The Deer Hunter
Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Other uses Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American epic war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Slavic-American<ref name=gMorris/><ref name=sshChong/><ref name=sBiel/> steelworkers whose lives are upended by fighting in the Vietnam War. The soldiers are played by Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Savage, with John Cazale (in his final role), Meryl Streep and George Dzundza in supporting roles. The story takes place in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a working-class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and in Vietnam.
The film is based in part on an unproduced screenplay called The Man Who Came to Play by Louis A. Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired Cimino, who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over budget and over schedule, costing $15 million. Its production company EMI Films released it internationally, while Universal Pictures handled its domestic distribution.
The Deer Hunter received acclaim from critics and audiences, with praise for Cimino's direction, the performances of its cast, its screenplay, realistic themes and tones, and cinematography. It was also successful at the box office, grossing $49 million. At the 51st Academy Awards, it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won five: Best Picture, Best Director (for Cimino), Best Supporting Actor (for Walken), Best Sound and Best Film Editing. It is Meryl Streep's first Academy Award nomination (for Best Supporting Actress).
The Deer Hunter has been included on lists of the best films ever made, including being named the 53rd-greatest American film of all time by the American Film Institute in 2007 in their 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1996, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Plot
[edit]In 1968, three friends in a tight-knit Slavic-American<ref name=gMorris>George Morris, "Ready, Aim... Click", Texas Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 3 (March 1979), page 142: "The film attempts to portray the effect of the Vietnam war on three Slavic American steelworkers from a small town in Pennsylvania who volunteer for the war."</ref>Template:Efn community in Western PennsylvaniaTemplate:EmdashMike Vronsky, Steven Pushkov and Nikanor "Nick" ChevotarevichTemplate:Emdashwork in a steel mill and hunt deer with their co-workers Stanley ("Stan") and Peter "Axel" Axelrod, along with friend and bartender John Welsh. Mike, Steven and Nick are preparing to leave for military service in Vietnam. Steven is engaged to Angela Ludhjduravic, who was secretly impregnated by another man. Mike and Nick are close friends who live together and both love Linda, who will be moving into their home to escape from her alcoholic father. After catching the bouquet at Steven and Angela's wedding, Linda accepts Nick's spontaneous marriage proposal. Nick implores Mike to ensure that he returns from Vietnam. Mike, Nick and their friends go on a final hunting trip, and Mike kills a deer with a single shot.
In 1969, in Vietnam, Mike, now a Green Beret, accidentally crosses paths with Nick and Steven, who land in a village during an Air Assault mission. The three are soon imprisoned by the Viet Cong in a cage along a river and forced to participate in games of Russian roulette while the jailers wager. Steven fires his round at the ceiling and is forced into a cage with rats and previous victims of the jailers. To escape, Mike convinces their captors to increase the stakes by putting three bullets into the revolver's cylinders. When the next two chambers luckily fall on empty, Mike and Nick turn the gun on their captors, killing two and overpowering the others; although Nick is wounded in the leg. They escape, rescuing Steven in the process.
The trio floats down the river on a felled tree trunk, but Nick and Steven are weak from their wounds. They are found by an American helicopter. Nick boards and is rescued, but Steven falls back into the river while trying to hold onto the helicopter skids, and Mike drops down to help him. Steven breaks both of his legs on the river’s rock bottom, so Mike carries him until they join refugees and a South Vietnamese Army convoy fleeing to Saigon.
Nick is treated at a U.S. military hospital. When released, Nick, now suffering from PTSD, wanders into a gambling den. French businessman Julien Grinda persuades him to come inside. Upset, Nick interrupts a game of Russian roulette, pulling the trigger on himself. Mike happens to be present as a spectator, but Nick and Julien hurriedly leave.
Mike returns home but cannot integrate into civilian life. He avoids a welcome-home party, opting to stay alone in a hotel. He visits Linda and learns that Nick has deserted. Mike visits Angela, who is now a mother but has slipped into catatonia following the return of Steven, who has had both of his legs and one arm amputated. Stan, Axel and John understand nothing of war nor what Mike has experienced. Linda and Mike find comfort in each other's company. During a hunting trip, Mike stops himself from shooting a deer and returns to the cabin, where he finds Stan cavalierly threatening Axel with his pistol. Mike takes it, chambers a single round, and triggers an empty chamber at Stan's head.
Mike visits Steven at a veterans hospital. Steven refuses to come home, saying that he no longer fits in. He shows Mike that he has been regularly receiving large sums of cash from Vietnam. Mike intuits that Nick is the source of these payments, and insists on bringing Steven home to Angela.
Mike returns to Vietnam in search of Nick. Wandering around Saigon, which is now in a state of chaos shortly before its fall, Mike finds Julien and persuades him to take him to the gambling den, where he faces Nick, who has become a professional in the macabre game and fails to recognize Mike, in part due to Nick's drug addiction. Mike attempts to bring Nick back to reason by invoking memories of their hunting trips, but Nick maintains his unspirited apathy, even spitting in Mike's face. Finally, during the Russian roulette match between Mike and Nick, Nick recalls Mike's "one shot" mantra and smiles before pulling the trigger and killing himself.
Mike and his friends attend Nick's funeral, and the atmosphere at their local bar is dim and silent. Moved by emotion, John begins to sing "God Bless America" in honor of Nick, and all join in.
Cast
[edit]- Robert De Niro as Staff Sergeant Mikhail Vronsky ("Mike"). After Roy Scheider withdrew from the cast two weeks before the start of filming due to creative differences, producer Michael Deeley pursued De Niro, who was paid one-million dollars for the role,<ref>Template:YouTube, Template:Ill, Antenne 2, May 2, 1992.</ref> in search of star power to sell a film with a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director".<ref name="Deeley-168">Deeley, p. 168</ref> De Niro later said, "I liked the script, and [Cimino] had done a lot of prep. I was impressed."<ref name="Biskind" /> He prepared by socializing with steelworkers in local bars and by visiting their homes.<ref name="Realizing" /> De Niro claimed that this was his most physically exhausting film, and that the sequence in which Mike visits Steven in the hospital was the most emotional scene of his career.<ref>De Niro, Robert (actor) (June 12, 2003). AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Robert De Niro. [Television Production] American Film Institute.</ref>
- Christopher Walken as Corporal Nikanor Chevotarevich ("Nick"). His performance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
- John Savage as Corporal Steven Pushkov.
- John Cazale as Stanley ("Stan"/"Stosh"). All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, were filmed first. Because of his illness, the studio wanted to dismiss him, but Streep, with whom he was in a romantic relationship, and Cimino threatened to withdraw from the project if Cazale was released.<ref name=Parker-129/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted Cazale in the film. This was Cazale's last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. He never saw the finished film.<ref name=Parker-129>Parker, p. 129</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- Meryl Streep as Linda. In the screenplay, Streep's role was negligible, but Cimino explained the role to her and suggested that she write her own lines.<ref name=Parker-128>Parker, p. 128</ref>
- George Dzundza as John Welsh.
- Template:Ill as Julien Grinda.
- Shirley Stoler as Steven's mother.
- Chuck Aspegren<ref name="gi/CA">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Ha/cA">Template:Cite web</ref> as Peter Axelrod ("Axel"). Aspegren was not an actor; he was the foreman at an East Chicago steel factory that was visited by De Niro and Cimino during pre-production. They were so impressed with him that they offered him the role. He was the second person to be cast in the film, after De Niro.<ref name=Realizing/>
- Rutanya Alda as Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov.
- Paul D'Amato as Sergeant.
- Amy Wright as Bridesmaid.
- Joe Grifasi as Bandleader.
- John F. Buchmelter III as a bar patron. Buchmelter was a steel worker whom Cimino wanted to lend the film a sense of authenticity.
- Somsak Sengvilai as the Viet Cong referee. Casting local actors to play the stone-faced referee during the famous Russian-roulette scene proved troublesome, as many refused to authentically slap De Niro and Walken. When Sengvilai was cast, he was noted as holding a particular disdain toward Americans, and the slaps that he delivered in the scene were genuine.
Although Deeley was pleased with the revised script, he was still concerned with being able to sell the film. He later wrote, "We still had to get millions out of a major studio, as well as convince our markets around the world that they should buy it before it was finished. I needed someone with the caliber of Robert De Niro."<ref name=Deeley-167>Deeley, p. 167</ref> Deeley felt that De Niro was "the right age, apparently tough as hell, and immensely talented".<ref name=Deeley-168/>
De Niro, who knew many actors in New York, brought Streep and Cazale to the attention of Cimino and Deeley.<ref name=Deeley-170>Deeley, p. 170</ref> De Niro also accompanied Cimino to scout locations for the steel-mill sequence, and rehearsed with the actors to use the workshops as a bonding process.<ref name=Deeley-171/>
Each of the six principal male characters carried a photo in his back pocket depicting them all together as children to enhance the sense of camaraderie among them. Cimino instructed the props department to fashion complete photo IDs for each of them, including driver licenses and medical cards, to enhance each actor's sense of his character.<ref name=DirCommentary/>
Production
[edit]Preproduction
[edit]There has been considerable debate and controversy about how The Deer Hunter was initially developed and written.<ref name=Biskind/> Director and cowriter Michael Cimino, writer Deric Washburn and producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley all have different versions of how the film came to be.
Development
[edit]In 1968, record company EMI formed a new company, EMI Films, headed by producers Barry Spikings and Deeley.<ref name=Biskind/> Deeley purchased the first draft of a spec script called The Man Who Came to Play, written by Louis A. Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker, for $19,000.<ref name=Deeley-2/> It was about people who go to Las Vegas to play Russian roulette.<ref name=Biskind/> Deeley later wrote, "The screenplay had struck me as brilliant, but it wasn't complete. The trick would be to find a way to turn a very clever piece of writing into a practical, realizable film."<ref name=Deeley-163>Deeley, p. 163</ref> When the film was being planned during the mid-1970s, the Vietnam War was still a taboo subject with all major Hollywood studios.<ref name=Deeley-2>Deeley, p. 2</ref> According to Deeley, the standard response was that "no American would want to see a picture about Vietnam".<ref name=Deeley-2/>
After consulting with various Hollywood agents, Deeley found Cimino<ref name=Deeley-163/> and was impressed by Cimino's television commercial work and his crime film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974).<ref name=Deeley-163/><ref name=Deeley-164>Deeley, p. 164</ref> Cimino was confident that he could further develop the principal characters of The Man Who Came to Play without losing the essence of the original. According to Deeley, Cimino questioned the need for the Russian-roulette element of the script, but Redeker fervently fought to preserve it. Cimino and Deeley discussed the work that would be needed in the first part of the script, and Cimino believed that he could develop the stories of the main characters in the film's first twenty minutes.<ref name=Deeley-164/>
Screenplay
[edit]Cimino worked for six weeks with Deric Washburn on the script.<ref name=Realizing>Realizing The Deer Hunter: An Interview with Michael Cimino. Blue Underground. Interview on The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and the StudioCanal Blu-Ray. Template:YouTube</ref> Cimino and Washburn had previously collaborated with Steven Bochco on the screenplay for Silent Running (1972). According to producer Barry Spikings, Cimino said that he wanted to work with Washburn again.<ref name=Biskind/> According to Deeley, he heard from an office rumor that Washburn was contracted by Cimino to work on the script. "Whether Cimino hired Washburn as his sub-contractor or as a co-writer was constantly being obfuscated," wrote Deeley, "and there were some harsh words between them later on, or so I was told."<ref name=Deeley-164/>
Cimino's claim
According to Cimino, he would call Washburn while on the road scouting for locations and feed him notes on dialogue and story. After reviewing Washburn's draft, Cimino said, "I came back and read it and I just could not believe what I read. It was like it was written by somebody who was... mentally deranged." Cimino confronted Washburn at the Sunset Marquis in LA about the draft, and Washburn supposedly replied that he could not take the pressure and had to go home. So Cimino fired Washburn. Cimino later claimed to have written the entire screenplay.<ref name=Realizing/> Washburn's response to Cimino's claim was, "It's all nonsense. It's lies. I didn't have a single drink the entire time I was working on the script."<ref name=Biskind/>
Washburn's claim
According to Washburn, he and Cimino spent three days together in Los Angeles at the Sunset Marquis hammering out the plot. The script eventually went through several drafts, evolving into a story with three distinct acts. Washburn did not interview any veterans to write The Deer Hunter, nor did he do any research. "I had a month, that was it," he explained. "The clock was ticking. Write the fucking script! But all I had to do was watch TV. Those combat cameramen in Vietnam were out there in the field with the guys. I mean, they had stuff that you wouldn't dream of seeing about Iraq."
When Washburn was finished, he says, Cimino and Joann Carelli, the latter an associate producer on The Deer Hunter who went on to produce two more of Cimino's films, took him to dinner at a cheap restaurant near the Sunset Strip. He recalled, "We finished, and Joann looks at me across the table, and she says, 'Well, Deric, it's fuck-off time.' I was fired. It was a classic case: you get a dummy, get him to write the goddamn thing, tell him to go fuck himself, put your name on the thing, and he'll go away. I was so tired, I didn't care. I'd been working 20 hours a day for a month. I got on the plane the next day, and I went back to Manhattan and my carpenter job."<ref name="Biskind">Template:Cite web</ref>
Deeley's reaction to the revised script
Deeley felt that the revised script, now called The Deer Hunter, broke fresh ground for the project. The protagonist in the Redeker/Garfinkle script, Merle, was an individual who sustained a bad injury in active service and was damaged psychologically by his violent experiences, but was nevertheless a tough character with strong nerves and guts. Cimino and Washburn's revised script distilled the three aspects of Merle's personality and separated them into three distinct characters. They became three old friends who grew up in the same small industrial town and worked in the same steel mill, and in due course, were drafted to serve in Vietnam.<ref name=Deeley-166>Deeley, p. 166</ref> In the original script, the roles of Merle (later renamed Mike) and Nick were reversed in the last half of the film. Nick returns home to Linda, while Mike remains in Vietnam, sends money home to help Steven, and meets his tragic fate at the Russian-roulette table.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A Writers' Guild arbitration process awarded Washburn sole "Screenplay by" credit.<ref name=Biskind/> Garfinkle and Redeker were given a shared "Story by" credit with Cimino and Washburn. Deeley felt that the story credits for Garfinkle and Redeker "did them less than justice".<ref name=Deeley-164/> Cimino contested the results of the arbitration. "In their Nazi wisdom," added Cimino, "[they] didn't give me the credit because I would be producer, director and writer."<ref name=Griffin/> All four writers—Cimino, Washburn, Garfinkle and Redeker—received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the film.<ref name=OscarSite/>
Filming
[edit]The Deer Hunter began principal photography on June 20, 1977.<ref name=Biskind/> It was the first feature film depicting the Vietnam War to be filmed in Thailand. All scenes were shot on location (no sound stages). "There was discussion about shooting the film on a backlot, but the material demanded more realism," says Spikings.<ref name=Biskind/> The cast and crew watched large amounts of news footage from the war to ensure authenticity. The film was shot in six months. The scenes of Clairton, Pennsylvania, comprise footage that was shot in eight towns in three states: West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.<ref name="mL/Dh">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Biskind/> The film's initial budget was $8.5 million.<ref name=Deeley-171>Deeley, p. 171</ref>
Meryl Streep accepted the role of the "vague, stock girlfriend" to remain for the duration of filming with John Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer.Template:Sfn De Niro had spotted Streep in the stage production of The Cherry Orchard and suggested that she play his girlfriend Linda.Template:Sfn Meryl Streep wrote all of her lines.<ref name="fnn/MS77c">Template:Cite news</ref> Streep is said to have accepted the role to primarily be with Cazale.<ref name="9h/streep-gummer">Template:Cite news</ref>
Before the beginning of principal photography, Deeley met with the film's appointed line producer Robert Relyea, whom Deeley hired after meeting him on the set of Bullitt (1968) and being impressed with his experience. However, Relyea declined the job, refusing to disclose his reason.<ref name="Deeley-171" /> Deeley suspected that Relyea sensed in director Cimino something that would have made production difficult. As a result, Cimino was acting without the day-to-day supervision of a producer.<ref name="Deeley-172">Deeley, p. 172</ref>
Because Deeley was busy overseeing the production of Sam Peckinpah's Convoy (1978), he hired John Peverall to oversee Cimino's shoot. Peverall's expertise with budgeting and scheduling made him a natural successor to Relyea, and Peverall knew enough about the picture to be elevated to the status of producer. "John is a straightforward Cornishman who had worked his way up to become a production supervisor," wrote Deeley, "and we employed him as EMI's watchman on certain pictures."<ref name=Deeley-172/>
The wedding scenes
[edit]
The wedding scenes were filmed at historic St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.<ref name="LL/dH">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Biskind/> They took five days to film. St. Theodosius's Father Stephen Kopestonsky was cast as the priest.<ref name=DirCommentary/> The reception scene was filmed at nearby Lemko Association<ref name="La/A"/> Hall. The amateur extras cast for the crowded wedding-dance sequences drank real liquor and beer.<ref name=Deeley-174/> The scenes were filmed in the summer, in 95 °F (35 °C) weather,<ref name="Wi/DHf">Template:Cite news</ref> but were set in the fall.<ref name=DirCommentary/> To accomplish a fall look, individual leaves were removed from deciduous trees.<ref name="Wi/DHf"/><ref name=Zsigmond>Shooting The Deer Hunter: An interview with Vilmos Zsigmond. Blue Underground. Interview with the cinematographer, located on The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. Template:YouTube.</ref><ref name=Deeley-177/> Vilmos Zsigmond also had to desaturate the colors of the exterior shots, partly in camera and partly in laboratory processing.<ref name=Deeley-177/><ref name=Deeley-178>Deeley, p. 178</ref>
The production manager asked each of the extras who were portraying Russian immigrants to bring to the location a gift-wrapped box to double for wedding presents. The manager figured that if the extras did this, not only would the production save time and money, but the gifts would look more authentic. After the unit unwrapped and the extras disappeared, the crew discovered to their amusement that the boxes were not empty but filled with real presents, from china to silverware. "Who got to keep all these wonderful offerings," wrote Deeley, "is a mystery I never quite fathomed."<ref name=Deeley-174/>
Cimino originally claimed that the wedding scene would take up 21 minutes of screen time; in the end, it took 51 minutes. Deeley believes that Cimino always planned to make this prologue last for an hour, and that "the plan was to be advanced by stealth rather than straight dealing".<ref name=Deeley-173>Deeley, p. 173</ref>
At this point in the production, nearly halfway through principal photography, Cimino was already over budget, and producer Spikings could tell from the script that shooting the extended scene could sink the project.<ref name=Biskind/>
The bar and the steel mill
[edit]The bar was specially constructed in an empty storefront in Mingo Junction, Ohio, for $25,000; it soon became an actual saloon for local steel-mill workers.<ref name=DirCommentary/> U.S. Steel allowed filming inside its Cleveland mill, including placing the actors around the furnace floor, after securing a $5 million insurance policy.<ref name=Parker-128/><ref name=DirCommentary/> Other filming took place in Pittsburgh.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Hunting the deer
[edit]The first deer to be shot was depicted in a "gruesome close-up", although it was hit with only a tranquilizer dart.<ref name=Deeley-174/><ref name=Deeley-173/> This was not a white-tailed buck, which is native to Pennsylvania, but a red deer native to Eurasia. The stag that Michael lets escape is the same as the one used on TV commercials for The Hartford.<ref name=Deeley-174>Deeley, p. 174</ref>
Vietnam and the Russian roulette scenes
[edit]The Viet Cong Russian-roulette scenes were shot with real rats and mosquitoes, as the three principals (De Niro, Walken and Savage) were tied up in bamboo cages erected along the River Kwai. The woman who was given the task of casting extras in Thailand had much difficulty finding a local to play the vicious-looking individual who runs the game. The first hired actor was incapable of slapping De Niro in the face. The casting agent found a local Thai man, Somsak Sengvilai, who held a particular dislike of Americans, and so he was cast. De Niro suggested that Walken be slapped by one of the guards without any warning, and Walken's reaction was genuine. Producer Deeley has said that Cimino shot the brutal Viet Cong Russian-roulette scenes brilliantly and more efficiently than any other part of the film.<ref name=Deeley-174/><ref name=Deeley-175>Deeley, p. 175</ref>
De Niro and Savage performed their own stunts in the fall into the river, filming the Template:Convert drop 15 times in two days. During the helicopter stunt, the skids got caught on the rope bridge as the helicopter ascended, threatening to seriously injure De Niro and Savage. The actors gestured and shouted to the crew in the helicopter to warn them. Footage of this is included in the film.<ref name=Savage>Playing The Deer Hunter: An interview with John Savage. Blue Underground. Interview with the actor Savage, located on the UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. Template:YouTube</ref>
According to Cimino, De Niro requested a live cartridge in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, to heighten the intensity of the situation. Cazale agreed without protest,<ref name=Realizing/> but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to be sure that the live round was not in the next chamber.<ref name=DirCommentary>DVD commentary by director Michael Cimino and film critic F. X. Feeney. Included on The Deer Hunter UK region 2 DVD release and the StudioCanal Blu-ray.</ref>
Although appearing later in the film, the first scenes shot in Thailand were the hospital sequences between Walken and the military doctor. Deeley believed that this scene was "the spur that would earn him an Academy Award".<ref name=Deeley-176>Deeley, p. 176</ref>Template:Efn
In the final scene between Mike and Nick in the gambling den, Cimino had Walken and De Niro improvise in one take. His direction to his actors: "You put the gun to your head, Chris, you shoot, you fall over and Bobby cradles your head."<ref name=Deeley-177>Deeley, p. 177</ref>
Filming locations
[edit]Thailand
- Patpong, Bangkok, the area used to represent Saigon's red light district.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi Province<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref>
- Mississippi Queen, go-go bar location used in the film.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- River Kwai, prison camp and initial Russian-roulette scene.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
United States
- St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral, in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. The name plaque is clearly visible in one scene.<ref name="autogenerated1978">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
- Lemko Association<ref name="La/A">Template:Cite web</ref> Hall,<ref name="cH/Lh">Template:Cite web</ref> Cleveland, Ohio. Also located in Tremont, the wedding banquet was filmed here. The name is clearly visible in one scene.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
- U.S. Steel Central Furnaces in Cleveland, Ohio. Opening sequence steel mill scenes.<ref name="autogenerated1978"/>
- Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and Nooksack Falls in the North Cascades range of Washington, deer hunting scenes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Also North Cascades Highway (SR 20), Diablo Lake.
- Steubenville, Ohio, for some mill and neighborhood shots.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- Struthers, Ohio, for external house and long-range road shots. As well, the town's bowling alley is the Bowladrome Lanes, located at 56 State Street, Struthers, Ohio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Weirton, West Virginia, for mill and trailer shots.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Post-production
[edit]By this point, The Deer Hunter had cost $13 million, and the film still had to go through an arduous post-production.<ref name=Deeley-178/> Film editor Peter Zinner was given Template:Convert of printed film to edit, a monumental task at the time.<ref name=Zinner>Template:Cite news</ref> Producers Spikings and Deeley were pleased with the first cut, which ran for three-and-a-half hours. "We were thrilled by what we saw," wrote Deeley, "and knew that within the three and a half hours we watched there was a riveting film."<ref name=Deeley-179>Deeley, p. 179</ref>
Executives from Universal, including Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg, were not very enthusiastic.<ref name=Biskind/><ref name=Deeley-179/> "I think they were shocked," recalled Spikings. "What really upset them was 'God Bless America'. Sheinberg thought it was anti-American. He was vehement. He said something like, 'You're poking a stick in the eye of America.' They really didn't like the movie. And they certainly didn't like it at three hours and two minutes."<ref name=Biskind/>
Deeley was not surprised by Universal's response. He said, "The Deer Hunter was a United Artists sort of picture, whereas Convoy was more in the style of Universal. I'd muddled and sold the wrong picture to each studio."<ref name="Deeley-179" /> Deeley did agree with Universal that the film needed to be shorter, not only because of pacing, but also to ensure commercial success.<ref name="Deeley-192">Deeley, p. 192</ref> "A picture under two and a half hours can scrape three shows a day," wrote Deeley, "but at three hours you've lost one third of your screenings and one third of your income for the cinemas, distributors, and profit participants."<ref name="Deeley-192" />
Universal president Thom Mount said, "This was just a... continuing nightmare from the day Michael finished the picture to the day we released it. That was simply because he was wedded to everything he shot. The movie was endless. It was The Deer Hunter and the Hunter and the Hunter. The wedding sequence was a cinematic event all unto its own."<ref name="Biskind" /> Mount said that he turned to Verna Fields, Universal's head of post-production. "I sicced Verna on Cimino," Mount said. "Verna was no slouch. She started to turn the heat up on Michael, and he started screeching and yelling."<ref name="Biskind" />
Zinner eventually cut the film to Template:Convert.<ref name="Zinner" /> Cimino soon fired Zinner when he discovered that Zinner was editing the wedding scenes.<ref name="Zsigmond" /><ref name="Deeley-4">Deeley, p. 4</ref> Ironically, Zinner won the Best Editing Oscar for The Deer Hunter. Regarding his clashes with Cimino, Zinner stated, "Michael Cimino and I had our differences at the end, but he kissed me when we both got Academy Awards."<ref name="Zinner" /> Cimino commented in The New York Observer, "[Zinner] was a moron ... I cut Deer Hunter myself."<ref name="Griffin">Template:Cite web</ref>
Sound design
[edit]The Deer Hunter was Cimino's first film to use the Dolby noise-reduction system. "What Dolby does," replied Cimino, "is to give you the ability to create a density of detail of sound—a richness so you can demolish the wall separating the viewer from the film. You can come close to demolishing the screen." It took five months to mix the soundtrack. One short battle sequence—200 feet of film in the final cut—took five days to dub. Another sequence recreated the 1975 American evacuation of Saigon; Cimino brought the film's composer Stanley Myers to the location to listen to the auto, tank and jeep horns while the sequence was being photographed. The result, according to Cimino: Myers composed the music for that scene in the same key as the horn sounds, so that the music and the sound effects would blend with the images to create one jarring, desolate experience.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Previews
[edit]Both the long and short versions of the movie were previewed to Midwestern audiences, although there are differing accounts among Cimino, Deeley and Spikings regarding how the previews panned out.<ref name=Biskind/> Director Cimino claimed that he bribed the projectionist to interrupt the shorter version to obtain better reviews of the longer one.<ref name=Realizing/> According to producer Spikings, Wasserman let EMI's CEO Bernard Delfont decide between the two, and he chose Cimino's longer cut.<ref name=Biskind/> Deeley claimed that the tested two-and-a-half-hour version had a better response.<ref name=Deeley-193>Deeley, p. 193</ref>
Soundtrack
[edit]The soundtrack to The Deer Hunter was released on CD on October 25, 1990.<ref name=Soundtrack>"The Deer Hunter: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" Template:Webarchive. Amazon.com. Retrieved December 25, 2010.</ref>
Selected tracks
[edit]- Stanley Myers's "Cavatina" (also known as "He Was Beautiful"), performed by classical guitarist John Williams, is commonly known as "The Theme from The Deer Hunter". According to producer Deeley, he discovered that the piece was originally written for a film called The Walking Stick (1970) and, as a result, had to pay the original purchaser an undisclosed sum.<ref name=Deeley-195>Deeley, p. 195</ref>
- "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", a 1967 hit song sung by Frankie Valli.Template:Efn It is played in John's bar when all of the friends sing along and at the wedding reception. According to Cimino, the actors sang along to a recording of the song as it was played instead of singing to a beat track, a standard filmmaking practice. Cimino felt that it would make the singalong seem more realistic.<ref name=DirCommentary/>
- During the wedding ceremonies and party, the Russian Orthodox song "Slava", and the Russian folk songs "Korobushka" and "Katyusha" are played.
- The final passage from Kamarinskaya by Mikhail Glinka is briefly heard when the men are driving through the mountains. Part of the opening section of the same work is heard during the second hunt when Michael is about to shoot the stag.
- Russian Orthodox funeral music is also employed during Nick's funeral scene, mainly "Vechnaya Pamyat", which means "eternal memory".<ref>"An Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Brothers Karamazov by Donald Sheehan" Template:Webarchive. Dartmouth.edu. Retrieved May 23, 2015.</ref>
- In the scene before the film shifts to Vietnam, John plays Chopin's "Nocturne in G Minor" on the bar piano as the others listen in silence. George Dzundza appears to be actually playing it.Template:Citation needed
Theatrical release
[edit]The producer Allan Carr took control of the movie's marketing and convinced the studio to allow the film to be played on the Z Channel before theatrical release.<ref name="afi/MC/dH">Template:Cite web</ref>
The Deer Hunter debuted at one theater in New York and one in Los Angeles for a week on December 8, 1978.<ref name=Biskind/><ref name=Bach-166>Bach, p. 166</ref> The release strategy was to qualify the film for Oscar consideration and close after a week to build interest.<ref name=Deeley-196/><ref name="afi/MC/dH"/>
After the Oscar nominations, Universal widened the distribution to include major cities, building up to a full-scale release on February 23, 1979, after the previous year's Oscars.<ref name=Deeley-196/> The Deer Hunter pioneered a new release pattern for so-called prestige pictures that screen only at the end of the year to qualify for Academy Award recognition.<ref>Chaffin-Quiray, Garrett (writer); Schnider, Steven Jay (general editor) (2003). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (2003 ed.). London, England: Quintet Publishing. p. 642. Template:ISBN.</ref> The film eventually grossed $48.9 million at the US box office.<ref name=BOM/>
CBS paid $3.5 million for three runs of the film. The network later canceled the acquisition on the contractually permitted grounds of the film containing too much violence for US network transmission;<ref name=Deeley-181>Deeley, p. 181</ref> the Russian-roulette scene was deemed controversial.<ref name="afi/MC/dH"/>
Home media
[edit]The Deer Hunter has been released on DVD twice in the US. The first 1998 issue was by Universal, with no extra features and a non-anamorphic transfer, and has been discontinued.<ref>"The Deer Hunter (1978)—DVD details" Template:Webarchive. IMDb. Retrieved August 12, 2010.</ref> A second version, part of the "Legacy Series", was released as a two-disc set on September 6, 2005, with an anamorphic transfer of the film. The set features a cinematographer's commentary by Vilmos Zsigmond, as well as deleted and extended scenes and production notes.<ref>"The Deer Hunter (Universal Legacy Series)" Template:Webarchive. Amazon.com. Retrieved August 12, 2010.</ref>
The Region 2 release of The Deer Hunter, released in the UK and Japan, features a commentary track from director Michael Cimino.<ref>"View topic—The Deer Hunter (DVD vs. BD — Scandinavia) ADDED" Template:Webarchive. The Rewind Forums. Retrieved September 18, 2010.</ref>
The film was released on HD DVD on December 26, 2006.<ref>"The Deer Hunter HD-DVD" Template:Webarchive. Amazon.com. Retrieved May 18, 2010.</ref>
StudioCanal released the film on the Blu-ray format in countries other than the United States on March 11, 2009.<ref>"Achetez le Blu-Ray Voyage au bout de l'enfer" (in French). StudioCanal.com. Retrieved December 17, 2011.</ref> It was released on Blu-ray in the U.S. on March 6, 2012.<ref>"The Deer Hunter Blu-ray" Template:Webarchive. Amazon.com. Retrieved March 9, 2012.</ref>
On May 26, 2020, Shout! Factory released the film on Ultra HD Blu-ray featuring a new Dolby Vision transfer.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Analysis
[edit]Controversy over Russian roulette
[edit]One of the most talked-about sequences in the film, the Viet Cong's use of Russian roulette with POWs was criticized as being contrived and unrealistic because there were no documented cases of Russian roulette in the Vietnam War.<ref name=Biskind/><ref name=Dirks>Dirks, Tim. "The Deer Hunter (1978)" Template:Webarchive. Greatest Films. Retrieved May 26, 2010.</ref><ref name=70s>Auster, Albert; Quart, Leonard (2002). "The seventies". American film and society since 1945. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 120–1. Template:ISBN.</ref> Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the war, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "In its 20 years of war, there was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette ... The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie."<ref name=Biskind/>
Cimino countered that his film was not political, polemical, literally accurate, nor posturing for any particular point of view.<ref name=Dirks/> Nevertheless, he also claimed that he had news clippings from Singapore that confirmed that Russian roulette was used during the war, without specifying which article.<ref name=Realizing/>
Critics' response
[edit]In his review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times defended the artistic license of Russian roulette, arguing, "It is the organizing symbol of the film. Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole. It is a brilliant symbol because, in the context of this story, it makes any ideological statement about the war superfluous."<ref name=Ebert/>
Film critic and biographer David Thomson also agreed that the film works despite the controversy. "There were complaints that the North Vietnamese had not employed Russian roulette. It was said that the scenes in Saigon were fanciful or imagined. It was also suggested that De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage were too old to have enlisted for Vietnam (Savage, the youngest of the three, was thirty). Three decades later [written in 2008], 'imagination' seems to have stilled those worries ... and The Deer Hunter is one of the great American films."<ref>Thomson, David (October 14, 2008). "Have You Seen ... ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. New York, NY: Random House. p. 209. Template:ISBN.</ref>
In her review, Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "The Vietcong [sic] are treated in the standard inscrutable-evil Oriental style of the Japanese in the Second World War movies ... The impression a viewer gets is that if we did some bad things there we did them ruthlessly but impersonally; the Vietcong were cruel and sadistic."<ref name=Biskind/>
In his Vanity Fair article "The Vietnam Oscars", Peter Biskind wrote that the political agenda of The Deer Hunter was something of a mystery. "It may have been more a by-product of Hollywood myopia, the demands of the war-film genre, garden-variety American parochialism, and simple ignorance than it was the pre-meditated right-wing road map it seemed to many."<ref name=Biskind/>
Cast and crew response
[edit]According to Christopher Walken, the historical context was not paramount. "In the making of it, I don't remember anyone ever mentioning Vietnam!" De Niro added to this sentiment. "Whether [the film's vision of the war] actually happened or not, it's something you could imagine very easily happening. Maybe it did. I don't know. All's fair in love and war." Producer Spikings, while proud of the film, regrets the way the Vietnamese are portrayed. "I don't think any of us meant it to be exploitive," Spikings said. "But I think we were ... ignorant. I can't think of a better word for it. I didn't realize how badly we'd behaved to the Vietnamese people ..."<ref name=Biskind/>
Producer Deeley, on the other hand, was quick to defend Cimino's comments on the nature and motives of the film. "The Deer Hunter wasn't really 'about' Vietnam. It was something very different. It wasn't about drugs or the collapse of the morale of the soldiers. It was about how individuals respond to pressure: different men reacting quite differently. The film was about three steel workers in extraordinary circumstances. Apocalypse Now is surreal. The Deer Hunter is a parable ... Men who fight and lose an unworthy war, face some obvious and unpalatable choices. They can blame their leaders... or they can blame themselves. Self-blame has been a great burden for many war veterans. So how does a soldier come to terms with his defeat and yet still retain his self-respect? One way is to present the conquering enemy as so inhuman, and the battle between the good guys (us) and the bad guys (them) so uneven, as to render defeat irrelevant. Inhumanity was the theme of The Deer Hunter's portrayal of the North Vietnamese prison guards forcing American POWs to play Russian roulette. The audience's sympathy with prisoners who (quite understandably) cracked thus completes the chain. Accordingly, some veterans who suffered in that war found the Russian roulette a valid allegory."<ref name=Deeley-198>Deeley, p. 198</ref>
Director Cimino's autobiographical intent
[edit]Cimino frequently referred to The Deer Hunter as a "personal" and "autobiographical" film, although subsequent investigation by journalists like Tom Buckley of Harper's Magazine revealed inaccuracies in Cimino's accounts and reported background.<ref name=Deeley-197/>
Male friendship
[edit]AFITemplate:'s Movie Club says, "The film portrays male friendship in an atypical way for the time," and asks, "How does the friendship of the characters played by Robert De Niro, John Savage, Christopher Walken and John Cazale evolve throughout the film?"<ref name="afi/MC/dH"/>
Coda of "God Bless America"
[edit]The final scene in which all the main characters gather and sing "God Bless America" became a subject of heated debate among critics when the film was released. It raised the question of whether this conclusion was meant ironically or not—"as a critique of patriotism or a paean to it".<ref name=Biskind/> Cimino later spoke of his intentions for the scene:
The ending is really, not meant to be so much a statement of patriotism, but a statement of communion. When people are in trouble, as they are when they're very troubled and sick inside, spiritually very sick, they need, sometimes to do something together. In this case it's make a sound. And they sing that song because it's a song that every American child knows by heart, because you're taught it in school. Everybody knows the words of "God Bless America", and so it's a communal sound, and they begin to sing the one song they all know from grade school on. And you never forget those words as long as you live. And so they sing... the one song they happen to know happens to be "God Bless America", and it reunites them as a family. It becomes a family communion. Instead of a Last Supper, it becomes a first breakfast, if you will, of a new family. It is breakfast that they're eating. It's not the Last Supper, it's the first breakfast.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Reception
[edit]Critical response
[edit]On its release, The Deer Hunter received acclaim from critics, who considered it the best American epic since Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather.<ref name=S&E-Oscar>Ebert, Roger & Siskel, Gene (hosts); Flaum, Thea & Solley, Ray (producers); Denny, Patterson (director). (1979). Sneak Previews: Oscar Preview for 1978. [Television Production]. Chicago, IL: WTTW.</ref><ref name=Deeley-197>Deeley, p. 197</ref><ref name=Canby78/> The film was praised for its depiction of realistic working-class settings and environment; Cimino's direction; the performances of De Niro, Walken, Streep, Savage, Dzundza and Cazale; the symphonic shifts of tone and pacing in moving from America to Vietnam; the tension during the Russian-roulette scenes; and the themes of American disillusionment.<ref name=Thomson-178>Template:Cite book</ref>
The film holds an approval rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 130 reviews, with an average score of 8.60/10. The consensus reads: "Its greatness is blunted by its length and one-sided point of view, but the film's weaknesses are overpowered by Michael Cimino's sympathetic direction and a series of heartbreaking performances from Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken".<ref name="Rotten">Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100 based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, and called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made".<ref name="Ebert">Template:Cite web</ref> Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune praised the film, saying, "This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by The Godfather."<ref>Siskel, Gene (March 9, 1979). "The Deer Hunter". Chicago Tribune.</ref>
Leonard Maltin also gave the film four stars, calling it a "sensitive, painful, evocative work".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Vincent Canby of The New York Times called The Deer Hunter "a big, awkward, crazily ambitious motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since The Godfather. Its vision is that of an original, major new filmmaker."<ref name="Canby78">Template:Cite web</ref>
David Denby of New York magazine called it "an epic", with "qualities that we almost never see any more—range and power and breadth of experience."<ref name="Bach-167">Bach, p. 167</ref><ref name="Bach-168" />
Jack Kroll of Time asserted that it put director Cimino "right at the center of film culture".<ref name="Bach-168">Bach, p. 168</ref>
Stephen Farber pronounced in New West magazine that the movie is "the greatest anti-war movie since La Grande Illusion."<ref name="Bach-168" />
However, The Deer Hunter was not without critical backlash. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a positive review with some reservations: "[It is] a small minded film with greatness in it ... with an enraptured view of common life ... [but] enraging, because, despite its ambitiousness and scale, it has no more moral intelligence than the Eastwood action pictures."<ref name="Bach-168" />
William Goldman, in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade, described The Deer Hunter as a "well-disguised comic-book movie". He wrote, "I enjoyed it every bit as I used to be enthralled by Batman having it out with the Penguin—and precisely on that level."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer wrote that the film was "massively vague, tediously elliptical, and mysteriously hysterical ... It is perhaps significant that the actors remain more interesting than the characters they play."<ref name="Biskind" />
Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum disparaged The Deer Hunter as an "Oscar-laden weepie about macho buddies" and "a disgusting account of what the evil Vietnamese did to poor, innocent Americans".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
John Simon of New York wrote, "For all its pretensions to something newer and better, this film is only an extension of the old Hollywood war-movie lie. The enemy is still bestial and stupid, and no match for our purity and heroism; only we no longer wipe up the floor with him—rather, we litter it with his guts."<ref>Simon, John (February 16, 1979). New York. Anthologized in the collection Reverse Angle (1982).</ref>
In a review for Chicago magazine, Studs Terkel wrote that he was "appalled by its shameless dishonesty", and that "not since The Birth of a Nation has a non-Caucasian people been portrayed in so barbaric a fashion". Cimino's dishonesty "was to project a sadistic psyche not only onto 'Charlie' but to all the Vietnamese portrayed".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Author Karina Longworth notes that Streep "made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept—a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew".Template:Sfn She states that The Deer Hunter "evokes a version of dominant masculinity in which male friendship is a powerful force". It has a "credibly humanist message", and that the "slow study of the men in blissfully ignorant homeland machismo is crucial to it".Template:Sfn
Despite its critical acclaim and awards, some critics derided what they considered the film's simplistic, bigoted and historically inaccurate depictions of the Viet Cong and America's position in the Vietnam War.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The central theme of the Viet Cong forcing American captives to play Russian roulette has been widely criticized as having no historical basis, a claim that Cimino denied but did not refute with evidence.Template:Citation needed
During the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979, the Soviet delegation expressed its indignation with the film that, in their opinion, insulted the Vietnamese people in numerous scenes.<ref name="Grdn2024">Template:Cite news</ref> Other communist states also voiced their solidarity with the "heroic people of Vietnam". They protested the screening of the film and insisted that it violated the statutes of the festival because in no way does it contribute to the "improvement of mutual understanding between the peoples of the world". The ensuing domino effect led to the walk-outs of the Cubans, East Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Poles and Czechoslovakians, and two members of the jury resigned in sympathy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Top-ten lists
[edit]- 3rd—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ebert also placed Deer Hunter on his list of the best films of the 1970s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- 3rd—Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Academy Award-winning film director Miloš Forman and Academy Award-nominated actor Mickey Rourke consider The Deer Hunter to be one of the greatest films of all time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Presentation of the film by Mickey Rourke. Video located on The Deer Hunter Blu-ray.</ref>
Revisionism following Heaven's Gate
[edit]Cimino's next film, Heaven's Gate (1980), debuted to lacerating reviews and took in only $3 million in ticket sales, effectively leaving United Artists bankrupt. The failure of Heaven's Gate led several critics to revise their positions on The Deer Hunter. Canby said in his famous review of Heaven's Gate, "[The film] fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter, and the Devil has just come around to collect."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Andrew Sarris wrote in his review of Heaven's Gate, "I'm a little surprised that many of the same critics who lionized Cimino for The Deer Hunter have now thrown him to the wolves with equal enthusiasm."<ref name="Bach-370" /> Sarris added, "I was never taken in ... Hence, the stupidity and incoherence in Heaven's Gate came as no surprise since very much the same stupidity and incoherence had been amply evident in The Deer Hunter."<ref name="Bach-370" />
In his book Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate, Steven Bach wrote, "Critics seemed to feel obliged to go on the record about The Deer Hunter, to demonstrate that their critical credentials were un-besmirched by having been, as Andrew Sarris put it, 'taken in'."<ref name="Bach-370">Bach, p. 370</ref>
Film critic Mark Kermode described Deer Hunter as "a genuinely terrible film".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
However, many critics, including David Thomson<ref name="Thomson-178" /> and A. O. Scott,<ref>Template:YouTube by The New York Times film critic A. O. Scott on YouTube.</ref> maintain that The Deer Hunter is a great film, the power of which has not diminished.
Awards
[edit]| Academy Awards record | |
|---|---|
| 1. Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Christopher Walken | |
| 2. Best Director, Michael Cimino | |
| 3. Best Film Editing, Peter Zinner | |
| 4. Best Picture, Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, John Peverall | |
| 5. Best Sound, Richard Portman, William L. McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, C. Darin Knight | |
| Golden Globe Awards record | |
| 1. Best Director – Motion Picture, Michael Cimino | |
| BAFTA Awards record | |
| 1. Best Film Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond | |
| 2. Best Film Editing, Peter Zinner | |
Lead-up to awards season
[edit]Film producer and "old-fashioned mogul" Allan Carr used his networking abilities to promote The Deer Hunter. "Exactly how Allan Carr came into The Deer HunterTemplate:'s orbit I can no longer remember," recalled producer Deeley, "but the picture became a crusade to him. He nagged, charmed, threw parties, he created word-of-mouth – everything that could be done in Hollywood to promote a project. Because he had no apparent motive for this promotion, it had an added power and legitimacy and it finally did start to penetrate the minds of the Universal's sales people that they actually had in their hands something a bit more significant than the usual."<ref name=Deeley-195/> Deeley added that Carr's promotion of the film was influential in positioning The Deer Hunter for Oscar nominations.<ref name=Deeley-196>Deeley, p. 196</ref>
On the Sneak Previews special "Oscar Preview for 1978", Roger Ebert correctly predicted that The Deer Hunter would win for Best Picture, while Gene Siskel predicted that Coming Home would win. However, Ebert incorrectly guessed that Robert De Niro would win for Best Actor for Deer Hunter and Jill Clayburgh would win for Best Actress for An Unmarried Woman, while Siskel called the wins for Jon Voight as Best Actor and Jane Fonda as Best Actress, both for Coming Home. Both Ebert and Siskel correctly predicted the win for Christopher Walken receiving the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.<ref name=S&E-Oscar/>
According to producer Deeley, orchestrated lobbying against The Deer Hunter was led by Warren Beatty, whose own picture Heaven Can Wait had multiple nominations.<ref name=Deeley-3>Deeley, p. 3</ref> Beatty also used ex-girlfriends in his campaign: Julie Christie, serving on the jury at the Berlin Film Festival where Deer Hunter was screened, joined the walkout of the film by the Russian jury members. Jane Fonda also criticized The Deer Hunter in public. Deeley suggested that her criticisms partly stemmed from the competition between her film Coming Home vying with The Deer Hunter for Best Picture. According to Deeley, he planted a friend of his in the Oscar press area behind the stage to ask Fonda if she had seen The Deer Hunter.<ref name=Deeley-4/> Fonda replied she had not seen the film, and to this day she still has not.<ref name=Biskind/><ref name=Deeley-4/>
As the Oscars drew near, the backlash against The Deer Hunter gathered strength. When the limos pulled up to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 9, 1979, they were met by demonstrators, mostly from the Los Angeles chapter of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The demonstrators waved placards covered with slogans that read "No Oscars for racism" and "The Deer Hunter a bloody lie", and they thrust pamphlets berating Deer Hunter into long lines of limousine windows.<ref name=Biskind/><ref name=Deeley-4/> Washburn, nominated for Best Original Screenplay, claimed that his limousine was pelted with stones. According to Variety, "Police and The Deer Hunter protesters clashed in a brief but bloody battle that resulted in 13 arrests."<ref name=Biskind/>
De Niro was so anxious that he did not attend the Oscars ceremony. He asked the Academy to allow him to sit out the show backstage, but when the Academy refused, De Niro stayed home in New York.<ref name=Deeley-1>Deeley, p. 1</ref> Producer Deeley made a deal with fellow producer David Puttnam, whose film Midnight Express was nominated, that each would take $500 to the ceremony so if one of them won, the winner would give the loser the $500 to "drown his sorrows in style".<ref name=Deeley-3/>
Complete list of awards
[edit]Legacy
[edit]The Deer Hunter is among the early, and most controversial, major theatrical films to be critical of the American involvement in Vietnam after 1975, when the war officially ended. Although the film opened in the same year as Hal Ashby's Coming Home, Sidney Furie's The Boys in Company C, and Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans, it is the first film about Vietnam to reach a wide audience and critical acclaim, culminating in winning the Oscar for Best Picture. Other films that illustrate the conditions of the Vietnam War combat include:<ref name=Dirks/>
- Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979)
- Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986)
- Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987)
- Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989)
- Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
David Thomson wrote in an article titled "The Deer Hunter: Story of a scene" that the film changed the way war-time battles were portrayed on film. "The terror and the blast of firepower changed the war film, even if it only used a revolver. More or less before the late 1970s, the movies had lived by a Second World War code in which battle scenes might be fierce but always rigorously controlled. The Deer Hunter unleashed a new, raw dynamic in combat and action, paving the way for Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In a 2011 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, actor William Fichtner stated that he and his partner were silenced after seeing the film, stating that "the human experience was just so pointed; their journeys were so difficult, as life is sometimes. I remember after seeing it, walking down the street—I actually went with a girl on a date and saw The Deer Hunter, and we left the theater and walked for like an hour and nobody said anything; we were just kind of stunned about that."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The deaths of approximately 25 people who died playing Russian roulette were reported as having been influenced by scenes in the movie.<ref>"The Deer Hunter and Suicides". Snopes.com. Retrieved June 12, 2010.</ref>
Honors and recognition
[edit]In 1996, The Deer Hunter was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name="loc.gov">"Films Selected to The National Film Registry 1989–2008" Template:Webarchive. Library of Congress. Retrieved June 11, 2010.</ref>
American Film Institute included the film as #79 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies,<ref>"AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies" Template:Webarchive. American Film Institute. "79. The Deer Hunter 1978". Retrieved December 25, 2010.</ref> #30 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills,<ref>"AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills" Template:Webarchive. American Film Institute. "30. The Deer Hunter 1978". Retrieved December 25, 2010.</ref> and #53 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).<ref>"AFI'S 100 Years ... 100 Movies—10th Anniversary Edition" Template:Webarchive. American Film Institute. "53. The Deer Hunter 1978". Retrieved September 18, 2010.</ref>
The film ranks 467th in the Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time,<ref name=Empire/> noting:
Cimino's bold, powerful 'Nam epic goes from blue-collar macho rituals to a fiery, South East Asian hell and back to a ragged singalong of America the Beautiful [sic]. De Niro holds it together, but Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Savage are unforgettable.<ref name=Empire>"The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time" Template:Webarchive. Empire. Retrieved 2010-06-02.</ref>
The New York Times placed the film on its "Best 1000 Movies Ever" list.<ref>The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. The New York Times via Internet Archive. Published April 29, 2003. Retrieved June 12, 2008.</ref>
Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who became a counselor with the U.S. Department of Labor, thought of the idea of building a National Memorial for Viet Nam Veterans after seeing a screening of the film in March 1979, and he established and operated the memorial fund that paid for it.<ref>Scruggs, Jan C.; Swerdlow, Joel L. (April 1985). To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York, NY: Harpercollins. p. 7. Template:ISBN.</ref> Director Cimino was invited to the memorial's opening.<ref name=Realizing/>
See also
[edit]- The Deer Hunter (novel) (1978)
- The Last Hunter (1980), an Italian film originally made as an unofficial sequel
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Bach, Steven (September 1, 1999). Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists (Updated 1999 ed.). New York, NY: Newmarket Press. Template:ISBN.
- Deeley, Michael (April 7, 2009). Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies (Hardcover ed.). New York, NY: Pegasus Books. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Parker, John (2009). Robert De Niro: Portrait of a Legend. London, England: John Blake Publishing Template:ISBN.
- McKee, Bruce (1997). Story (Hardcover ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 126, 296-7, 308. Template:ISBN.
- Mitchell, Robert (writer); Magill, Frank N. (editor) (1980). "The Deer Hunter". Magill's Survey of Cinema: A-Eas. 1. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Salem Press pp. 427–431. Template:ISBN.
- Raimondi, Antonio; Raimondi, Rocco. (2021) "Robert De Niro and the Vietnam War". Italy. Template:ISBN.
External links
[edit]Interviews
Texts
- Original script (PDF) at Scripts.com
- In which Michael is called Merle and stays in Saigon while Nick returns to Linda.
- Film dialogs (English, Spanish, Portuguese) at Kino
Metadata
- The Deer Hunter at AFI Catalog - American Film Institute
- Template:TCMDb title
- Template:IMDb title
- Template:Mojo title
- Template:Rotten-tomatoes
- Template:Metacritic film
- Pages with broken file links
- 1970s war drama films
- 1970s American films
- 1978 drama films
- American war drama films
- Anti-war films about the Vietnam War
- Best Picture Academy Award winners
- Cockfighting in film
- EMI Films films
- Films about hunters
- Films about post-traumatic stress disorder
- Films about veterans
- Films directed by Michael Cimino
- Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award–winning performance
- Films scored by Stanley Myers
- Films set in 1967
- Films set in 1968
- Films set in 1975
- Films set in Pennsylvania
- Films set in Pittsburgh
- Films set in Saigon
- Films shot in Bangkok
- Films shot in Cleveland
- Films shot in Pittsburgh
- Films shot in Thailand
- Films shot in Washington (state)
- Films shot in West Virginia
- Films shot in Youngstown, Ohio
- Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
- Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
- Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
- Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
- 1970s French-language films
- 1970s Russian-language films
- United States National Film Registry films
- Universal Pictures films
- Vietnam War prisoner of war films
- Vietnamese-language films
- American war epic films
- Russian-American culture
- 1970s English-language films
- 1978 multilingual films
- American multilingual films
- English-language war drama films
- French-language American films