Barnes & Noble

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director -- and a slew of other awards all over the world -- Michael Cimino's extraordinary Vietnam drama The Deer Hunter accomplished a number of things. For one, it demonstrated that leading lady Meryl Streep, who had heretofore only been seen in supporting roles, was one of the screen's great actresses. For another, it established Cimino, a relative newcomer, as a formidable talent (although he subsequently failed to live up to the promise of this auspicious sophomore outing). And it cemented Robert De Niro's burgeoning reputation as a dependable if offbeat leading man. A lengthy, intelligent film that employed literary references in a stylistic way -- planting seeds early on that would flower into memorable scenes -- The Deer Hunter easily sustained its three-hour running time with inventively staged and beautifully acted set pieces that still linger in the memories of those who saw the picture during its initial theatrical engagement. De Niro, John Savage, and Christopher Walken (who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance) play three buddies from a Pennsylvania steel town, drafted in the 1960s and sent to Vietnam, where shattering experiences irrevocably alter their lives. Streep plays the young woman beloved by both the De Niro and Walken characters. Cimino's narrative structure rambles, and viewers who prefer films that move briskly along strictly linear paths might get restive. But the writer-director knew what he was doing; his protracted emphasis on ceremony and cultural ritual -- demonstrated early in the film with both a wedding sequence and a deer hunt that precedes the friends' deployment to Vietnam -- has resonance in a later episode that has gone down in cinematic history as one of the most harrowing ever: the game of Russian roulette forced upon De Niro and Walken by their Vietcong captors, depicted by Cimino in almost unendurable detail. Intense, powerful, and fascinating, The Deer Hunter not only rates highly among those distinctive '70s films that changed the way Hollywood made movies, it offers a look at some of moviedom's most popular and talented performers in their salad days, showing the promise that each ultimately fulfilled. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

One of several 1978 films dealing with the Vietnam War (including Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning Coming Home), Michael Cimino's epic second feature The Deer Hunter was both renowned for its tough portrayal of the war's effect on American working class steel workers and notorious for its ahistorical use of Russian roulette in the Vietnam sequences. Structured in five sections contrasting home and war, the film opens in Clairton, PA, as Mike (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Stan (John Cazale, in his last film) celebrate the wedding of their friend Steve (John Savage) and go on a final deer hunt before the men leave for Vietnam. Mike treats hunting as a test of skill, lecturing Stan about the value of "one shot" deer slaying and brushing off Nick's urgings to appreciate nature's beauty. As Mike ruminates post-hunt, the film cuts to the horror of Vietnam, where the men are captured by Vietcong soldiers who force Mike and Nick to play Russian roulette for the V.C.'s amusement. Mike turns the game to his advantage so they can escape captivity, but the men are permanently scarred by the episode. Steve loses his legs; Nick vanishes in the Saigon Russian roulette parlors. Mike returns alone to Clairton a changed man, as he rejects the killing of the deer hunt and finds solace with Nick's old girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep). Disgusted by the antics of his male cohorts at home, Mike decides to bring Steve back from a veterans' hospital, and he returns to Saigon to find Nick. As Saigon falls, Mike discovers how far gone Nick is; the survivors gather in Clairton for a funeral breakfast, singing an impromptu rendition of "God Bless America." Lucia Bozzola

Product Details

• UPC: 025192017728
• Source: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Cinemascope (2.35:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español
• Time: 3:03:00
• Sales Rank: 6,165

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