The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)
Let me get this off my chest right now; this movie was far too long for me. Or not necessarily too long per se, but too drawn-out. Anyway, let me get back to that later.
The Deer Hunter tells the story of a group of friends in rural Pennsylvania. Three of them — Michael (Robert DeNiro), Steven (John Savage), and Nick (Christopher Walken) — join the army and ship off to Vietnam shortly after Steven has gotten married. They are captured by the Vietcong and forced to play a game of Russian roulette, and events transpire after that which I’d rather not tell you about.
First things first: performances. Everyone is excellent in this movie; I think this might be my favourite performance ever by DeNiro, and it’s no wonder Walken won the best supporting Oscar. Superb throughout. Savage, Meryl Streep, John Cazale… all excellent.
The story is also very good; these men went through some truly horrible things, but its foundation is still their friendship, and it is told remarkably well. Some of those scenes in the jungle — and later, Saigon — were very difficult for me to watch. I find the idea of Russian roulette horrifying and despicable, and it broke my heart to see Nick spiral so quickly and irrevocably into its grasp.
Now, back to the problem I had with this movie: it’s too damn long. Almost the entire first hour is spent on setting up the friendships — which I do appreciate, but there’s no reason for the wedding scene to run that long. The movie could easily have been improved simply by cutting a few of the longer scenes in that first part.
This is a well-crafted movie for sure, with some great performances — I just couldn’t get into it. Perhaps if Cimino and his editor had been able to cut some of the early scenes I would have enjoyed it more. I still recommend it though, and who knows, maybe you’ll find the slow pace more agreeable than I did.
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