The Deer Hunter

Summary

“Just don’t leave me over there. You gotta promise me, Mike.”

Many people have contended that the finest era in American cinema was the Seventies. The studios handed over the keys of the kingdom to some of the brightest and most inventive directors – Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, and more. They all broke through at the same time and changed the film landscape for forever. And then, in the Eighties, Coppola and Michael Cimino made films that made financing artistic dream projects much more difficult. Michael Cimino followed up his tremendously successful film The Deer Hunter with an incredibly ambitious and critically maligned film named Heaven’s Gate. It became the poster child of artistic excess in its butchered presentation that the studios allowed in the theaters. It also lost the studios thirty seven million dollars. For Coppola, his films One from the Heart and The Cotton Club lost the studios twenty five million dollars each. These later failures are why the Seventies are marked as a decade of artistic triumph that will probably not repeat itself in the near future. The Eighties moved in the direction of big stars and sequels. Now we live in a world that is basically just comic book movies unless the film is independently financed or incredibly inexpensive. The age of large scale dramas is seemingly over aside from the occasional picture by Scorsese, Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, and a few others.

So why did the studios give Michael Cimino, whom had only directed two films, such a high budget and so much free reign while he was shooting Heaven’s Gate? It is largely because the studios could not understand exactly what was bringing people out to see films period. The rise of character actors like De Niro, Pacino, and Jack Nicholson led to a swarm of very non traditional dramas that absolutely dominated the box office. The studios could not understand exactly why The Deer Hunter – a three hour epic that involves the Vietnam war and features an incredibly long wedding sequence – had succeeded so well in the market place. Therefore, they just needed to trust the artistic vision of the writer and director. The Deer Hunter had not only won five Academy Awards ( Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing – Meryl Streep was nominated for best actress and lost,) the film had been tremendously successful. The film had grossed forty nine million dollars on a fifteen million dollar budget. That is in 1978 dollars.

Shout!Factory has long been one of the absolute finest distribution labels for film aficionados and physical media collectors. Their Shout Select line has released some important films, but the release of The Deer Hunter is special because it marks the first time that the label has released a classic film in the UHD format. As a collector, I was thrilled when I saw the news. The label used the same transfer as the Region B locked Studio Canal release, and contains some new supplemental material. I had not seen the film in years, and I was excited to revisit it, especially with the incredible uptick in visual quality.

In a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania, five best friends work in the mill together. It is a Friday and Steven (John Savage) is getting married that night. The other four friends are going deer hunting. Three of them will be going to Vietnam the next week. They all go to the local bar and start drinking Rolling Rocks served by their pal John (George Dzundza.) Nick and Michael (Christopher Walker and Robert De Niro) are roommates and best friends. Michael is far more serious than Nick, and Nick is better liked by all the guys. Michael takes the act of hunting very seriously. He believes that you should only take one shot to kill a deer, or you are missing the point of the act. Nick and Linda (Meryl Streep) are in love with one another. Her father is an abusive alcoholic. Michael also cares deeply for Linda. If not for his devotion to Nick, he would pursue a relationship with her. On a whim, when she catches the bouquet at the wedding, Nick asks if Linda would marry him and she says yes. They decide to go through with it when he returns from Vietnam. At the wedding, Mike and Nick are also honored for going to Vietnam the next week with Steven. That night after the wedding, Mike goes streaking down to the river. Nick catches up with him and makes him promise to not leave him over there. The next day the men all go hunting. Stan (John Cazale) and Mike get into it with one another because Stan never packs properly for the hunt. He also is always waving around his pistol that he brings with him. On the trip, Mike takes down a deer in one shot. The film cuts forward. The men are all in Vietnam. Mike is in a small village and the North Vietnamese are massacring the innocent villagers. In a moment of brutality, Mike uses a flame thrower on one of the Vietnam Cong. Steven and Nick arrive via helicopter in an attempt to rescue the ground troops. Mike, Stephen, and Nick are captured by the Vietnam Cong and taken to a horrifying POW camp on the river. It’s a brutal place where they put prisoners into a cage in the river or force them to play Russian roulette. It’s hell on earth. Somehow the three men manage to escape their tormentors, but they are separated in their escape. Michael comes home, but Nick is sucked into a dangerous world of high stakes underground Russian roulette gambling in Nam. He does not come home. Mike grapples with life as a civilian but ultimately decides to honor his promise and return to Vietnam to bring back his friend, as Saigon is falling to the North Vietnamese.

To me, The Deer Hunter is a true horror film. Just because a soldier is done with the war does not mean the war is done with the soldier. The film is about a sense of alienation that affects returning troops and the ways in which people are damaged by war. That said – it is a controversial “Vietnam” film. Director Michael Cimino plainly said that the war in the film could have been any war and that it was not a Vietnam film. The plot devices in the film would not hold muster against history buffs, especially the condensing of the war’s timeline, but that was not the intent of the film. In fact, Cimino only films one scene of warfare in the entire film. The rest of the film focuses on the drama that surrounds the characters as they grapple with the conflict that they have endured – whether they served or were left behind. Cimino served for a few years as a medic, but his record was not indicative of really being in the action. I look at Cimino as sort of the Stephen Crane of Vietnam filmmaking. His take on the war is not totally convincing, but The Red Badge of Courage remains a classic. The Deer Hunter remains a classic for the same reason. 

It tells an incredible captivating and emotionally impactful story. One reason why I feel the film caught some heat is that there is some actual war footage and footage of Saigon that is used in the film. This probably hurt Cimino’s case for saying that the film is not a Vietnam film, or for his case of claiming the film was all a work of fiction. The inclusion of the stock footage from the actual war blurs the lines and may have led to a lot of the criticism the film received. There are no reports that Russian roulette was ever used by the Viet Cong on prisoners, and the chief criticism the film faced over time was that the film is completely one-sided. The Americans are good guys in a tough situation and the Vietnamese are demonic torturers that thrive on human suffering in the film. While these criticisms are valid, the intent was to tell a compelling story and force emotional reactions. I think that it succeeds admirably on those accounts and feel that at the end of the day the choices made served the plot.

The long wedding sequence of the film helps the viewer to get a great understanding of who the main characters are and how they care for each other. The relationships between the characters are all very well drawn. I love the subtle Russian influences on the community due to the St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Church in the town and the way that the characters use a Russian solute as they toast one another. It’s little things like that which make the film really resonate with an audience. While the opening hour takes its precious time to develop the characters, it leads to the emotional impact and jarring overload of the middle sequence. It was a deliberate choice by Cimino that worked. He fought hard for The Deer Hunter to make it to the theaters as we know it. Cimino probably should receive more credit for being on the forefront of the “slow cinema” movement, which has recently been gaining some traction in the last few years.

One of the best aspects of the writing is in the relationship between Mike and Elena, I love the way that they interact- especially when he comes back from the war and she feels conflicted about Nick’s absence in her life. It is completely convincing.

The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is beautiful. The deer hunting sequences in particular are picturesque, but the way he paints a picture of the steel mill town is just as admirable and well drawn. The sequences at war, in Saigon, and in the Church all show off a lot of versatility and adaptability by the cinematographer. Michael Cimino directs the film wonderfully. Aside from the staggeringly well rendered performances, there is also his command of large scale sequences such as how the city of Saigon looks for both Nick and Mike. It is full of people and is totally convincing.

The dream cast of this film is well known, but every performance is a good one. Robert De Niro is incredible in the lead role. Christopher Walken completely deserved his Oscar as Nick. Damn good. Meryl Streep is great in the film. The only film where I like her this well is Death Becomes Her. John Savage is great as the destroyed Steven. Also excellent in the film – John Cazale, George Dzundza, and Chuck Aspegren. There is not a false note in the film. This is easily one of the best ensemble casts every assembled.

The Deer Hunter is still as profoundly moving as when it was first released. A true American classic.

Video

The Deer Hunter is far better visually on UHD than its prior releases. The Blu-ray from Universal Studios from 2014 did a pretty solid job of presenting the film, but the new 4K HEVC/H.265 transfer from Studio Canal and a Shout!Factory gives the film a new life. The addition of HDR and Dolby Vision leads to the film looking the best by far that it has ever looked. Fine detail is greatly improved and the background scenery in the film shines through in ways that were never possible on any other format. The HDR makes the colors much more vivid than on the Blu-ray and allows the very dark scenes in the film to take on much more lifelike appearance. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is in a wide aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and fills up a properly set up UHD screen like a painting. There is some occasional softness to the picture, but I am not exaggerating when I say that the difference between the older Blu-ray and the new UHD presentation is night and day. It is great that Shout!Factory has also included a Blu-ray that uses the new transfer as the source.

Audio

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track for this release is the same track that appeared on the Universal Studios Blu-ray. That is not a bad thing as that track very capable uses the surround fields to update the original stereo track for the film. Also included is the original stereo Dolby Digital 2.0 track. The film sounds great overall.

Supplements:

The supplements featured (with the exception of the audio commentary) are only found on the Blu-Ray included in the set. 

DISC ONE – 4K BLU-RAY

• Feature Film
• Audio Commentary with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and journalist Bob Fisher

DISC TWO – BLU-RAY

• Feature Film
• We Don’t Belong Here – in this new piece the great and eccentric actor John Savage discusses memories from working on the film and his start in the business. The piece is short but enjoyable.
• The War At Home – a new interview with actress Rutanya Alda.
• A National Anthem – in this newly produced interview with producer Michael Deeley, Deeley gives a thorough discussion of how the film came together from a small play to an expansive three hour epic. This is a really good interview.
• This is Not About War – a newly produced interview with post-production supervisor Katy Haber and Universal Marketing executive Willette Klausner. These two women detail their jobs on the film along with some very entertaining stories about being female and in the business at the time, Michael Cimino skinny dipping, and a brief mention of Sam Peckinpah.
• Audio Commentary with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and journalist Bob Fisher (Same as on the 4K disc)
• Interview with film critic David Thomson – Thomson gives a well thought out discussion of the major themes of the film and some of the controversies attached to the film.
• Deleted and Extended Scenes
• Theatrical Trailer
• Radio Spots
• Still Gallery

Overall Scores:

Video – 5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 3.5/5

Overall – 5/5

The Deer Hunter is the war film escalated to the form of parable. While the film revolves around the Vietnam war, the central ideas could take place in any war. It is a well written piece of drama centered on the very real human toll that war takes, but it is also a work of pure fiction that turns the North Vietnamese into merciless demons that thrive on human suffering. The film has its admirers and detractors, but I personally love the film. It has one of the best ensemble casts ever assembled and some stunning cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. This was one of the last large scale films before the New Hollywood collapsed under the weight of its ambitions. The Deer Hunter is the modern equivalent of The Red Badge of Courage – the facts are wrong, but the emotional impact is right. The new UHD disc from Shout!Factory features stunning visuals and the included Blu-ray has some enjoyable new features. This film and this set earn my highest recommendation.