02/08/10 - The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter (1978, 182 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/

This was actually a film I'd wanted to see for a couple months, but with a 182 minute runtime, I kept delaying my viewing. It had a motley of big name stars I liked but I really had no idea what it was about besides a few scenes of Russian roulette. I was really excited to finally check it out.

The film stars a trio of friends as they all go to Vietnam and then explores the after effects of this experience. The group is: Robert De Niro as Michael, John Savage as Steven, and Christopher Walken as Nick. Staying behind but playing prominent roles are John Cazale as Stan and Meryl Streep as Linda.

The acting here is phenomenal. My favorite is Cazale as a secondary character. There is one small scene where's talking to De Niro's Michael about his date for the evening. Cazale is so realistic and believable in this role and it is all epitomized in this simple scene. Bizarrely enough, this probably ten second exchange was my favorite part of the movie. In all truth, though, the entire cast is amazing. De Niro is the lead of the movie and we follow him around the most. He doesn't disappoint in the slightest as seems to be standard fare for De Niro. Surprising me is Walken as Nick. We completely see the emotion and the trauma he seems to go through as a character and for me, I'm used to seeing Walken play in less serious roles. This made his performance all the better for me as a viewer. Savage and Streep round out the main group and they are great as well. Savage doesn't say much but really makes the few scenes he's in stand out. Streep is in more scenes and carries her own in them. All in all, it's impossible to downplay how well the cast of this film is.

The absolute without a doubt best aspect of this film is how intense it is. Yes, this part of the film is actually even better than the above mentioned awesome cast. No other movie in history has made me so frequently pause the film and just take a breather. The use of Russian roulette is so powerful. Even when it's only partway through the film and I know that Michael can't possibly die, the scene is so masterfully done that I begin to actually question myself. Every time that Russian roulette is employed, it's scary tense. The combination of life, death, and chance is seemingly so simple and yet so powerful for the film. But this isn't the only part of the film that's so tense. Through subtle acting, we learn that both Michael and Nick love Linda. When they leave it's Nick that Linda loves, but with Michael being the only one of the two that returns it casts this love triangle into a precarious balance. While watching the film, I didn't feel that the movie employed this chaotic balance enough, I realize now how perfect it was. There's lingering scenes between Michael and Linda upon his return and each and every time I'm thinking about Nick who is still back in Vietnam. I question: Will all this come to a powerful conclusion? and when it doesn't really factor in (Michael really goes for other reasons back to Vietnam to see Nick) it oddly makes everything more real. It makes me as a viewer actually add tension to a scene as I'm expecting something that never really happens. Sitting back later and writing these notes down, I realize that what was done was simply perfect.

Another great aspect of the film is the pacing. The first hour or so is all about a wedding. I got a very The Godfather vibe from here as we all meet the characters through a wedding. Everything moves so slowly and absolutely nothing happens during this first hour. But it really serves to fully flesh out these characters and make them so believable for the remaining two hours. As alluded to above, the way we meet the characters is really done through small things. Things like stares, glances, head nods, mannerisms - these are all used to create individual personae for each character. After this first hour we move to Vietnam and we actually get the worst scenes in my opinion. Sure, there's an incredibly memorable Russian roulette moment, but I don't think much of that same high quality is really found here. Thankfully, it's only about thirty minutes, leaving the other half of the movie to explore how the characters are after their war experiences.

As for this, it's great how each character changes radically. Michael comes back mentally completely different, but he appears outwardly quite similar. He talks to Linda more and longs for her, but it's really his inner mental turmoil that makes his character great. And how De Niro shows this is simply great. On the other end of the spectrum, there's Nick who never returns at all. He stays in Vietnam making money playing Russian roulette. He completely loses his mind and it's darkly depressing and incredibly moving. In the middle there's Steven who's now wheelchair bound and receiving Nick's gambling winnings - depressing in his own way. All in all, we get a varying degree of personality changes and how they all interact with the secondary cast is what's important to the film. Thankfully, The Deer Hunter doesn't disappoint at all on this point.

Overall, I gave this film a 10/10. The Deer Hunter is crazy good and incredibly intense. The characters are rich and well developed and work amazingly well together. The pacing (even at three hours) is great and the acting is top-notch. All of this combines to form simply a perfect film. It's really hard finding flaws in The Deer Hunter for me. There's some lower quality moments, really, but not a single thing is actually bad in this film.