Deer Hunter, The

Film Directed by Michael Cimino, 1978

Written and directed by Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter follows the fate of three young Russian-American steelworkers (Michael, Nick, and Steven, played by Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, respectively) from western Pennsylvania who join the Army to fight in Vietnam. The movie explores why young men join the military, the horrors of combat, and the readjustments returning veterans and their friends and family go through once the shooting stops. The film was a key work among a number of late 1970s films that grappled with the painful legacy of American involvement in Vietnam.

The first third of the movie takes places in an intensely ethnic and insular community dominated by the mill, the church, family, and especially the camaraderie of friends. The three men are intensely patriotic but naïve about what war is actually like. Michael attempts to talk to a Green Beret in a bar about the war, but the soldier refuses to discuss his experiences. As a psychological preparation for war, and as a last opportunity for bonding, the three set out on a deer hunting trip, during which Michael drops a trophy buck with one shot.

The middle of the film finds the trio in Vietnam. In the only combat scene of the film, a Viet Cong soldier massacres women and children but is killed by Michael who relies on a flamethrower rather than a rifle to kill his prey. The trio is quickly captured by the enemy who keep them captive in bamboo cages submerged in a river. The soldiers are brought out only to play Russian roulette against each other while the Viet Cong bet on the outcome. Michael tricks the Viet Cong into letting him play with three bullets, with which he kills his [Page 214]captors and frees his friends. The experience shatters Nick and Steven, however, and the rest of the film details the way each comes to grips with the war on his own.

Michael returns home, but finds himself unwilling to play the role of war hero to his nonveteran friends and family. When Michael and his nonveteran friends go hunting, he lets his prize walk away because he cannot pull the trigger. Intensely isolated by his wartime trauma, he begins a relationship with Nick's fiancée, played by Meryl Streep, who is also suffering because Nick has decided to remain in Saigon. Michael seeks out Steven, who is both physically and psychically crippled and unwilling to return to face his hometown, friends, and bride in this state. Periodically he receives bundles of cash, which they realize must be from Nick. Michael returns to Saigon to rescue Nick from his new life as a professional gambler in the war's desperate final days. To save his friend, Michael again plays Russian roulette against his childhood friend, desperately seeking to kindle a spark of recognition. Tragically Nick pushes his luck too far and shoots himself in the head. Michael brings his friend's body back home. The final scene finds the saddened group of friends at Nick's wake, singing “God Bless America.”

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