The Deer Hunter ★★★★½
THE late Michael Cimino had a short but fascinating directorial career.
He only made seven films over 33 years but has the distinction of winning an Academy Award for Best Director.
He was effectively blacklisted after almost bankrupting a major studio and eventually lost faith in his own abilities and the industry.
While the 1980 western Heaven’s Gate, one of the biggest box office disasters ever, and 1974 crime drama Year of the Dragon are impressive but flawed, his crowning achievement will always be the 1978 Oscar winner The Deer Hunter.
That year was a watershed one for American cinema with Hollywood finally making a serious effort to explore and portray the emotional fall-out of the Vietnam War on individuals, families and communities.
Three major films with similar themes were released – Coming Home, Who’ll Stop the Rain and The Deerhunter.
The former, directed by the well-regarded Hal Ashby, and starring Jane Fonda, Jon Vight and Bruce Dern, was the clear favourite amongst critics, undoubtedly anti-war in message and focused exclusively on the psychological impact on returned soldiers.
It is a beautifully made and acted film, crafted with care and empathy in the steady hands of Ashby and his formidable cast.
The Deerhunter, on the other hand, was directed by a young, brash up-and-comer whose only previous experience At the time was the minor bank heist drama Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Released in 1974.
Many critics attacked The Deerhunter for its political and emotional stance to the War which they found confusing at best and detestable at worst, some peppering reviews with stories of Cimino’s alleged on-set tyranny.
They were particularly concerned at the film’s depiction of the North Vietnamese people, at a time when America’s involvement in the War was being deeply questioned.
But the critics could not deny the film’s powerful impact, impressive visuals and uniformily excellent acting by the principal cast including Robert de Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, Meryl Streep and John Cazale.
The film arrived at festivals with little fanfare and its impact on audiences was extraordinary.
Most controversial were the scenes of American Prisoners of War being forced to play Russian Roulette taking their turns p=firing a gun loaded with one bullet at their heads while Viet Congress captors bet on the life and death outcomes.
There was great debate over whether the practice had ever occurred but ultimately it works incredibly well as both a tension center-piece and metaphor for the randomness of war and had audiences wincing in their seats.
The three-hour film is divided into three sections: a wedding prior to three men going off to war; their ordeal during part of the time in Vietnam; and the aftermath back home.
It’s set in 1967 in a small Pensylvanian steel town where Cimino had many of the local population play themselves, particularly during the much maligned extended wedding sequence.
Today, this initial sequence is still masterful in setting up the main characters of Michael (de Niro), Nick (Walken) and Steve (Savage) and their working class lives with friends and family.
The pivotal moment comes an hour into the film when we cut suddenly to the horrors of combat and the trio’s battle to survive and return home broken and forever changed but, possibly, still able to continue with their lives in some fashion.
The final section of the film with Michael’s return to Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in 1975 will be forever stored in my cinema memory.