“The Deer Hunter” Review
Mike (Robert De Niro) hunts for deer before he goes to Vietnam in “The Deer Hunter.”
The concept of an “anti-war” film is strange. Not because it exists, but because the term became popular in the 1960s. When you really stop to think about it, nearly every war film (the ones that are good anyway) is an anti-war film that displays the unspeakable terrors of conflict from “All Quiet on the Western Front” to “1917.” Even World War II, a conflict that nearly every historian can agree the United States was justified in joining, is subject to anti-war films that don’t decry the war but also don’t glorify the violence either. Films like “They Were Expendable,” “Saving Private Ryan” and “Hacksaw Ridge” all follow this path.
However, the term’s popularity directly coincided with a series of films made in the 1970s about The Vietnam War. While divisive back then, as well as today, most can agree in retrospect that America’ motivations for entering the war were incredibly questionable. The years of American involvement resulted in a massive amount of carnage that cost the lives of over 58,000 Americans and over one million Vietnamese civilians.
Even when the war was ongoing, films were being made about it including John Wayne’s abysmal propaganda film “The Green Berets.” But when the war concluded, cinemas started to see a flow of Vietnam War films that showcased the moral struggles in an immoral war. Among these films are classics like “Apocalypse Now,” “Coming Home,” “Platoon,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “We Were Soldiers.” But, in my opinion, the best Vietnam War film has to be one of the earliest to achieve critical and commercial acclaim: “The Deer Hunter.”
The three hour film follows three Russian-Americans, Mike (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken) and Steven (John Savage), as they go off to Vietnam in hopes of glory and serving their country. Instead, they are directly confronted with the reality of the war and all three of them find themselves either mentally or physically scarred by their service.
What makes this film so unique is how it focuses on not just the soldiers, but their friends and family as well. In fact, the war itself only makes up a half hour in the story.
(From Left) Christopher Walken, John Cazale and Robert De Niro all starred in “The Deer Hunter” as friends torn apart by the Vietnam War. Cazale (“The Godfather” films, “The Conversation,” “Dog Day Afternoon”) died of lung cancer before the film was released, meaning that every film he starred in was nominated for Best Picture.
The first hour is solely about the wedding of Steven as Mike and Nick each try to declare their love for Linda (Meryl Streep). The wedding is joyous and filled with dancing as Mike, Nick and Steven have a good time with their friends Stan (John Cazale), Axel (Chuck Aspegren) and John (George Dzundza). However, throughout the wedding, there’s a small element of melancholy, foreshadowing the horrors to come. At the wedding reception, a marine sits at the bar drinking. When Mike, Nick and Steven approach him and ask him about Vietnam, he simply says “fuck it.”
The three of them go to Vietnam and it’s nothing short of horrific. All three of them wind up being captured by the Viet-Cong, resulting in the most famous scene in the film where captives are forced to play Russian Roulette. This scene is burned into the minds of viewers because of its intensity. When Mike decides to use the game as a way to escape, he and Nick face off against each other with three bullets in the gun. Every time Robert De Niro screams at his captor, it’s chilling. Historically speaking, there’s very little evidence that the Viet-Cong played Russian Roulette but it serves a haunting metaphor for the war: playing with a loaded gun until you pull the trigger one time too many.
The infamous Russian Roulette scene of “The Deer Hunter” has become iconic for being one of the most raw depictions of hatred, inhumanity and the trials of POWs.
When the three of them escape, the film takes a drastic turn as we see the effects of war and how it changes the human condition. Steven loses both of his legs while Mike struggles to adjust to being a civilian after returning home. He seems distant from his friends and even can’t enjoy hunting deer in the mountains like he used to. Mike used to be able to kill a deer with one shot, “the right way,” but now he keeps missing.
But it’s Nick’s journey that’s the real heartbreaker of the film and earned Christopher Walken a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In a hospital in Saigon, Nick starts crying when it takes him a while to remember his mother’s name. He then becomes an addict to heroin and starts playing Russian Roulette in Saigon clubs for money. I could go on and on about how well this film showcases the disintegration of people’s lives but there’s only so many ways you can write about the suffering this war brought.
The way I’ve written this review, “The Deer Hunter” sounds like a devastating film to sit through. While it’s certainly not a feel-good film, there’s a beauty to it that cannot be denied, especially considering it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound and Best Film Editing. The sequences of Mike and his friends hunting in the Pennsylvania mountains are gorgeous and the overall realism of the film is what draws me in.
The film’s music also brings a level of elegance to this small, working class town in Pennsylvania. Before Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” was in “Platoon,” there was “Cavatina.” Performed by classical guitarist John Williams, “Cavatina” plays a few times throughout the film and is as effective as it is beautifully sad.
Every time I watch “The Deer Hunter,” I become overwhelmed with emotion as I watch characters I have spent an hour getting to know forever changed. The ending of the film is nothing short of reflective as the main characters somberly sing “God Bless America.” This has sparked a lot of controversy because it’s never made clear why they’re singing the song. Some viewers thought it was a hopeful remembrance of Mike, Nick and Steven’s sacrifices. Others think it’s an ironic dismissal of the glory they were promised. I personally think that no matter how you look at it, the pain of Vietnam is still there and it’s never going to leave them.
Before 1978, there were several documentary films already being made about the Vietnam War, including the Oscar-winning “Hearts and Minds.” There were also films like, “M*A*S*H*” and “Patton,” that clearly alluded to the war while being set in other conflicts. “The Deer Hunter” was the first mainstream film that told the American people that we need to keep talking about this war. We need to think about it in retrospect. We need to heal from such a black mark on the world. Without “The Deer Hunter,” I can’t imagine where the war genre would be today.
