The Deer Hunter (1978)

Director: Michael Cimino
Cast: Robert de Niro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, John Savage

The Deer Hunter is not about the Vietnam war but rather about people. The movie uses the war merely as a tool to develop charcters and emotions. We can all learn from Cimino's masterpiece and it certainly helps us understand how the war drastically changed the lives not only of the men who faced the terrors in Vietnam, but also the people back in the U.S. who welcomed home family and friends who had been unrecognizably transformed by the brutality of their experiences.

The movie opens on a happy note with the introduction of some of the characters. It is the day before Steven Pushkov's (John Savage) wedding, and two of his friends, Michael and Nick (Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken), have convinced him to enlist in the army with them and head to Vietnam to become heros and have an adventure. The viewer watches the joyous celebration unfold with a sense of dread, as the three are being bid farewell and wished good luck during their time with the service. The soon-to-be soldiers are excited and enthusiastic rather than afraid. A pivotal encounter occurs during the wedding when Michael and Nick meet a veteran who has already experienced the nightmares they are so avidly anticipating. The heavily inebriated and overly social Michael approaches the vet and, with wide eyes and a beer in his hand, asks, "What's it like over there?" The vet does not so much as make eye contact with Michael, never mind answer his question. After several more fruitless attempts to break the vet's haunted silence, Michael and his comrades move on to other things. That night, while drunk, Michael strips naked and runs down the road whooping and yelling, with Nick in pursuit. Deep down, Nick knows that Michael is wrong about war being a heroic adventure, and he makes Michael promise that he will not leave him behind.

The day before the three friends are due in the service, they embark on a hunt. Michael tracks a beautiful buck through the vibrant mountains and kills it with a pull of the trigger. They strap it down to the top of their Cadillac and drive it like a trophy back into town, where they celebrate with a couple more beers. To Michael and his friends the corpse of the deer is merely an achievement; the loss of the animal's life isn't even contemplated.

The camera moves now to a strikingly different atmosphere. Every surface is grimy. Houses burn, surrendering thick clouds of smoke to the air. The now beardless Michael lifts himself to his feet just in time to see a Vietnamese soldier dropping a live grenade into an underground bomb shelter full of traumatized women and children. The next prolonged sequence in the movie takes place in a disheveled hut on a muddy riverbank. Michael, Steve, and Nick are held captive along with others in the water under the hut. Above them a sinister act is taking place. Hostages are being brought up from below, then their measly, one-in-six chance at life is being bet upon by their vicious hosts. These intense portrayals of Russian roulette are perhaps the most memorable sequences in "The Deer Hunter".

Although "The Deer Hunter" is gritty and unsettling, the violence is not for entertainment but rather to heighten the truth and realism of the film. Emotion and character depth are the glue that hold everything together, and the real theme of the movie is the war between people and their feelings, rather than the war between the North Vietnamese and the U.S.-supported South. The game of Russian roulette is symbolic throughout the movie. A connection can be made between the game and the characters' dawning revelation about the pointlessness of war. In Russian roulette, a person's life is toyed with and life and death are turned into a pointless exchange of money. This is the way the characters come to feel about the war they are fighting. They have been captured, their existence is in no way benefitting U.S. cause, and their lives are being sacrificed without reason.

The prospect of life and death returns during the time Michael spends with his friends after he comes home from Vietnam. Steve and Nick, the other two of his comrades who share his knowledge of war, are not present at this time and Michael and his pals embark on yet another deer hunt. Michael breaks off on his own and frantically chases a large buck, similar to the one that he ruthlessly eliminated at the beginning of the movie. Now, though, when faced with the opportunity to kill, Michael cannot bear to end another life and simply walks back to the hut, where he confronts Stanley. Stanley has not endured the terrors of Vietnam and is wildly waving a gun around as a playful joke. Michael's dominance of Stanley in this scene is clearly visible; he's no longer the jovial, social party guy he was before the war. Stanley claims that the gun is not loaded when he sees that Michael finds his joking to be disgusting rather than funny. Michael angrily snatches the gun, empties each round except for one, and pushes it to Stanley's head, yelling that life is only a game. This is one of very few times that Michael loses his composure, but the outburst shows his passion for life and his newly found respect for its beauty.

Terrific acting in the "The Deer Hunter" is essential to its raw power, and the star-studded cast displays just that. Robert de Niro as Michael is utterly convincing as an emotionally reserved character; although he doesn't reveal his feelings externally, de Niro clearly shows us that Michael has been deeply, irrevocably changed by his experiences. Christopher Walken as Nick proves himself as one of the finest (despite rarely appearing in a leading role) actors of his generation, and John Savage embodies the heartbreaking story of one of the soldiers who just couldn't deal with himself after his return. Meryl Streep is more than convincing as the worried and traumatized girlfriend of Walken.

"The Deer Hunter" is the most powerful evocation of the subtle effects of war. It is a movie that only those who actually served our country during those terrible years in Vietnam can afford to miss; they already know the story. Everyone else should view this portrayal of a particularly painful chapter in our history. It deserves endless praise and should be remembered for years and years to come. The beautiful production of this movie makes it in every way one of the best films to come out during the seventies, a decade considered by many to be the best years in American film.
-Jack Lewers

Rating --- 10