The Deer Hunter
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Movie Reviews of The Deer Hunter
Movie Review: The Best Vietnam Film?
Summary: 5 Stars
The Deer Hunter ("TDH") Basic Plot: 3 'best friends' steel workers go to Vietnam and come back in various states (dead, alive, maimed, etc.). This is a war movie, yet with only a small portion of combat action. This is much more of a "get inside your head" film about the effects of war. It is brutal and unforgettable. If you like the intensity of 'The Killing Fields', this film is much the same. One particular scene, the infamous Russian Roulette scene in the river hut, is arguably the most intense scene ever filmed. It is very difficult to watch, and helps explain why some people who go to war literally are never, ever the same.
Having lived in Pittsburgh during the era when this film 'took place', and knowing people not unlike the steelworkers in the film, the first thing viewers need to know is that Pittsburgh scenes are accurate (although not all filmed in Pittsburgh). What first comes across as a way-too-drawn-out and overly-stylized opening scenes of the wedding and hunting, is actually quite like the robust and rough lifestyle of these All American workers, and serves well to contrast with the chaos of 'Nam.
For younger people who do not quite relate to the Vietnam era, this is film is a must-see. Other goods 'Nam films are 'Coming Home' (for relationships), and 'Hamburger Hill' (for combat action). 'Platoon' is probably the most 'balanced' on the Vietnam films, although the mental and artistic side of TDH, I feel, is better.
The photography and music of TDH is superb, as is the casting and the on-location filming. The one odd bit of 'license' in TDH is the hunting scenes. There is no place anywhere near Pennsylvania that has mountains like those shown in this movie (these scenes were film north of Seattle, where there are glaciers), but TDH 'mentality' is very much a 'religion' in this part of America (as well as some other areas, such as Michigan).
This film is better on DVD than VHS as it has panoramic scenery, and the higher fidelity of the DVD makes the soundtrack more realistic.
This is no lightweight movie, and like Titanic, leaves you numb for a while after watching it. I would rate this film as easily in the Top 10 war movies ever made, right up there with 'Patton', 'Paths of Glory' and 'Private Ryan.
A final tidbit, Streep has a supporting role and does a superb job. Her lover at the time was John Cazale (Michael Corleone's 'dumb' brother, 'Fredo', in 'The Godfather') who plays one of the threesome's friends who does not go to war. Casselles died shortly after TDH was made, and TDH was among Streep's earlier roles that really got her career rolling ('Kramer vs. Kramer' and 'Out of Africa' were in the same time frame).
Movie Review: Not Just An Average Film of the Vietnam War
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Deer Hunter" is doubtlessly one of the best films released in 1978, winning five Oscars including Best Picture. It stars Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken. It desplicts the effects of the Vietnam War from the views of the soldiers, the loved ones, the friends, and their hometown. This is not like any other war film. This film explores the more dramatic side rather than the action side. Therefore, it becomes a story about friendship and love. Everybody must work their all for their relationships to survive. This becomes much more crutial after Michael (De Niro) and Steve (John Savage) return since they now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to their brutal war encounters.
Through deaths to love to russian roulette, the writing stays at its prime. As the storyline builds its characters' backgrounds, the intense dramatic theme expands. The passion between the words and the film proves the great chemistry. In typical films, some of the exchanged words and joined activities within the group of friends would not fit well with the overall theme. In "The Deer Hunter", they do. In fact, it explains the characters' backgrounds and what they'll miss dearly during their duty in Vietnam. This gives a clearer comparison of before, during, and after affects. Without this affect, the film may not have had the same powerful impact.
The outstanding visual effects offer a more personal glimpse of the characters' lives, especially the Vietnam battles. Through the blood to the dirt to the destruction, the graphic details rightfully desplict the brutality. They give the more fearful theme that blends well with the storyline. Two scenes briefly show the illusion of actual war footage. This unique technique offers a glimpse of war to today's viewers. The other effects, including make-up, camera, and sound, are equally outstanding.
The acting from the performers is wonderful, namely from the Oscar-nominated trio of De Niro (Best Actor), Streep (Best Supporting Actress), and Walken (winner-Best Supporting Actor). These three are the core of the expressed emotion through the storyline. The three combined alone express the variety of film themes. Through everything, their emotional stance remains on top.
"The Deer Hunter" is a great drama that will surely continue pleasing audiences as it has since its release. This classic will surely never be forgotten. Other Vietnam War themed films that viewers may like are "Forrest Gump" and "Platoon".
Movie Review: A Film Unlike Any Other
Summary: 5 Stars
Rarely has a film lingered so long in my mind as this one. More than a war movie, it is in my opinion unrivaled in its exploration of the labyrinths of friendship under extreme duress. This film would have the makings of myth if it weren't such a nitty-gritty depiction of nerves on edge. This is more than a collection of magnificent acting talent, it is a true ensemble. You get the deepest of senses that you know these people, or have heard about them, or wish you knew them. There is something to like, dislike, detest, and cherish in all of them. If this is so much cinematic manipulation, let's have more of it. Although well beyond a genre film, it does more than any other to convey the psychological scars of the Vietnam War. Flawed in its depiction of the Vietnamese people--perhaps. Then again, this is a film where no one, save perhaps John, the tavern owner and piano player, comes out of the steel mill smoke smelling like roses. I saw it when it was first released at the theatres as a young man confused about my own father's return from Vietnam and vowed never to watch it again. The final scene alone was enough to keep me away: too close to the soul. But I watched it again recently with a large group of Chinese colleges students who were moved beyond my highest expectations. This was not the image of American soldiers they had been taught. Some left in stunned silence; others quietly cried. For myself, it was as stirring as the first time and I was left speechless, unable to resume class. Now it seems to me that any movie that can leave such an indelible emotional mark on diverse audiences ought to be not just rented but owned. Regardless of what the word "Vietnam" conjures in your mind, get this film. Watch it. Set it aside (maybe not 22 years!) and watch it again. This is epic filmmaking; Cimino doesn't preach like Stone and for whatever heavy handed directing you might find in it are stunning moments of clarity and recognition: Streep stifling tears in the grocery stockroom, De Niro pausing even to his own surprise as he sees the buck in his crosshairs, Savage biting the bars of the bamboo cage, De Niro rapping with Cazale in the bowling alley, and De Niro trying to shake Walken back to reality, the latter with his eyes glazed over. This film initiated me into adulthood and rocks me to this day. A tour de force.Movie Review: I was shocked and horrified. But I couldn't stop watching!
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert DiNiro is the star. His name is featured, even above the title on the video box. There's doubt that he's a fine actor and his performance is exceptional. But it was Christopher Walken, in a supporting role, who won an Academy Award. And John Savage, the third of a trio of friends from and Pennsylvania industrial town who go off to Vietnam, was equally as good. Meryl Streep, as the sweetheart back home is good too, but her role is small and she's basically just a backdrop for the real story of the three men, who are all full of macho vim and vigor at the start of the film. There's a long wedding scene followed by the men's deer hunting expedition to the woods later. These scenes developed their characterizations so well that I felt as if I knew each of them personally. Then, when the scene suddenly changes, plunging the viewer into the depths of battle resulting in captivity, the shock is horrific.Whether or not the scenes of Russian Roulette that the men are forced to play for the amusement of their captors was real is a moot point. The film makes it seem as if this practice was widespread. I don't know if that is true. But even if it is symbolic, it sure felt real. I found myself experiencing a quickened heartbeat as each man was forced to put the gun to his own head. And I was filled with a new appreciation of the deep psychological wounds of those who survived.
Everything in this film is taken to extreme. Robert DiNiro's character is just too good to be true. The sadism of the Vietnamese goes too far. The sordid result of Christopher Walken's trauma seems too twisted. And the extent of John Savage's fear and eventually injuries are heartbreaking. Even the meaning of the deer hunt itself is confusing. And it's not even clear whether this is an anti-war movie or one about patriotism and what it means to be an American. But it sure is about the bonds of friendship, the only thing left in the midst of the cruelty of the world. All put together, the result is a stirring and frightening film. No wonder it won an Academy Award for best picture. Highly recommended, but certainly not for the squeamish.
Movie Review: In the first rank of American film-making.
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched Michael Cimino's The Deerhunter again recently, some thirty years after I first saw it. It remains a remarkable film, a piece of powerful story-telling, a coming-together of fine actors and fine acting, engrossing scene-setting, careful character-building, and deep meaning. I was struck most forcefully on this second viewing by two things: the film's foreshadowing of American decline, and its testament to the power of myth.
The America of The Deerhunter, the massive industry, the doughty immigrants, the omnipresence of Detroit, the mysticism of guns and hunting, the wealth that made the war, and the way it was waged, possible--all that is gone now, or going. Did Cimino see that it was being destroyed, that Viet Nam was destroying it, or is it just very easy to see now that that was when the darkness began to take hold?
In the final scene of the film, the main characters are gathered for breakfast after the funeral of the friend who destroyed himself in Southeast Asia. One man is legless and broken, another alienated forever from his civilian friends by the knowledge of what the war really was. Their women are emotionally shattered. The men who stayed at home are well-meaning but lost. The gathering is awkward, grief-laden, every participant burdened with the incomprehensible. What has happened is not what should have happened, not what anyone ever dreamed could happen, not what anyone knows how to live with. And what do they do? They begin hesitantly, spontaneously to sing together, God Bless America. What else can they do? They have no other story to live by.
It is an extraordinarily touching, delicate moment, vibrant with human truth, a grand anti-climax to a story of heroism, community, patriotism, friendship, and madness, of failed faith. This is a film by a man who understands our country, believes in it, but has the courage and the gentleness to relieve of us our illusions about it, if we will allow him to. We need this film now, as we needed it when it was made, when we could not fully understand what it was telling us.