The Bottom Line: This film is highly recommended for patient viewers for its outstanding cast and careful direction. Notable for character development and tense action scenes.
Michael Cimino's moment of glory was for The Deer Hunter. Surprisingly, it was only his second film as director, following the 1974 Clint Eastwood vehicle Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. After picking up Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, his career would lie in ruins after the financial disaster of his subsequent film, Heaven's Gate.
The Deer Hunter was one of five 1978 films about the Vietnam War. The others were The Boys in Company C, Who'll Stop the Rain, Go Tell the Spartans, and Coming Home, the latter of which won three Academy Awards. Success breeds success, and a flood of Vietnam-themed films would follow over the next ten years. Full Metal Jacket was probably the best of these, followed by Born on the Fourth of July and The Deer Hunter.
But if it doesn't quite qualify as the best film about the Vietnam War, The Deer Hunter still has some advantages over its competitors. The cast was outstanding, headed by Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Cazale, and John Savage. The cinematography and sets were also excellent. I especially liked the large Russian Orthodox church that loomed over the small Pennsylvania town, and the various wooden cages and crafts for the river scenes in Vietnam (which were actually filmed in Thailand). Another plus is the subtle score, which (unlike Coming Home, for one) doesn't use pop songs primarily to tell us what year it is.
The Deer Hunter has been criticized for the length of the pre-Vietnam scenes, which consume half of the three-hour film. But the first half is also the best half, not just because the story is far more credible, but because the characters are carefully developed.
The lifetime friends have well developed personalities. Michael (Robert De Niro) is the intense and determined leader. Nick (Christopher Walken) is spiritual and sensitive. Steven (John Savage) is good-natured, but hapless and somewhat fearful. Axel (Chuck Aspergren) is bearish and aggressive. The Deer Hunter is the only film credit for Aspergren, who actually was a steelworker prior to his role.
John (George Dzundza) is gregarious and deeply emotional. Stan (John Cazale) is insecure and socially clumsy. Cazale played a very similar character in the first two Godfather films. The Deer Hunter was his final film. He died of bone cancer in March of 1978, nearly a year prior to the film's wide release.
Meryl Streep serves as a love interest for Nick and Michael, and is given little to do except pine pathetically for them. But Streep does this very well.
After the jarring transition from Pennsylvania to Vietnam, the film is sometimes confusing, and even unintentionally surreal. The seemingly racist depiction of the Vietnamese as sadistic savages is likely unintentional is well. At times, the story defies common sense. Would you give a POW soldier a gun loaded with three bullets, when his only chance of survival is to kill you?
The Deer Hunter was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning five of them, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Walken, who believe it or not has never received another Oscar nomination). DeNiro was nominated for Best Actor, while Streep was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (her first Oscar nomination). Among the other nominations were Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Original Screenplay (co-credited to Cimino). (76/100)
Cimino's epic film about friendship chronicles the lives of three steelworkers and their friends who lives are irrevocably changed by a tour of duty i...More at HotMovieSale.com
Winner of 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture Best Director (Michael Cimino) and Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken) this critically acc...More at NBC Universal
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