The Deer Hunter

In the spring of 1979, John Wayne took the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles to announce the winner for Best Picture at the 51st Academy Awards. It was an interesting choice to have Wayne make this announcement as the film that won that year was one that he would have despised. John Wayne was a big supporter of the Vietnam War. He even made his own film on the subject, The Green Berets, and here he was, giving the biggest award of the night to a film that was disparaging of that war. Wayne was a surprise sight at that awards show. He was dying from the cancer that was to take him from us just a few short months later. This was his final public appearance and while he was pleased with the honor to present the Best Picture, it had to be bothering him to give that award to The Deer Hunter.

Jane Fonda was also unhappy with that evening, putting her time and efforts into promoting her own Vietnam film, Coming Home. She, too, hated The Deer Hunter, but for different reasons. She felt it was racist and strongly misrepresented the Vietnam War. She was an anti-war activist and felt that her own film was a more authentic and sensitive portrayal of the conflict and its impact on the soldiers coming home. While it is true that The Deer Hunter has a strong voice about the impact of the war on the men fighting it, it is also true that it doesn’t represent everyone’s experiences fighting it. No single film can cover that much ground. Having known men who did fight in that war, I knew a few that were so traumatized by what they saw and did that they were never the same again. The Deer Hunter may be a bit over-the-top in how it is presenting this, but it is in service of getting across to audiences what their fighting sons were struggling with inside in the aftermath. 

The film focuses on a trio of young men, all of whom will be vastly changed by their service in Vietnam. These men, Russian-American steelworkers from Pennsylvania, are friends and co-workers at the mill, intimately tied together by their heritage, their camaraderie, and a long-standing history together. The first of these is Mikhail “Mike” Vronsky (Robert De Niro), a stoic man who enjoys deer hunting alongside his friend Nikanor “Nick” Chevotarevich (Christopher Walken). The third friend is Steven Pushkov (John Savage), who is getting married to Angela (Rutanya Alda), who is pregnant by another man. Mike and Nick are roommates; Nick dates Linda (Meryl Streep) while Mike is secretly in love with her. The three men, along with Stan (John Cazale) and Axel (Chuck Aspegren), often go out drinking and hunting as a way to relax after long hours at the steel mill. 

The film opens, much like the opening of The Godfather, with the wedding of Steven and Angela. We see the men getting off work, going out drinking, then attending the large Russian Catholic wedding. Afterwards, we see all of them dancing, partying, drinking some more, and fighting. This sequence goes on for a very long time, but it establishes all of these characters, gives us their backgrounds, and allows us to see them as they are before deployment to Vietnam. It is important to see this because it allows us to connect with them and then get startled by just how much the war changes each of them in vastly different ways. 

These three men are carefree and fun-loving in the beginning, drinking and playing pool, dancing and smiling, generally being goofy and fun with their friends and community. Of particular note is how much we linger on Steven and his athleticism both on and off the dance floor. This seems to be a hint as to what will ultimately happen to him in the war. This is also a prime example of one of the biggest weaknesses of this script; everything is weighty and means something. When done well, that isn’t a problem, but here it is obvious and gives the film a feeling of self-seriousness. This also adds excess bulk to the finished product, allowing the running time to get away from it until it runs a full hour longer than it needs to. 

The film cuts away from the melancholic scenes in Pennsylvania to a truly horrific one in Vietnam some time later. This is where the film really struggles. The Viet Cong are presented as the most vile and brutal people on the planet, torturing and killing women and children with glee. They are presented this way to justify our troops being there in the first place and to make it so that when we see Mike burn one alive with a flamethrower, we are still firmly on his side. 

But presenting them like this is grossly unrealistic and straight-up racist. So bad was this depiction of the Cong that it received very negative press from real Vietnam veterans. When this film was at the Oscars the following year, there were protestors outside, and the situation got intense enough that even Robert De Niro chose to stay home rather than attend the ceremony. 

Not all vets were offended by this film, though. Some found that it broke through their trauma and allowed them to express to spouses and children experiences that they had kept bottled up inside for many years. Most, though, felt that this was a fantasy concocted by men who had never served in Vietnam. It would be nearly ten more years before a real Vietnam combat vet made a film that portrayed what being over there was really like. That man was, of course, Oliver Stone. 

This film brought Russian Roulette into the public eye. In fact, Michael Cimino and Deric Washburn had that element of the story well before they had Vietnam and the rest of it. There was no real evidence that Russian Roulette was being played in Southeast Asia at the time, but that didn’t matter. In this film, Mike, Nick, and Steven are captured by the Cong and forced to participate in Russian Roulette. Later, after they escape back to Saigon, Nick is enthralled by back-alley Russian Roulette games where people risk their lives for financial payoffs. This is meant to be horrific, and to a degree, it is. But it is also farcical, deadening the impact rather than enhancing it. 

Further stretching credulity is the sheer amount of time, years even, that Nick stays in Saigon playing the game without losing. This is not a game of skill but random chance, and he keeps it up for a very long time, his brain fried from the game, coupled with a growing dependency on drugs. Meanwhile, Mike has gone home and finds that he no longer enjoys shooting deer and has fits of instability when dealing with his friends on their hunting trips. Meanwhile, Steven is in the VA hospital, no longer able to walk anymore. He is receiving money from Vietnam that he assumes is coming from Nick, but no one knows for sure where Nick is anymore. 

The ending of this film cements the themes of the war permanently changing these three men. It’s brutal and upsetting, but it also overplays things and strains our credulity. This is not a subtle film nor does it try to be. Instead, it carves out its message with a sledgehammer. Jane Fonda was right when she said her film, Coming Home, was a more accurate depiction of the effects of the war. But Coming Home is not as memorable of a film as The Deer Hunter, which lives on because of how outlandish and over-the-top it is. Despite the mixed responses it got at the time, it still managed to win Best Picture in 1979, cementing its inclusion among the Best Pictures according to the Academy. It’s not a great film, but it is one that sticks with you, for better or worse. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, and John Peverall (won)

Best Director: Michael Cimino (won)

Best Actor: Robert De Niro

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Walken (won)

Best Supporting Actress: Meryl Streep

Best Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Louis A. Garfinkle, and Quinn K. Redeker

Best Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond

Best Film Editing: Peter Zinner (won)

Best Sound: Richard Portman, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, and Darin Knight (won)

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Release Date: December 8, 1978

Running Time: 184 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken

Directed by: Michael Cimino