The Deer Hunter (1978)

Michael Cimino's film is a startlingly realistic vision of Vietnam as seen by those forced through its fires of tribulation. The story of this epic is simple. Close friends Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage) leave their families and prosaic lives in Clairton, Pennsylvania, to embark on a tour of duty in Vietnam. Before they go, the three steelworkers attend Steven's wedding to Angela (Rutanya Alda), drink at their bar hangout, and then go on a hunting trip with three more friends, Axel (Chuck Aspegren), Stan (John Cazale), and John (George Dzundza). Most of the hunters are amateurs, but Michael proves his expertise by killing a buck with one shot. With their farewells made, the trio departs.

The film's second movement shows the young Americans skirmishing with Vietcong troops, being surrounded, and being taken prisoner. Installed in a small, crude outpost prison, in a cage beneath a hut on stilts, the prisoners can hardly keep their heads above water. Other cages beyond a wooden pier hold prisoners barely able to breathe as the rat-infested water rolls over them. One by one the prisoners are dragged up into the hut, beaten, and ordered to play Russian roulette while their captors make bets on the outcome.

Michael encourages Steven to submit to the deadly game, as playing is their only hope for survival. If the young man refuses, the Vietcong will kill him. Mad with fear, Steven manages to squeeze off a round that grazes his head. He is taken out and tossed into a watery cage. When Nick's turn comes, the prisoners trick the enemy into putting three bullets into the pistol to make the game even more dangerous. In a quick move, Michael shoots three captors while Nick grabs a rapid-fire weapon and destroys the rest. Escape Michael, Nick, and the wounded Steven then climb upon a tree limb and float downstream until a U.S. helicopter attempts to pick them up. Nick struggles into the craft, but Steven falls off one of its runners into the river. Michael jumps after him, rescues him from drowning, and pulls him to shore. He carries Steven inland, where Michael joins a South Vietnamese refugee column and puts his wounded friend on the hood of a jeep that is drifting south toward Saigon. Civilian life Nick, taken to a hospital, withdraws into himself. Steven by now has been sent back to the States, where he loses both legs.

The third movement opens as Michael returns to Clairton and meets Nick's girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep). The two become lovers. When they hear that Steven refuses to leave the California hospital where he is recuperating, Michael goes to see him and convinces Steven that he must return to his wife and adjust to civilian life. Professional Russian roulette Steven then shows Michael a great deal of money he has been receiving from someone in Saigon. Michael rightly suspects that the money is from the missing Nick. He returns to Saigon just before the doomed city falls into Vietcong hands and tracks down Nick to where he is playing Russian roulette professionally in the red-light district. Not only has Nick miraculously survived by risking his life this way, since his release from the hospital, but he has won a fortune. Nick is no more than a robot, his mind having become unhinged by his experience in the Vietcong prisoner hut. Michael begs him to abandon his suicidal game to return home with him—insulting, pleading, using every means at his command—but his erstwhile friend does not respond. Thinking to jar Nick's memory, Michael arranges to play opposite him. There is a momentary flicker of recognition, but then Nick grabs a pistol and blows his brains out.

Michael is emotionally destroyed. He accompanies Nick's body home, and he and his friends return to their old hangout, where a moody silence pervades the atmosphere. Then, one by one, these unsophisticated young men begin to sing "God Bless America" in one of the most poignant and unforgettable scenes ever put on film. Critique This final scene is only one of many powerful ones in a dynamic, traumatic, and wholly memorable production that portrays in common-man terms the corruption and disillusionment of another lost generation.

Director Cimino, along with photographer Zsigmond, produced an incredible indictment of war as seen through the eyes of three young citizens. Against the dual backgrounds of the soldiers' peaceful home town and the alien world of battle that the three entered with naive patriotism, the filmmakers show the insanity of war and the preciousness of peace. The performances of De Niro and Walken are mesmerizing—that of Savage, less in evidence but just as vital, is superb. Although the Russian roulette images are disproportionately emphasized (representative neither of typical Vietcong torture nor of Vietnamese gaming pleasures), the film as a whole is authentic and is superior films such as as Apocalypse Now (1979) in its treatment of the War in Vietnam.

The film won five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Walken), Best Direction, Best Sound ,and Best Film Editing. De Niro was nominated for Best Actor but lost to Jon Voight for his performance in another Vietnam film, Coming Home, another film about the social consequences of the War. Streep, Zsigmond, and the screenplay also earned nominations.

CAST:

PERFORMER, CHARACTER

Robert De Niro, Michael

John Cazale, Stan

John Savage, Steven

Christopher Walken, Nick

Meryl Streep, Linda

George Dzundza, John

Chuck Aspegren, Axel

Shirley Stole,r Steven's Mother

Rutanya Alda, Angela

Pierre Segui, Julien

Mady Kaplan, Axel's Girl

Amy Wrigh,t Bridesmaid

Mary Ann Haenel, Stan's Girl

Richard Kuss, Linda's Father

Joe Grifasi, Bandleader

Paul D'Amato, Sergeant

PRODUCTION:

Producers, Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, and John Peverall

Director, Michael Cimino

Screenwriter, Deric Washburn based on a story by Cimino, Washburn, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker

Editor, Peter Zinner

Cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond

Music director, John Williams