Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter is a classic film which seems to continue to improve in quality with age. During its long three-hour runtime, about two-thirds of the film utilize a slow pace to depict the interrelationships in the small mining town in Pennsylvania while the remaining third of the film is set in Vietnam and filled with a non-stop chaotic tension.
The town of Clairton, Pennsylvania represents a staid, gritty America with limited hope of the “good life” but which is still infinitesimally better than the horrors soldiers experienced fighting in Vietnam. The Clairton community is filled with love but everything is subtly tainted: Linda (played by Meryl Streep) is physically abused by her alcoholic father, John Cazale's character looks at his reflection in the broken window of a pristine car, Steven's (played by John Savage) wedding is tainted by an illegitimate daughter and at the climax of Steven's Russian-Orthodox wedding two drops of blood spill on his wife's wedding dress (a symbol of Nick and Steven's demise in Vietnam?). These details from the first hour of the film give the The Deer Hunter a richness and set the tone and context of the main characters progression through the rest of the film.
The flaws in these characters’ lives in the US, however, are both magnified and pales in comparison with the tragedy they experience during and after their experience in Vietnam. The Russian roulette contests which occur in the prison camp and in private gambling sessions come to symbolize the chaos of the war and the commodization of human life. People, both the Vietnamese and the American soldiers, become completely disposable, serving only to smoothly facilitate the commercial of wealthy individuals both in view and behind the scenes.
There are also a number of tremendous back-stories related to The Deer Hunter: John Cazale, a close colleague of both Deniro and Pacino, was dying of bone cancer during the filming of Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino, the director, never achieved anywhere close to the excellence of the Deer Hunter. And, The Deer Hunter’s place in history as one of the first films about the Vietnam War which highlighted both the horrors of war (a predecessor to Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, etc etc) as well as the effect on the families and friends of the soldiers back home.
The town of Clairton, Pennsylvania represents a staid, gritty America with limited hope of the “good life” but which is still infinitesimally better than the horrors soldiers experienced fighting in Vietnam. The Clairton community is filled with love but everything is subtly tainted: Linda (played by Meryl Streep) is physically abused by her alcoholic father, John Cazale's character looks at his reflection in the broken window of a pristine car, Steven's (played by John Savage) wedding is tainted by an illegitimate daughter and at the climax of Steven's Russian-Orthodox wedding two drops of blood spill on his wife's wedding dress (a symbol of Nick and Steven's demise in Vietnam?). These details from the first hour of the film give the The Deer Hunter a richness and set the tone and context of the main characters progression through the rest of the film.
The flaws in these characters’ lives in the US, however, are both magnified and pales in comparison with the tragedy they experience during and after their experience in Vietnam. The Russian roulette contests which occur in the prison camp and in private gambling sessions come to symbolize the chaos of the war and the commodization of human life. People, both the Vietnamese and the American soldiers, become completely disposable, serving only to smoothly facilitate the commercial of wealthy individuals both in view and behind the scenes.
There are also a number of tremendous back-stories related to The Deer Hunter: John Cazale, a close colleague of both Deniro and Pacino, was dying of bone cancer during the filming of Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino, the director, never achieved anywhere close to the excellence of the Deer Hunter. And, The Deer Hunter’s place in history as one of the first films about the Vietnam War which highlighted both the horrors of war (a predecessor to Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, etc etc) as well as the effect on the families and friends of the soldiers back home.
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