The Deer Hunter (1978)

MakeEmLaugh

I recently watched Michael Cimino's 1978 Best Picture winner The Deer Hunter for the first time in several years. It is an undeniably striking film, though I can understand why it has divided critics since it was first released.

Firstly, it is startling that the film won Academy Awards for both Best Editing and Best Sound.

The film is three hours in length and - if we're honest - really doesn't need to be. Much of the first hour is comprised of a wedding ceremony for one of the main protagonists, and a hunting trip. But, unlike The Godfather, which allows us to eavesdrop on several characters' conversations, giving us insight into their motivations, here the storytelling style is undisciplined, to say the least. We are simply observing them drink, dance and talk in an often unintelligible manner (the fact that so much of the dialogue is inaudible is another reason the Best Sound Oscar is so perplexing).

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't bored at any stage of the film, but I see no reason why it couldn't have been 30 minutes shorter, without losing any of its story or character development. Peter Zinner's editing is also rather inconsistent in that he allows certain scenes to run and run, yet the transition between other scenes is rather abrupt. Take the infamous Russian Roulette scene, in which our three main characters are tortured by North Vietnamese soldiers in a POW camp. We see Robert De Niro in combat, he meets Christopher Walken and John Savage unexpectedly in a field in Vietnam, then we cut to the POW camp. We do not even see the three of them get captured!

In a later scene, De Niro meets a former comrade in a veterans hospital. The man has been crippled, and De Niro insists on bringing him back to their town. They briefly struggle, and then the film cuts to Saigon, with De Niro getting off a helicopter. The previous scene is left unresolved. Now, maybe all these erratic cuts were intentional, but it seems bizarre that the film would win a Best Editing Oscar.

That being said, there is much to admire about The Deer Hunter. The performances are excellent.

Howard Hawks once said that the formula to a good movie is "three good scenes, no bad scenes". There are several better than good scenes in The Deer Hunter, to wit: the gang singing Can't Take My Eyes Off You in their local bar before John Savage's wedding; the three volunteer soldiers drinking with a stone-faced Green Beret at the wedding before their active duty; De Niro and John Cazale verbally sparring during a hunting trip; George Dzundza, the local bar owner, softly playing piano before we move to Vietnam (my own favourite moment in the film).

Of course, much of the film's controversy stems from the Russian Roulette scenes. High-profile critics like Mark Kermode have said "in my opinion The Deer Hunter is one of the worst films ever made, a rambling self indulgent, self aggrandizing barf-fest steeped in manipulatively racist emotion, and notable primarily for its farcically melodramatic tone which is pitched somewhere between shrieking hysteria and somnambulist sombreness".

What are other people's thoughts on the film?

krudler

One of the most overrated films ever made imo, it's dull as ditchwater for the most part until it gets to Vietnam.

Tigger

is the whole point of the first act not the boring normality of their lives in a industrial town? everyone works in the factory either at the furnace or in management they all eat sleep and hunt together. the wedding contrasts the lavish exciting affair of The Godfather in its plain goofy colours and custom.
the slam you are in Vietnam and there's bombs and noise and blood and ch1t flying every where then again your transported to a worse horror and more excitement,the camp and the Russian roulette then even worse for some is going home. some can't go home because they've left their legs on the field some because they've left their mind in a camp.

one of my favorite films

Dirty Dingus McGee

Its a really beautiful film in my opinion, one of my favourites of all time.

shazzerman

It packs the kind of gut-wrenching emotion that modern cinema rarely communicates well (see Paris, Texas for something similar).

Warper

The Deer Hunter is a classic

Tarzana

krudler wrote: »

One of the most overrated films ever made imo, it's dull as ditchwater for the most part until it gets to Vietnam.

I passionately hate this film. I don't even really like the war part and it's only a small part anyway. The roulette thing is overdone too. Its main problem is, as the OP said, it's WAY too long. Edit!

Once is too many times to watch this film.

e_e

Got to see it for the first time in the IFI recently and it was an absolutely privilege. Amazing film, and yes I love the way the first hour settles you into the normality of small town life and then hits you with the brutality of war. I was really walloped by the film.

marienbad

Brilliant film , as others have said the boring first section is essential to the point of the movie- a rust belt town that swallowed the god and country meme hook line and sinker and were willing to die for it and for the most part still believed it at the end.

Similarly with the seemingly erratic cuts - best way yet to show the unrelenting difference and brutality of Vietnam .

One of my favourites along with Heavens Gate , such a pity Cimino lost his way thereafter .

Tarzana

marienbad wrote: »

Brilliant film , as others have said the boring first section is essential to the point of the movie- a rust belt town that swallowed the god and country meme hook line and sinker and were willing to die for it and for the most part still believed it at the end.

If you're calling the first hour boring, there's something wrong there. Done well, it shouldn't be boring immersing the audience in the characters' pre-war lives and surroundings.

marienbad wrote: »

One of my favourites along with Heavens Gate , such a pity Cimino lost his way thereafter .

Heaven's Gate is brutal!

marienbad

Tarzana wrote: »

If you're calling the first hour boring, there's something wrong there. Done well, it shouldn't be boring immersing the audience in the characters' pre-war lives and surroundings.



Heaven's Gate is brutal!

To each his own I suppose.... A brilliant score, outstanding Vilmos Zsigmond cinematography, a great story told at its own pace - one of the best .Some say it takes a bit of work but well worth the effort . I never found it so and loved it on release .

Decuc500

I absolutely love The Deer Hunter. One of the first 'Grown up' film I saw when I was young, it really left a mark on me.

I also really liked Year of the Dragon.

Cimino's films are always excessive and controversial and never boring.

xalot

I think it's a great film, but not one I'd watch multiple times.

Interesting bit of trivia from it is apparently the studio wanted to replace John Cazale who had lung cancer and was ruled un-insurable. Robert De Niro put up the money for the insurance himself. Cazale died shortly after filming was completed.

shazzerman

Another interesting bit of trivia: De Niro said that the most emotional scene he ever had to play was - not the Russian roulette scenes - but the first visit to Steve in the vet's hospital.