringing peace between the two quarrelsome antagonists by offering Michael's extra pair of boots to Stan. A chorus of chanting, monastic voices plays on the soundtrack as orange-jacketed Michael ascends into the revered mountains - readied for his religious, holy rite of hunting. On a rocky ridge, The Deerhunter spots his quarry - a towering buck with a full head of antlers. He concentratedly stalks the majestic creature, aims with his telescopic lens mounted on his rifle, and fires only one clean shot - a ritualistically-pure killing. His prey staggers and then drops. The camera partially zooms in on the frightened eye of the dying animal. With the trophy beast tied to the hood of his Cadillac, Michael and his pals return to town that evening and immediately head for Welsh's Lounge. The rowdy, sweaty, tired group pops foam-spraying beer cans and carouses with drinking songs until quieted by the soft piano-playing of John - the proprietor of the bar. [The piece is Chopin's Nocturne No. 6 in G Minor, Op. 15, No.

3.] In a tranquil scene without dialogue, as the camera pans over each of their faces, the realization dawns on the pensive men that they have reached a natural conclusion in their lives. The sound of the rhythmic whirring of approaching chopper blades in the green jungles of Vietnam intrudes and segues into the next major portion of the film. The Deer Hunter (1978) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.

Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC Robert De Niro Writes Meryl Streep a Letter in Support of Her Golden Globes Speech 11 January 2017 12:06 PM, -08:00 | Indiewire a list of 31 titles created 30 Nov 2011 a list of 35 titles created 12 Jun 2013 a list of 25 titles created 30 Nov 2014 a list of 23 titles created 10 Jan 2016 a list of 29 titles created 3 months ago Title: The Deer Hunter (1978) 8.2/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 5 Oscars. Another 17 wins & 26 nominations. See more awards » Videos A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Director: Oliver Stone During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe. Director: Francis Ford Coppola An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring destroys his life outside it. Director: Martin Scorsese Greed, deception, money, power, and murder occur between two best friends, a mafia underboss and a casino owner, for a trophy wife over a gambling empire. Director: Martin Scorsese Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner and a young man. Director: Clint Eastwood A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue. Director: Stanley Kubrick A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.

Director: Martin Scorsese A group of professional bank robbers start to feel the heat from police when they unknowingly leave a clue at their latest heist. Director: Michael Mann In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed. Director: Brian De Palma After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it. Director: David Lean A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. Director: Milos Forman Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer, gets a supremely rare chance to fight heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. Director: John G. Avildsen Edit Storyline Michael, Steven and Nick are young factory workers from Pennsylvania who enlist into the Army to fight in Vietnam. Before they go, Steven marries the pregnant Angela, and their wedding party also serves as the men's farewell party.

After some time and many horrors, the three friends fall in the hands of the Vietcong and are brought to a prison camp in which they are forced to play Russian roulette against each other. Michael makes it possible for them to escape, but they soon get separated again. Written by Leon Wolters <wolters@strw.LeidenUniv.nl> Best Picture 1978 See more » Genres: 23 February 1979 (USA) See more » Also Known As: The Man Who Came to Play See more » Filming Locations: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)| Dolby Stereo (35 mm prints) Color: Did You Know? Trivia The Clairton scenes comprise footage shot in eight different towns in four states: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Ohio. See more » Goofs The credits list John D. Rockefeller III as the Governor of West Virginia, when in fact it was his son, Jay Rockefeller , or John D. Rockefeller IV.

See more » Quotes See more » Crazy Credits We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of our Thai crew in the production of "The Deer Hunter" See more » Connections Adapted and Arranged by Ken Kovach Sung after the funeral The Best Film Ever made about War 18 June 2007 | by Lord_Crypto (Pennsylvania Wilderness) – See all my reviews Most of you after reading my title are already going to be upset. I do consider this to be the best film ever made about war. I do not look at this film being about the Vietnam War. I look at this film being about war (Period). I think this film is as excellent as it is for one good reason, showing the effects of war. True, we see the films where men are shaped by war, what events make them who they are, and how the events of war transform them. It is mainly about what the war has done to them. The Deer Hunter takes a bigger step back from that and shows the entire character transformation. It does not just show the transformation of a soldier, but also the transformation as a civilian. You spend a good 40 minutes in the Deer Hunter getting to know the main characters and getting a feel for their personalities.

The first 40 minutes is about character development and almost getting an attachment to those characters. This makes their transformation more effective for the viewer and they almost feel for the character and what they are going through. Than those characters get thrown into war and you see the events that change them. The things they had to experience as a soldier. And than, most importantly, we see the changes in their characters after the war. And we do not just see the changes in the soldiers, we see the changes that their friends and lovers undergo as a result of the war. We are not just looking at one soldier, we are looking at a network of friends and how they are changed due to the war. Even those who did not go to war are still effected. And the fact all the characters are from a small town makes it that much more powerful. The Deer Hunter is a powerful film about how war effects everybody, not just the soldiers involved in it. The cast is terrific! Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryll Streep, and Christopher Walken. Need I say more. Christopher Walken won an Oscar for best supporting actor in this film. The script is beautifully written and the movie is filmed perfectly.

I can find nothing wrong with anything about this movie. I mean, it did win 5 Oscars in 1978 including Best Picture and Best Director for Michael Cimino. This movie is emotionally powerful. I can not say this film is accurate about war, I can only give my opinion and take from the film what I can. I am an 18-year old teen who has an almost complete control over his emotions. This film brought me the closest to tears I have ever been by a movie. It is an absolute masterpiece. This is one of the greatest films ever made. Take the time to watch this film, it is a classic that hits you the hardest emotionally. 42 of 77 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Deer Hunter (1978) Synopsis - Plot Summary - Fandango GO Synopsis One of several 1978 films dealing with the Vietnam War (including Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning Coming Home ), Michael Cimino 's epic second feature The Deer Hunter was both renowned for its tough portrayal of the war's effect on American working class steel workers and notorious for its ahistorical use of Russian roulette in the Vietnam sequences.

Structured in five sections contrasting home and war, the film opens in Clairton, PA, as Mike ( Robert De Niro ), Nick ( Christopher Walken ), and Stan (John Cazale, in his last film) celebrate the wedding of their friend Steve (John Savage) and go on a final deer hunt before the men leave for Vietnam. Mike treats hunting as a test of skill, lecturing Stan about the value of "one shot" deer slaying and brushing off Nick's urgings to appreciate nature's beauty. As Mike ruminates post-hunt, the film cuts to the horror of Vietnam, where the men are captured by Vietcong soldiers who force Mike and Nick to play Russian roulette for the V.C.'s amusement. Mike turns the game to his advantage so they can escape captivity, but the men are permanently scarred by the episode. Steve loses his legs; Nick vanishes in the Saigon Russian roulette parlors. Mike returns alone to Clairton a changed man, as he rejects the killing of the deer hunt and finds solace with Nick's old girlfriend Linda ( Meryl Streep ).

Disgusted by the antics of his male cohorts at home, Mike decides to bring Steve back from a veterans' hospital, and he returns to Saigon to find Nick. As Saigon falls, Mike discovers how far gone Nick is; the survivors gather in Clairton for a funeral breakfast, singing an impromptu rendition of "God Bless America." ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi Provided by Rovi Audience Reviews for The Deer Hunter ½ Cimino is a great director who wisely takes his time in a long, careful first act before launching his characters in a terrifically tense, gut-wrenching second act that makes us deeply consider the tragic effects of war on veterans, with Walken and De Niro in spectacular performances. Carlos Magalhães Super Reviewer "You have to think about one shot. One shot is what it's all about. A deer's gotta be taken with one shot. I try to tell people that but they don't listen" Released in 1978, only three years after the official end of the Vietnam war, Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" seemed as if it may have been too soon for the American psyche.

It was a surprising box-office hit but was also one of the most controversial, major theatrical releases about America's involvement in the war. It went on to receive 9 Academy Award nominations (winning 5 - including Best Picture and Best Director). Despite this, the backlash was pretty vehement. It received criticism from the likes of Jane Fonda and John Wayne who in his last public appearance had to present it with it's Best Picture award even though he wasn't fond of the film. These criticisms came in many forms but for as many critics as it's had, there were also a great number who considered it to be another American classic. Michael (Robert DeNiro), Stevie (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken) are among a group of friends who live and work in the steel mill town of Clairton, Pennsylvania. They spend their time getting drunk and going deer hunting before they are enlisted in the airborne infantry of Vietnam. What was once a slow-paced and fun-filled life is shoved into the stark reality of warfare and how their experiences change their lives forever. Clocking in at just over three hours, "The Deer Hunter" is a film of length.

However, it's one that never overstays it's welcome as Cimino wisely works within a three act structure - book-ending the war with marriage and death. He may take his time and linger long on shots but it never gets boring. To view it as simply another Vietnam film is to entirely miss the point also. If it is to be viewed in any way, it should be as a commentary on American disillusionment and it's loss of innocence at this time. It's intention is not focus on the war itself but on the aftermath and the impact war can have on the lives of ordinary working people. In fact, the scenes that take place in Vietnam only amount to a very small portion of the film, overall. Ultimately, it's a character study that's only heightened by the 50 minute wedding sequence at the beginning of the film. Many grumble about this being too indulgent but it's integral that we get to know these characters in order to fully understand them. It's during the wedding reception that they come across a Green Beret who has just finished his Tour of Duty; they buy him a drink and take offence when all he has to tell them about the war is... "Fuck it!".

This perfectly sums up the naivete of these young men as they seem to have a romanticised idea of war and have absolutely no idea of what is to become them. Following this, a bunch of them go on a deer hunting trip where we again see the dynamic of the group and get to know each of them more personally. Suddenly, we are then thrust into the chaos of Vietnam and it's not before long that the films iconic and controversial Russian roulette scene takes place. This is a scene that has received much criticism in not only being claimed as inaccurate - as there was no evidence to suggest that any such atrocities took place during the conflict - but for being racist in it's sadistic stereotype of the Viet Cong captors. These criticisms are justifiable to an extent but, personally, I think the critics have taken it far too literally. If viewed as a metaphor for the senselessness of war and the inhumanity of man during wartime struggles then it's entirety fitting to the films themes and says more about an initiation into manhood. It was literally minutes before this powerful scene that DeNiro's Michael and Walken's Nick were discussing how a deer should be killed with "one shot" and now (ironically) they must face a similar fate.

This game of chance is the catalyst that changes the dynamic of the three principle characters (the other being John Savage's Stevie) and further adds to the character development that was so playfully and innocently displayed in the opening wedding sequence or the camaraderie of the deer hunt. It's purpose is not to be racist but to capture the extreme pressure that soldiers face in conflict. In the film's final act, some of them return home only to realise that they're traumatised as they struggle to fit back into society. There have been claims that it doesn't take an overly pro or anti stance towards the conflict but I struggle to see how. This was one was of the first films to challenge the perspective on Vietnam. The likes of "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" were praised for such honesty and I believe this deserves the same credibility. "The Deer Hunter" is, undoubtedly, epic filmmaking and despite your political interpretation, there's no denying the power of it's emotionally devastating narrative. It's unlikely that Cimino will be able to deliver a work of this magnitude ever again.

He tried and failed in 1980 with "Heaven's Gate" (bankrupting United Artists Studio in the process) but his scope and ambition here deserves the utmost respect. So too does the work of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond for his astounding ability to capture both the expansive landscapes of Pennsylvania and the war ravaged mountainous villages of Vietnam. The actors are also very strong and committed throughout. This would be the last performance of the great John Cazale - before his untimely death to cancer - and the first notable one from Meryl Streep, who brings a touching vulnerability to her supporting role. Walken (who won a Supporting Actor Oscar) is a marvel and deservedly made a name for himself in the process. As good as they are, though, it's DeNiro who anchors the film in a enigmatic display of stoicism. Another deserved Oscar nomination came his way and even though this is a film that many omit from DeNiro's plethora of magnificent performances throughout the 70's and 80's, it happens to be one of his strongest and most unsung.

DeNiro apparently described his role as one of the most physical and exhausting that he's ever done, and it's easy to see why. Every emotional, physical and mental abuse that he seems to be suffering is perfectly and gruellingly displayed onscreen. The 1970's are well known for producing some of the finest experiences in cinema and "The Deer Hunter" can, proudly, consider itself one of one them. It's marvellously structured, harrowingly vivid and so grand and ambitious that it thoroughly deserves it's epic status. Truly one of the best of it's decade. Mark Walker Mark Walker Super Reviewer Whilst its running length may annoy some, "The Deer Hunter" and Michael Cimino provides viewers with the most gut-wrenching and harrowing examination of the Vietnam War, and most importantly its affects on the lives of individuals. Set across many years, the film is split into very defined sections or three acts, with one hour given over to the characters and their normal lives back in the US, the second to the war in Vietnam, and the third to the years after the war.

After struggling for funding for the three hour epic screenplay, a British studio, EMI, finally got the film rolling and the cast together for this brutal war film. The film tells the story of three men, and their friends, who take part in the Vietnam war. After one is married, Steven, played as like all the cast beautifully by John Savage, the other two, one a hunter of deer, Robert De Niro, and the other Christopher Walken, they leave for Vietnam and the film follows the war itself and the after effects. Whilst the screenplay and film itself combine to make a long film, it's well worth the wait. The picture itself is slow, the characters slow moving, and the action steady and events slow one by one. However amongst the slowness of the film, every member of the cast gives a slow but beautiful performance. Robert De Niro is riveting as the leading member of the gang of three, leading the film in the direction the director set out to do, and capturing the spirit of his horrified and somewhat soul rotted character perfectly.

But each member of the cast performs their role wonderfully too, with John Savage's drained character of Steven, reflecting his injuries, and Christopher Walken's sunken and out of reality face and feel. The supporting cast also give fantastic performances, with Meryl Streep as Linda, in one of her finest roles, and John Cazale in his last ever film role, and perhaps his most provoking one. The action scenes themselves are not particularly special, but the Russian roulette scenes are what really stand out, with the intensity of the actors and set, stretching across, through the screen, onto any viewer. In the Russian roulette scenes, Cimino shows us his best, as we are literally taken into the middle of the games with the other characters and flung headfirst into uncertainty, panic and desperation. But the real achievement of this film, is the study in human emotion and character, when such horrors of war are flung upon them, and how it affects not only them, but the people they know and love.

At the 1979 Oscars, it was filled with controversy and its portrayal of the war, which had only ended a few years earlier, but in the end, the film's terrible, horrific study of human individual lives following the Vietnam war, will ensure its status as a classic war film and classic motion picture. Adam Kelly Super Reviewer The Deer Hunter, could sometimes, present boring scenes, but the tension in this dramatic film, with a great Michael Cimino's direction, original story and unforgettable actings, make this war drama, one of the best movies about the Vietnam war. Lucas Martins The Deerhunter - ARRSEpedia The British Military Open Encyclopedia - ARRSE-Pedia. Back to British Army Rumour Service Home The Deerhunter Jump to: navigation , search 1978 film, the first unflinching movie treatment of the Vietnam War from the Spam . Received with a bewildering admixture of awe, boredom, fury and intermittent puzzlement, it still frustrates and enraptures critics and viewers to this day.

Deerhunter boasts a superb cast who were largely unknown outside of NYC theatre and art-house films: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Cazale, Michael Savage; and was directed by the relatively-inexperienced, melon-headed, latter-day ladyboy-wannabe Michael Cimino. Cimino had the backing to make a film like this thanks to the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970, so he went on to destroy it entirely in 1980 with the most expensive film ever then made: an interminable account of incidental hillbilly power spats known as Heaven's Gate. Cue Simpson and Bruckheimer and them, with their Eddie Murphy and Tom Cruise and Bollocks 3 (the sequel sequel) and that's why, kids, you go to the pictures today and there's nothing on at the multiplex that anyone with half a brain would want to see.. Anyway, around three hours long, Deerhunter divides into 3 acts: 1. Intro the characters at the steel mill, the shithole town, the bar, Steve's wedding 2.

Vietnam - the fighting, the capture, gun games, the helicopter evac 3. The consequences upon the characters of what happened in 2). Escaping from the infamous Russian roulette prisoner game by floating on a log down river, the helicopter evac 'stunt' was very much for real. The actors fell from the chopper skids back into the river when the pilot temporarily lost control. Cimino luckily held onto the door strap and kept the camera rolling. Spray-painted plastic statuettes The Deerhunter got 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, when Best Picture really meant that year's best film and not Dances With Wolves. This pissed off Jane Fonda no end, as she was starring in the contemporaneous same-subject-but-different-treatment film Coming Home.

The Oscar wheelchair-war had kicked off when Fonda complained that Deerhunter was racist and reactionary, and therefore an inaccurate portrayal of the realities of life faced by those both in Vietnam and afterwards; whereas her movie was all noble and respectful in how it showed that the suffering of the Viet vets would be overcome because Jane Fonda loves one on wheels (whereas it was just some sloppy TV-movie-type, Best-Actress-vehicle which gave a miserable situation the soap opera love-story treatment). Memorable acoustic guitar theme by John Williams (aka Cavatina) went into UK charts in 1978 and was later used for the Take Hart gallery. What's the Big Deal?: The Deer Hunter (1978) - MTV mtv Eric Snider 03/30/2012 Considering it's one of the most significant events in the last 50 years of American history, it's a little surprising that the Vietnam War has only been the topic of a few dozen movies, rather than hundreds. One of the first, best, and most influential was The Deer Hunter, a three-hour drama that reopened wounds about the bitter conflict, several years after it was over.

More than 30 years have passed since its release, and it's still a cultural touchstone, an emblem of the war and its aftermath. But why? Let's put a round in the revolver and investigate. The praise: The Deer Hunter won five Oscars, including Best Picture, director, supporting actor (Christopher Walken), editing, and sound. There were also nominations for best actor (Robert De Niro), supporting actress (Meryl Streep), cinematography, and original screenplay. It was ranked 79th on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the best movies of all time, and moved up to 53rd on the 2007 revised list. The context: Those of us too young to remember the Vietnam War may have trouble grasping just how painful and divisive it was in American culture. Maybe the most striking evidence of this is the fact that while the war was going on, Hollywood films rarely even mentioned it, let alone depicted it. The subject was just too tender (which studios execs knew was bad for business; let's not pretend it was mere sensitivity that restrained them).

American involvement in Vietnam began escalating in earnest in 1965 and officially ended in 1975, but the first Hollywood films to face it head-on didn't come along until 1978. (The one exception: The Green Berets, from 1968, which was roundly criticized for depicting the Vietnam War in a laughably jingoistic fashion.) That hadn't been the case with World War II, which saw dozens of movies -- even combat-heavy ones -- released while the war was still happening. But World War II had been a much more popular cause, with clearer villains and objectives. You didn't have to worry about alienating half your audience by coming out in support of it. Hollywood's workaround with Vietnam was to make movies that addressed it metaphorically (like MASH and Catch-22), or whose characters were veterans of it (like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver). But even those timid measures were rare. Once the war was really, truly over, it took a few years for America to collect its thoughts and for Hollywood to catch up.

The Deer Hunter, released in December 1978, was the first big-studio film to have combat scenes set in Vietnam, and one of the first two films to be critical of America's involvement in the war. The other was Coming Home, released in February 1978 and dealing with a paralyzed veteran who now opposes the war. While Coming Home got solid reviews, it didn't make waves at the box office until almost a year later, when it was nominated for several Oscars -- as was The Deer Hunter. (Peter Biskind, a wonderful historian of 1970s cinema, wrote a terrific article for Vanity Fair a few years ago talking about these two Vietnam-related films competing at the Academy Awards.) The Deer Hunter's origins are convoluted. In the late 1960s, an entirely non-Vietnam-related script about a man who plays Russian roulette came to the attention of producer Michael Deeley, who liked the concept but felt it needed more context. He eventually hired writer-director Michael Cimino to revise the screenplay and make the film, and Cimino brought on Deric Washburn, with whom he'd co-written Silent Running (1972), to assist.

Cimino and Washburn worked on the new script for six years, which was just as well: nobody wanted to make a Vietnam movie during that time anyway. Deeley and Cimino got lucky when Robert De Niro signed on to appear in the film. Not only did his star power make Universal Pictures relax a little about the film's riskiness, he also knew all the best up-and-coming actors in New York. Meryl Streep, John Cazale (Streep's boyfriend at the time), and John Savage all came on board through De Niro. Christopher Walken also joined up. The film was made entirely on location (as opposed to on a studio lot), with the Pittsburgh scenes shot mainly in Ohio and West Virginia and Thailand subbing for Vietnam. The movie: Three friends and Pennsylvania steel workers -- Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage), and Nick (Christopher Walken) -- celebrate Steven's wedding, followed immediately by all three heading to active duty in Vietnam. War is a nightmare that changes each man in a different way. What it influenced: Film historian David Thomson, who has forgotten more about movies than you will ever learn, asserts that The Deer Hunter changed the way movies handled combat scenes.

He writes , "Before the late '70s the movies had lived by a Second World War code in which battle scenes might be fierce but always rigorously controlled. The Deer Hunter unleashed a new, raw dynamic in combat and action." This, Thomson says, paved the way for the brutal violence of films like Platoon and Saving Private Ryan. The film marked the first (and so far only) Academy Award for Christopher Walken, and established a career for the up-and-coming weirdo. It was also the first nomination for Meryl Streep, who won the next year for Kramer vs. Kramer and continues to be kinda famous today. Michael Cimino's Oscar for director, and the film's overall success, got him enough clout to make his next project, Heaven's Gate, which proved to be such an expensive disaster that it became a cautionary tale about letting artists have free rein. Today it's a common strategy for studios to open their "prestige" films for a week in December in New York and Los Angeles to establish eligibility for that year's Academy Awards, then to close and re-open them everywhere in January. The Deer Hunter was one of the first films to use this strategy successfully.

So if you're wondering, for example, why there was all that buzz about We Need to Talk About Kevin last December, even though it didn't open near you until January or February, that's why. Sadly, the movie's Russian roulette scenes inspired more than a few idiots to try the "game" themselves, leading to more than two dozen deaths . Those scenes were controversial anyway due to their historical inaccuracy -- to this day people think Russian roulette was a "thing" among the Vietcong, even though it wasn't -- but were defended as artistic license on the filmmakers' part. And of course it's not like the movie MADE people put loaded guns to their heads. On a happier note, the man who spearheaded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Jan Scruggs, was inspired to do so after seeing The Deer Hunter. When the memorial opened, in 1982, Cimino was invited to attend. What to look for: If you're in a rush to see the war action, take off your shoes and relax: we don't see Vietnam until more than an hour into the film. Everything before that is set back in the steel-mill town, with Steven's wedding and attendant celebrations and one last hunting trip for the men.

It is not unreasonable to wonder why fully one-third of a three-hour movie is so tranquil and seemingly plotless. Thomson gives the best explanation I've seen: "When the film opened, after about an hour audiences were asking: 'Where is this picture going, and why are we waiting?' One reason why was the star power on screen. Another was the stealth with which Cimino seemed to be following a secret design. It was like playing poker with a veteran. And then, wham! We were in Vietnam, up to our chins in foul, rat-infested water, in a cage made by the Vietcong, with Russian roulette as the game of choice. The guys were at war and captured and within reach of death. The leisurely and nearly stylized motions of the deer hunt now looked as archaic as Hemingway in a world of dirty violence. The pressure was clear, but the grace had vanished." Cimino's design was to establish the normalcy of civilian life -- work, marriage, friendship, leisure -- before slapping us in the face with the brutality of war. Contrast was important to him.

Moreover, the movie's third hour is largely set back in Pennsylvania again, so it's vital that we have an emotional connection to the people there. What's the big deal: A sprawling, painful, epic-length war like Vietnam deserved a messy, traumatic movie like The Deer Hunter. At a time when Hollywood was still uncertain how to address the war -- or even whether to do so -- Cimino's film left an indelible mark, opening the door for others to share their perspectives. Between this and Apocalypse Now, the tone of the modern combat picture was established. Gone were the bloodless, rah-rah war movies of the 1940s and '60s. Now warfare could be scrutinized, analyzed, and questioned. The Deer Hunter helped Hollywood catch up with the changes taking place in American culture. Further reading: I love Peter Biskind's Vanity Fair article about The Deer Hunter and Coming Home. David Thomson's brief essay in the Guardian is also great.

You may also enjoy Roger Ebert's original 1979 review , in which he calls it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made." The Deer Hunter and Suicides : snopes.com - - Claim: Viewings of the film The Deer Hunter have been tied to a number of Russian roulette suicides. Status: True. Origins: The 1978 film The Deer Hunter is a powerful, disturbing, and compelling look at the Vietnam War through the lives of three friends before, during, and after their service in the war. In one of its most memorable scenes, Vietnamese captors wager on the fate of American soldiers forced to play Russian roulette, a game of chance in which the player points a gun housing only one bullet at his own head (or someone else's) and pulls the trigger. If the hammer strikes an empty chamber all is well, but if it finds the one with a bullet, a life is ended. Something in this movie spoke to people, both to those honestly shivering on the verge of suicide yet needing one last push in the form of intervention by the Hand of Fate, and those temporarily rendered deaf to the voice of reason by the fatalistic appeal of playing games with the Grim Reaper.

Whatever the motivation, showings of The Deer Hunter inspired a number of boys and men to take their own lives in this fashion. The victims included both those fully intending to off themselves and those it later turned out were just messing with what struck them and their buddies at the time as a cool idea. All were suicides, although it is to be granted that some were (mostly) unplanned. The full body count attributable to The Deer Hunter suicides will likely never be known because often such deaths are solitary affairs, leaving no one around to explain what influenced the deceased to take his life. Some have attempted to take measure of this phenomenon, including Dr. Thomas Radecki, a psychiatrist who often spoke on behalf of the National Coalition on TV Violence and who in 1981 stated there had been 28 shootings and 25 confirmed Russian roulette deaths in the United States involving persons who watched the movie on television or videotapes. In 1989, columnist Paul Simon was quoted in a Louisville Courier-Journal article as stating that this number was then up to 35.

A quick scan of old newspaper articles finds too many documented accounts of Deer Hunter suicides to chalk all of them up to overblown radical anti-violence rhetoric: [The New York Times, 1981] Officials Monday confirmed that Ted Tolwinski, 26 years old, and David Radnis, 28, had watched the movie, shown on the station last week. They said the men shot themselves at their kitchen tables Saturday by holding partly loaded revolvers to their heads and pulling the triggers twice. [The New York Times, 1981] A 23-year-old man [Daniel Bouley] shot himself in the head in a game of Russian roulette apparently inspired by watching the movie The Deer Hunter on television, the Anoka County Sheriff's Department said today. [The Washington Post, 1980] A 16-year-old boy fatally shot himself in the head reenacting a Russian roulette scene he had seen in the movie The Deer Hunter. James R. Groeneveld was found in his bedroom Wednesday by his mother. He died of a gunshot wound to his right temple shortly after being taken to a local hospital.

A .38-caliber revolver that belonged to the youth's father was found lying beside him, police said. [The New York Times, 1979] Oklahoma City police say William Dillon Gates, apparently inspired by movie The Deer Hunter, shot himself to death in a game of Russian Roulette with two other men. The spate of citings from the early 1980s doesn't mean that although there was a problem at one time, no one now is finding deadly inspiration in this 1978 film. Consider the March 2000 death of 16-year-old Brandon Accardi: [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 2000] Two teens were re-enacting a scene from the movie The Deer Hunter when one of them shot himself in the head, apparently by accident, according to Rock County Sheriff's Department reports released Thursday. Brandon Accardi, 16, was pronounced dead at Beloit Memorial Hospital early Saturday after a shooting at his home Friday.

Barbara "deer departed" Mikkelson Vietnam Veterans Against the War: THE VETERAN: 'Deer Hunter' Is Good Drama, But Bad History 'Deer Hunter' Is Good Drama, But Bad History By VVAW [ Printer-Friendly Version ] I was in Saigon at noon April 30 four years ago, when the old order rolled over and died. The Americans were gone soon after dawn, the last of them dashing across the U.S. Embassy roof to a helicopter and kicking away Saigonese who grabbed at their boots. I watched the North Vietnamese forces move into the city, green-clad foot soldiers methodically navigating the streets clogged with slow-moving traffic. It was the last act of the longest running war of this century. I am now discovering that increasing numbers of Americans believe that the last act of the war took place in a sinister back room somewhere in Saigon, where greedy Chinese gamblers were exhorting a glazed-eyed American GI to blow his head off. Had I as a working reporter missed such a vivid human-interest story on the last day of the war, I might have opted for a similar fate.

That particularly bloody version of the war's end comes in the Oscar-winning "The Deer Hunter." It's the story of three steelworkers whose primary activity seems to be drinking and hunting. Robert De Niro is deemed the most admirable member of the trio because he kills his deer with one clear shot. It is all in the best tradition of Hemingway machismo. Then they go off to Vietnam where they are captured and tortured by the Viet Cong who force them to compete against each other in a grisly game of Russian roulette... When I first saw the movie at a screening last autumn, one of my liberal colleagues stamped out muttering "fascist trash" when sneering Viet Cong soldiers were depicted enthusiastically torturing American prisoners of war. While I was personally troubled by much of what I saw that night, the sheer power of the film's photographic imagery, particularly the agonizing torture scenes, stunned me into mute acceptance of Hollywood's divine right to drench us in fictional nightmares. I comment today not to challenge those who have acclaimed "The Deer Hunter" and De Niro and who have packed theaters. What disturbs me is that audiences and critics seem to have found much more historical truth and significance than there really is in the saga.

Instead of viewing "The Deer Hunter" as the spectacularly fevered pro-duct of an ambitious film director (Michael Cimino), well-schooled in the cinematic arts of blood-letting,... they are interpreting his film as a deep historical truth, something on the order of the TV epic, The Holocaust's portrayal of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. While Holocaust dealt with controversial fact, the attempted extermination of a whole race, "The Deer Hunter" deals in controversial fiction. I have found that enthusiasts are genuinely hurt when I tell them that while Vietnam had all manners of violence, including self-immolating Buddhist monks, fire-bombings, rape, deception, and massacres like My Lai in its 20 years of war, there was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette, not in the voluminous files of the Associated Press anyway, or in my experience either. The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie. "The Deer Hunter" is no more a historically valid comment on the American experience in Vietnam than was "The Godfather" an accurate history of the typical Italian immigrant family. But Cimino defends his creative rights. During the filming in Thailand, he told reporters: "War is war.

Vietnam is no different from the Crusades. It's a question of survival, friendship and courage, and what happens to these things in people under stress." But they didn't play Russian roulette in the Crusades either. Even more preposterous than using Russian roulette as his metaphor is the morally irresponsible way that Cimino casually telescopes the years of the Vietnam conflict into a convenient backdrop for his bizarre macho heroics. So is history laundered. Absent are the disillusion at home, the bitterness of those who served, the destruction of a country and any other factors that might lessen his epic theme. Most upsetting is the callous disregard of the war's impact on the Vietnamese. While Cimino places the trauma of Americans at the center of his concern, his portrayal of the Vietnamese people as inhuman monsters, for whom life is cheap, perpetuates the racist stereotype that sustained much of America's involvement in Indochina. The audience cares about the three Americans because they are shown to have families and friendships and feelings. When they are hurt, the audience hungers for vengeance.

Yet It Is unnerving to sit in a movie theater in the United States in the last year of the l970s and hear young audiences, for whom the war is an all-but-forgotten memory, roar their approval as De Niro kills his Vietnamese tormentors. Yet no other feeling is possible, for Cimino presents every single Vietnamese as a cardboard caricature. They are not real people and are, therefore, easy to hate--and it is all too easy to applaud their murder. Cimino's depiction of the Vietnamese mortally wounds the moral Integrity of "The Deer Hunter." Cimino seems to be saying: "Yes, war is hell, but especially for young, white Americans." "The Deer Hunter" is inescapably a movie about archetypes. When a director as self-conscious, indeed as pretentious, as Cimino puts those three young Americans on a 70 mm silver screen in living Color they stand for all Americans. The portrayal of the Vietnamese similarly involves archetypes. Unfortunately, it is a lie. There are a few real moments. Helicopters bucked and strained against the pull of gravity. Refugees streamed in fearful confusion down oil-stained roads.

Panicked crowds stormed the U.S. Embassy walls. But when Cimino inserts actual ABC News footage of the last hours of the war, he is bending esthetic license to its limit. Such use of actual film clips imparts a gloss of historical accuracy to the entire film. Nothing could be further from the truth. In his artistic selfishness, Cimino seems oblivious to the nation's underlying anxiety about the Vietnam experience and its need for explanations. Rather than applauding his directorial cleverness, the New York audiences I observed were glorying in "The Deer Hunter," partly because of the simple, satisfying answers that it gave to the tough questions. In "The Deer Hunter," the enemies in Vietnam are ugly, sadistic torturers, while the American boys are noble; the Saigonese are greedy gamblers willing to bet on an American's blowing his brains out--they show no concern over the imminent collapse of their city. The movie was touted as being a major antiwar film, but it is packed with simplistic answers to some of our most enduring anxieties.

Some critics were harsh on "Coming Home" because they felt that the plot, which had housewife Jane Fonda bidding farewell to her gung-ho Marine husband as he went off to the war, and then having a love affair with paraplegic Voight while her husband was away, was just too much like soap opera. Historically speaking, "Coming Home" is an honest attempt to come to terms with one agonizing aspect of the war. And speaking personally, I would rather leave a theater with the suds of "Coming Home" in my mouth than the ashes of the "Deer Hunter." (The review reprinted above is taken from Peter Arnett who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Vietnam in 1966. The article was originally written for the Los Angeles Times.)

Question: Which war was the subject of the 1978 film The Deerhunter?
Answer: Vietnam War