1978--The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino

 

1978--The Deer Hunter—Michael Cimino

Nominated:Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman

Should have won:The Deer Hunter

Be sure to see: Animal house, Buddy Holly Story, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Superman

“I like to starve myself. It keeps the fear up.”--Nick

     Robert DeNiro is one of the the silver screen's most beloved actors and The Deer Hunter is typically among the top two or three movies people point to that showcase his talents. I found it pretty good but something seemed amiss. Similar to Full Metal Jacket, the non-war scenes in The Deer Hunter outshine the war scenes. The film might have been better off scrapping the whole Vietnam plot and focusing on the lives of the group of friends living in a Western Pennsylvania steel town. Not that the latter half lacked intensity. Many scenes in this film are top notch but the most iconic is undoubtedly the first Russian Roulette scene. In the second half,the movie turns into an almost underground documentary of Russian Roulette rather than Vietnam. DeNiro, with his eyes a constant glaze and Christopher Walken in a haunting Oscar winning performance carry the scenes, and the entire movie.

     The biggest problems I had were the reality of the accents to Western Pennsylvania and the editing of two of the scenes. After a sequence at the bar, the men are all of a sudden in war. No enlisting; no training. In a way it works because a twenty minute boot camp segment would have been unnecessary but it still felt out of place. There was another major editing flaw which I found inexcusable. It was so bad I had to rewind twice and watch my DVD counter to be sure my disk hadn't skipped. Just after we see Mike (DeNiro) and Nick (Walken) have arrived in Vietnam, Mike kills a man with a flamethrower. All signs point to these men having the upper hand. Then, with no scene of capture or even a confrontation, they are in an underwater cage as POW. I thought my disk skipped a chapter or something. It has to be the poorest transition on a first rate movie I've ever seen.

     Both halves of the movie work but I enjoyed the first half more. A worthy winner for best picture though my personal favorite of the year was another Western Pennsylvanian gem Dawn of the Dead. It isn't a better Vietnam movie than Apocalypse Now, Platoon, or even Full Metal Jacket. It was a pretty good movie but a little sloppy. It does capture images of the horrors of war quite well though. My whole issue is if I'm going to see a war movie I want the war scenes to captivate me more than the scenes of the men at home. This movie doesn't do that for me. I'd rather the men have stayed in Pennsylvania, hunted deer, and I could follow their relationships and circumstances. 

     A bit of trivia, John Cazale who played Stan, appeared in only five movies in his entire career and all five were Academy Award best picture nominees; The Godfathers 1 and 2, the Deer Hunter, The Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon.