Film Review
The Deer Hunter is the film
that probably most accurately encapsulates the mood of the American
nation in the late 1970s. This was the decade when the people of
the United States lost faith in politicians, their ideals and
themselves. The Vietnam War had been a humiliating
disaster. The psychological consequences of this failure were far
in excess of its physical impact. A series of political scandals,
notably the Watergate affair, didn't help matters. This was the
decade in which America came close to losing her soul and her identity,
when all the certainties of the past came crashing down and hardly
anyone could face the future with any belief that things would get
better. Michael Cimino's sprawling and ugly reflection on the
effect of the war on a small American community captures this
anguish and anxiety and reminds us just how deep, how poisonous were
the wounds that beset the country through its tragically futile Far
East adventure.
To make a film about the Vietnam War so soon after the conflict had
ended was an extraordinary act of bravado, but one that paid off
handsomely. The film played its part in the healing process and
was a huge box office hit, despite fears that it might have been judged
to be in bad taste. Not surprisingly, Cimino had difficulty
selling the film to the major Hollywood studios and it was only in the
British company EMI that he found a backer who was prepared to take a
gamble. It is worth noting that prior to this Cimino had made
just one film,
Thunderbolt and
Lightfoot (1974), and was hardly an established name.
Not content to make a blockbuster film about a highly controversial subject, Cimino
took further risks that would now be unheard of for such a large budget
production. He assembled a cast of mainly unknown actors
(Robert De Niro was the only big name performer), including John Cazale
who was in the last stages of terminal bone cancer. The first
third of the film is dominated by an extravagant wedding celebration
sequence, the duration of which exceeds that of the ensuing excursion into the
Vietname war. The dialogue is sparse and largely
incomprehensible, the editing is messy and the pace is uneven and often
painfully slow. At times, the film feels like an art house
experiment that has gone badly wrong. And yet, for all its
clunkiness and excruciating self-indulgence,
The Deer Hunter is a film with
an underlying sincerity and compassion to it. There are moments when it
is so poignant, so emotionally intense that you can hardly bear to
watch the screen. It is the authenticity of the
performances from a high calibre ensemble cast that saves
this film and gives it the quiet, understated
humanity that Cimino seems to be so hell-bent on wrecking with his
grand stylistic excesses.
The commercial success of
The Deer
Hunter was in spite of the generally negative reaction from the
critics, many of whom condemned the film for its ambivalence towards
the politics of the Vietnam War. Some, notably Jane Fonda,
offered outright condemnation of the film, accusing Cimino of overt
racism for his slanted portrayal of the Vietcong. Others merely
lambasted the film for its excessive length and imperfect
construction. Whatever its failings,
The Deer Hunter seized the
zeitgeist of the moment and, in addition to filling cinemas, it was the
recipient of numerous prestige accolades. It won five of the nine Oscars
for which it was nominated in 1978, including awards for Best Picture
and Best Director and won the Golden Globe Best Director award in
1979. It also launched the careers of Meryl Streep and
Christopher Walken, both of whom were practically unknown before this
film. Buoyed by this success, Michael Cimino went on to attempt
an even more lavish production:
Heaven's
Gate (1980), the infamous flop that bankrupted United Artists,
ruined his reputation and pretty well put the nail in the coffin of the
Hollywood auteur.
Today, the debate over the artistic merits or otherwise of this film
still rage. The film undeniably has its flaws. It is too
long (about three hours too long if Rottweiler critic Mark Kermode is to be
believed), as flabby as an overweight blue whale with a cheese pie fetish, and too often lacking
anything that even vaguely resembles directorial restraint. Yet
just when the film looks as if it is about to propel you into a deep
and merciful coma, it suddenly comes alive and says something
meaningful, be it about love, friendship, the consequences of war or
the cruel random nature of existence. Although painful to sit
through (especially if you have, like me, an incredibly low boredom
threshold),
The Deer Hunter
leaves an indelible impression. However, its true value is what
it has to say about America in the late 1970s. No other film
quite gets across the sense of a trauma and confusion felt by most
Americans at that time as this one does, and for that alone it deserves
our respect, if not our indulgence.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
A small working class town in Western Pennsylvania in the late
1960s. Michael, Nick and Steven are three close friends, in their
late twenties, early thirties, who work at a steel mill. They
spend their leisure time drinking heavily in bars and hunting deer in
the mountains. On the eve of their departure for service in the
Vietnam War, Steven gets married to Angela, amid boisterous wedding
celebrations. When we next see the three men they are in the heat
of battle, in a war-torn Vietnamese village. Captured by
the Vietcong, they are forced to play Russian roulette. Michael
turns the tables on his captors, allowing himself and his two friends
to make a remarkable escape. An American helicopter comes to
their aid, but Steven falls into the river and would have drowned if
Michael had not dived in after him. Michael manages
to get his injured friend to a hospital but loses sight of him.
On his return to his home town, Michael cannot face a welcoming
committee. He is preoccupied with Steven and Nick and wonders if
they too have made it back in one piece. Eventually, Michael
manages to track Steven down to a veterans' hospital and is shocked to
see that his friend has lost his legs and is a broken man. Steven
tells him that he has been receiving regular parcels of money from
Nick, who apparently is still in Vietnam. Anxious to find his
friend and bring him home, Michael returns to Saigon. What he
finds there will change his life forever...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.