The Deer Hunter (film)
**The Deer Hunter (film) Overview**
"The Deer Hunter" is a 1978 film directed by Michael Cimino, focusing on the impact of the Vietnam War on a steelworking community in Pennsylvania and the lives of three young men who serve as soldiers. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, and Meryl Streep, and is structured in three distinct parts: the initial segment introduces the characters before their deployment, the intense middle section depicts their harrowing experiences as prisoners of war, and the final part explores their post-war lives. One of the film’s most controversial scenes involves the characters being forced to play Russian roulette, which became an iconic yet divisive representation of the brutality faced by soldiers. Critics and veterans have debated this portrayal, arguing that it inaccurately depicts Vietnamese soldiers as sadistic and introduces elements that are not grounded in reality. Despite the contentious nature of its content, "The Deer Hunter" garnered significant acclaim, winning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It played a pivotal role in shaping American perceptions of the Vietnam War and its effects on soldiers, influencing subsequent artistic interpretations of the conflict throughout the late twentieth century. The film is notable for its exploration of themes related to patriotism, trauma, and the lasting scars of war.
The Deer Hunter (film)
Identification Motion picture
Date Released in 1978
Director Michael Cimino
As one of the first postwar explorations of the effects of American involvement in Vietnam, this controversial film deeply affected popular attitudes about the war and the men who fought it.
Key Figures
Michael Cimino (1939- ), film director
Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter opened both to critical praise and to condemnation for its examination of the effects of the Vietnam War on a Pennsylvania steel town and, more specifically, on the lives of three young, patriotic men who become soldiers. Robert De Niro stars in the film along with Christopher Walken, John Savage, and Meryl Streep. The film has three major sections: a slow-moving opening set in Clairton, Pennsylvania, that introduces three steelworkers as they prepare to leave for their tour of duty in Vietnam; an intense middle section as the men find themselves as prisoners of sadistic Viet Cong soldiers; and a final chapter following the lives of the three men in the aftermath of the war.
The most compelling and most controversial moment in the film is in the middle section as the three men are forced to play a brutal game of Russian roulette by their captors. The scene quickly became iconic, shaping American perceptions of the brutalized prisoner of war. At the same time, many critics and veterans sharply rejected the scene because of its introduction of Russian roulette as a means of torture and its depiction of the Vietnamese as sadists. As Cimino readily admitted, Vietnamese use of Russian roulette had no basis in reality. Rather, the scene serves as a metaphor for the violence and ambiguity of the American experience in Vietnam. In any event, the images portrayed in The Deer Hunter burrowed deep within the American psyche.
The film garnered nine Academy Award nominations in 1978, winning the awards for Best Picture and Best Director, among others. Before this time, the Vietnam War had not been a film subject, except for John Wayne’s 1968 The Green Berets, which was regarded as U.S. military propaganda. In 1978, however, several important films took the Vietnam War as their subjects. Indeed, another top contender for the Best Picture Award that year was Coming Home, a film that also explored the effects of the Vietnam War on those at home. Francis Ford Coppola, who had begun filming his own Vietnam saga, Apocalypse Now (1979), before The Deer Hunter and whose film was long overdue and far over budget, presented Cimino with his award.
Impact
The Deer Hunter profoundly affected American popular opinion during the 1970’s concerning both the fate of American prisoners of war and the psychic and physical destruction wrought on the American soldiers of the war. Its influence can be traced through the artistic renderings of the war throughout the rest of the twentieth century.
Bibliography
Anderegg, Michael. Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
Dittmar, Linda, and Gene Michaud, eds. From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.