The Deer Hunter (film)
The Deer Hunter (1978) is an Academy Award winning American film about a trio of Rusyn American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. It is loosely inspired by the German novel Three Comrades (1937), by World War I army veteran Erich Maria Remarque, that follows the lives of a trio of World War I veterans in 1920s Weimar Germany. Like that novel, The Deer Hunter meditates and explores the moral and mental consequences of war violence and politically-manipulated patriotism upon the meaning of friendship, honor, and family in a tightly-knit community.
The film features Robert
De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep. The story occurs in southern Vietnam
and in working-class Clairton, Pennsylvania, a Monongahela River town south of
Pittsburgh. It was filmed in the Pittsburgh area; Cleveland and Mingo Junction,
Ohio; Weirton, West Virginia; the North Cascades National Park, Washington State,
the Patpong region of Bangkok, Thailand (as the Saigon red light district), and
in Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand.
The film was written by Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker and Deric Washburn, and directed by Cimino.
The Deer Hunter won Oscars in 1978 for Best Picture, Best
Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken),
Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. In addition, it was nominated for Best Actor
in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep),
Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly
for the Screen.
Producers
Joann Carelli - associate producer
Michael
Cimino - producer
Michael Deeley - producer
John Peverall - producer
Marion
Rosenberg - associate producer
Barry Spikings - producer
Filming locations include:
Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.
Patpong, Bangkok, Thailand - the area represented red light Saigon.
Sai
Yok, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand
North Cascades National Park, Washington
State, U.S.A.
Mingo Junction, Ohio, for the steel mills.
Steubenville,
Ohio, for some mill and neighborhood shots.
Struthers, Ohio, for external
house and long-range road shots.
Weirton, West Virginia, for mill and trailer
shots.
Plot
The Deer Hunter is in three acts: life before war, life in war, and life after war. In the late 1960s, Rusyn-American steel workers Mike, Steven, Nick, Stanley, John, and Axel are preparing for two rites of passage: marriage and military service. Mike, Steven, and Nick are reporting to the U.S. Army and headed to fight the war in Vietnam. Steven is marrying the day before he ships out; all the friends except for Steven go on a last deer hunting trip.
Act one
The first act depicts their Western Pennsylvania life
at work, at home, at the bar, and at church. Steven is marrying Angela in a stately
shotgun wedding (her pregnancy by another man implied and later confirmed when
Steven tells Nick he's not "done it with Angela"). Afterwards, the bride
and bridegroom exit the church to the strains of Mnohaja lita (God Grant You Many
Years) to a wild reception with drunken singing and dancing to Ukrainian and Russian
traditional music in the local VFW hall. The reception's dual purpose: celebrating
the marital and martial rites of passage.
In the background saloon
of the hall, away from the celebration, a returned Green Beret sergeant is drinking
heavily; a fore shadow upon the friends. After almost provoking a fistfight with
the sergeant, Mike drunkenly streaks through the neighbourhood; catching up with
him, Nick makes him promise to not abandon him in Vietnam.
Next day, on the final, pre-war hunt, Mike, the community's best deer hunter, berates Stanley being unprepared and forgetting his boots. Preparedness, as an existential theme is visually developed in the primitivism of the hunt, and the hunting ground as a spiritual place, all underscored with Eastern Orthodox liturgical music. The Deer Hunter, Mike, kills his prey and mounts it as trophy atop the hood of his 1959 Cadillac car. After the hunt, on the night before the comrades leave for war, John, their barkeep, plays Chopin's Nocturne in G-minor, Opus 15, No. 3, a bridge returning them from the primitive elation of hunting to the refined calm of civilization. The music's introspective mood communicates their fraternal love for each other, and contrasts their first-world modernity with the primitivity of the third-world peasants against whom they will soon war.
Act two
The
second act depicts their infantry combat in Vietnam; Mike, a special forces sergeant,
fortuitously encounters Steven and Nick shortly after they disembark from a 101st
Airborne infantry helicopter assault on a village. Shortly before that, Mike,
the lone survivor of his ambushed Green Beret unit, incinerates with a flamethrower
a North Vietnam Army scout who has just killed villagers hiding in a spider hole.
The three comrades' battlefield reunion is brief; the NVA are attacking to capture
the pro-American village; mortar explosions end the reunion.
The NVA capture and deliver them to the local Viet Cong. In a riverside prisoner of war camp, they are among several U.S. Army and ARVN prisoners. The bored guards gamble for entertainment, ordering their PoWs to play Russian roulette. All three play; Steven survives his turn with a slight wound and is punished by incarceration to an underwater cage. Believing Steven broken, Mike considers abandoning him; Nick angrily rejects Mike's consideration.
Nick and Mike play each other. To engineer their escape, Mike bluffs the drunken Communist Vietnamese jailors to allow their revolver three bullets. The Vietnamese are elated by the American's insanity, and increase their wagers. Mike and Nick each survive a round despite the revolver's three bullets. On Mike's second turn, he quickly shoots and kills the tormenting head jailor; they then overpower, disarm, and kill the other jailors with their own weapons. After rescuing Steve and escaping downriver on a floating tree, an American helicopter rescues them, but only Nick succeeds; the weak Steven falls to the river; Mike follows him in rescue. Steve breaks his legs in the fall; Mike carries him to friendly lines.
Meanwhile, the psychologically dead Nick is recuperating in a military hospital in Saigon. Afterwards, he aimlessly searches for Mike in the red light district. After an aborted tryst with a prostitute, Nick encounters Julién Grinda, a champagne-drinking Frenchman outside of a gambling den featuring Russian Roulette. Grinda entices Nick to participate, then leads him in to the den. Unbeknownst to Nick, Mike is in the crowd, as a gambler. Though Mike sees Nick, they do not reunite. Angered by the false machismo of the non-warrior, Nick calls the bluff of the rigged game, spoils the gambling, and is ejected from the den. After fighting with the bouncer, the American and the Frenchman are chased from the den to Grinda's sports car. To aid their escape, Nick tosses money into the air, stopping the pursuing angry crowd. From amongst the crowd, Mike calls to Nick, but the noisy crowd drowns his voice.
Act three
Back in
the U.S., a welcome home party is planned for Mike, but he tells the cab driver
to continue down the highway, passing the house. Mike spends the night in a hotel
and chooses to return to the house the next morning when Nick's girlfriend, Linda
(Meryl Streep) is alone. Mike eventually becomes romantically involved with Linda.
Although Nick and Steven are still missing, Mike, Stanley, John and Axel go on
a hunting trip. Mike gets the opportunity to kill a beautiful buck, but aims away
at the last second, unable to follow through with another killing. In their hunting
cabin, Stan pulls out his revolver, and Axel makes a lewd comment about Stan's
girlfriend. Stan becomes angry and threateningly points the gun at Axel. Mike
enters the room and quickly disarms Stan, who insists the gun was empty. When
Mike discovers it had been fully loaded, he empties all the rounds out of the
gun except one. He spins the chamber, places the gun against Stan's head and pulls
the trigger. The gun doesn't go off. He then leaves the cabin and throws the gun
into the mountains.
Mike later reunites with Stevie, who has lost his legs and is partially paralyzed and recovering in a Veterans' Administration hospital. Stevie reveals that someone in Saigon has been mailing large amounts of cash to him, which indicates that Nick is still alive -- and playing Russian roulette.
Mike travels to Saigon just before its fall in 1975. With the help of the Frenchman Julién Grinda, he finds Nick in a crowded, loud roulette club, but Nick appears to have no recollection of his friends or his home in Pennsylvania. He is under the influence of heroin, and has track marks on his forearm. Mike pays the club management to face Nick in the game. During the final match, Mike tries to persuade him to come home. Mike speaks of his and Nick's time together during their deer hunting trips. Mike reminds Nick of his deer hunting philosophy, which is to only take one shot. Nick finally smiles and acknowledges Mike by repeating the words "one shot". With that, Nick raises the gun and shoots himself in the head.
Mike brings Nick's body home to America, sadly fulfilling his
promise from the night of the wedding. The film ends on the morning of Nick's
funeral at the Russian Orthodox parish.
Cas
Robert De Niro - Michael Vronsky
John Cazale - Stosh
John Savage - Steven
Christopher Walken - Nick Chevotarevich
Meryl Streep - Linda
George Dzundza - John
Chuck
Aspegren - Axel
Shirley Stoler - Steven's mother
Rutanya
Alda - Angela
Pierre Segui - Julien Grinda
Mady Kaplan - Axel's girl
Amy Wright - Bridesmaid
Mary Ann Haenel - Stan's girl
Richard Kuss
- Linda's father
Joe Grifasi - Bandleader
Christopher
Colombi Jr-. Wedding man
Victoria Karnafel - Sad-looking girl
Jack Scardino
- Cold old man
Joe Strnad - Bingo caller
Helen Tomko - Helen
Paul
D'Amato - Sergeant
Dennis Watlington - Cab driver
Charlene Darrow -
Redhead
Jane-Colette Disko - Girl checker
Michael Wollet - Stockboy
Robert Beard - World War 2 veteran
Joe Dzizmba - World War 2 veteran
Father Stephen Kopestonsky - Priest
John F. Buchmelter III - Bar patron
Frank Devore - Barman
Tom Becker - Doctor
Lynn Kongkham - Nurse
Nongnuj Timruang - Bargirl
Po Pao Pee - Chinese referee
Dale Burroughs
- Embassy guard
Parris Hicks - Sergeant
Samui Muang-Intata - Chinese
bodyguard
Sapox Colisium - Chinese man
Vitoon Winwitoon - NVA officer
Somsak Sengvilai - VC referee
Charan Nusvanon - Chinese boss
Jiam
Gongtongsmoot - Chinese man at door
Chai Peyawan - South Vietnamese prisoner
Mana Hansa - South Vietnamese prisoner
Sombot Jumpanoi - South Vietnamese
prisoner
Phip Manee - Woman in village
Ding Santos - VC guard
Krieng
Chaiyapuk - VC guard
Ot Palapoo - VC guard
Chok Chai Mahasoke - VC guard
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Joe Cummings -
US embassy guard
James Kall - Altar Boy
Tom Madden - Steelworker
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