Director: Michael Cimino
Writers: Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker
Photography: Vilmos Zsigmond
Music: Stanley Myers
Editor: Peter Zinner
Cast: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren, Rutanya Alda
A lot of strengths and weaknesses can be found in this much-lauded movie, perhaps related to how long it is. There’s time for everything here. Set in the 1960s, the first hour is devoted to the build-up and then a highly traditional wedding in the small western Pennsylvania town of Clairton, south of Pittsburgh. Clairton is dependent on steel work and made up of a Slavic population large enough that some of its buildings have onion domes. The wedding and reception are huge affairs where we meet our main characters, three of whom have been drafted and are bound for the Vietnam War. Then the finish to The Deer Hunter is one of the best endings to any movie anywhere. After war, loss, and many changes, after a funeral and long night, the survivors gather around a kitchen table for breakfast and all they can do to console themselves is sing “God Bless America” in numbed tones. It’s haunting, powerful, and extraordinarily moving.
Between that start and finish, however, we find the Vietnam War, which director and cowriter Michael Cimino, with his merry band of cowriters, have turned into a hellscape of brutality, PTSD, and Russian roulette. Fair enough. But one of these things—namely, Russian roulette—has nothing to do with Vietnam or the war. It never happened, certainly not in the systematized way it is shown. I’m not saying it doesn’t work as a kind of metaphor for the US intervention in Vietnam in the first place—arrogant, blinkered, suicidal, foolish, all those things and more. Metaphorically, it may speak to the US experience in Vietnam. But practically it starts to seem very silly, as among other things it appears all anyone was doing in Vietnam according to this movie was pointing guns at their heads for money in craptacular rundown drinking joints and losing their lives approximately one in six times.
A lot of strengths and weaknesses can be found in this much-lauded movie, perhaps related to how long it is. There’s time for everything here. Set in the 1960s, the first hour is devoted to the build-up and then a highly traditional wedding in the small western Pennsylvania town of Clairton, south of Pittsburgh. Clairton is dependent on steel work and made up of a Slavic population large enough that some of its buildings have onion domes. The wedding and reception are huge affairs where we meet our main characters, three of whom have been drafted and are bound for the Vietnam War. Then the finish to The Deer Hunter is one of the best endings to any movie anywhere. After war, loss, and many changes, after a funeral and long night, the survivors gather around a kitchen table for breakfast and all they can do to console themselves is sing “God Bless America” in numbed tones. It’s haunting, powerful, and extraordinarily moving.
Between that start and finish, however, we find the Vietnam War, which director and cowriter Michael Cimino, with his merry band of cowriters, have turned into a hellscape of brutality, PTSD, and Russian roulette. Fair enough. But one of these things—namely, Russian roulette—has nothing to do with Vietnam or the war. It never happened, certainly not in the systematized way it is shown. I’m not saying it doesn’t work as a kind of metaphor for the US intervention in Vietnam in the first place—arrogant, blinkered, suicidal, foolish, all those things and more. Metaphorically, it may speak to the US experience in Vietnam. But practically it starts to seem very silly, as among other things it appears all anyone was doing in Vietnam according to this movie was pointing guns at their heads for money in craptacular rundown drinking joints and losing their lives approximately one in six times.
According to Wikipedia, the origins of Russian roulette are in fiction, first in a story from 1840, “The Fatalist,” by Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov. Nearly a century later, in 1937, another story appeared, this one by the Swiss writer Georges Surdez and appearing in Collier’s magazine, called “Russian Roulette.” It lays out the game in detail, with the single bullet and the revolver and spinning the cylinder and all that. The story helped turn it into a fad that has since become a recurring problem. The Wikipedia article lists the most famous incidents or depictions of Russian roulette, involving folks like Johnny Ace, Malcolm X, John Hinckley Jr., and others, and the list includes The Deer Hunter (“depicts captured South Vietnamese and American soldiers being forced to play Russian roulette as their Viet Cong captors bet on who will survive”). It also notes all the incidents of deaths that have resulted from copycats following these incidents or depictions.
People really die from playing Russian roulette, but I think the larger point is that they are inspired to it—if that’s the right way to put it—almost always by fiction. One of the controversies of The Deer Hunter in its time was that it may have been followed by a number of teen copycat deaths. The movie makes most of its scenes in Vietnam about the deadly game. It’s the first thing we see when we finally get to Vietnam, 70 minutes into the movie. Toward the end of the picture, the strongest character among them, Michael (Robert De Niro), improbably returns in April 1975, as Saigon is falling and all is chaos. And what does he find? His old friend Nick (Christopher Walken) busy still playing the game, where he has become a legendary, seemingly invincible winner over the years. Apparently this is how Nick’s PTSD is playing out. To convince Nick to come home, Michael must sit across the table from him and play a round of Russian roulette.
It's ridiculous—you can try to ignore it, but every time you’re in Vietnam in this movie it comes up again. I would call it the picture’s fatal flaw and it’s the reason I tend to avoid it. In this long movie maybe only 75 minutes takes place in Vietnam so only maybe one-quarter is devoted to holding guns against heads and snapping triggers against empty chambers (not always empty). The rest is actually very good. But I will also say I’m not a Cimino partisan as that would involve overpraising his follow-up movie, Heaven’s Gate from 1980, which is nearly four hours and has become a point of contention in the history of movies. Studio executive types reputedly see it as money-wasting bloat whereas quite a number of critics argue it has been egregiously underrated. I’ve seen it and I can see both sides of the argument, but I would say in a general way that the bloat outweighs the fine points. As always, YMMV.
Heaven’s Gate, for those keeping score, is presently in the top 500 movies of all time according to the schematics at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? (#365, to be precise), even as it is often held as a key factor in the shallow commercial turn of Hollywood pictures in the ‘80s. The Deer Hunter is the better movie, reflected in its #166 ranking in the same list, but it’s hardly immune from bloat and indulgence. These are things that may be in the eye of the beholder. I love the long stateside wedding scene that goes on more than an hour but that could well be something others considers dispensable. On the other hand, every time someone lifted a revolver to their head I felt like I needed another break from this movie. It took me over four hours to see the whole thing.
People really die from playing Russian roulette, but I think the larger point is that they are inspired to it—if that’s the right way to put it—almost always by fiction. One of the controversies of The Deer Hunter in its time was that it may have been followed by a number of teen copycat deaths. The movie makes most of its scenes in Vietnam about the deadly game. It’s the first thing we see when we finally get to Vietnam, 70 minutes into the movie. Toward the end of the picture, the strongest character among them, Michael (Robert De Niro), improbably returns in April 1975, as Saigon is falling and all is chaos. And what does he find? His old friend Nick (Christopher Walken) busy still playing the game, where he has become a legendary, seemingly invincible winner over the years. Apparently this is how Nick’s PTSD is playing out. To convince Nick to come home, Michael must sit across the table from him and play a round of Russian roulette.
It's ridiculous—you can try to ignore it, but every time you’re in Vietnam in this movie it comes up again. I would call it the picture’s fatal flaw and it’s the reason I tend to avoid it. In this long movie maybe only 75 minutes takes place in Vietnam so only maybe one-quarter is devoted to holding guns against heads and snapping triggers against empty chambers (not always empty). The rest is actually very good. But I will also say I’m not a Cimino partisan as that would involve overpraising his follow-up movie, Heaven’s Gate from 1980, which is nearly four hours and has become a point of contention in the history of movies. Studio executive types reputedly see it as money-wasting bloat whereas quite a number of critics argue it has been egregiously underrated. I’ve seen it and I can see both sides of the argument, but I would say in a general way that the bloat outweighs the fine points. As always, YMMV.
Heaven’s Gate, for those keeping score, is presently in the top 500 movies of all time according to the schematics at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? (#365, to be precise), even as it is often held as a key factor in the shallow commercial turn of Hollywood pictures in the ‘80s. The Deer Hunter is the better movie, reflected in its #166 ranking in the same list, but it’s hardly immune from bloat and indulgence. These are things that may be in the eye of the beholder. I love the long stateside wedding scene that goes on more than an hour but that could well be something others considers dispensable. On the other hand, every time someone lifted a revolver to their head I felt like I needed another break from this movie. It took me over four hours to see the whole thing.
I've seen the Russian Roulette scene satirized in SNL skits and latter day Vietnam movie spoofs. It hasn't aged well.
ReplyDeleteI still need to see Heaven's Gate but 4 hours?