The Deer Hunter Details

This multi-Oscar winner from Michael Cimino was the first major movie about the Vietnam War and it remains one of the finest and most controversial, notably for the harrowing sequence in which American PoWs are forced by their Vietcong captors to play Russian roulette, a compelling if historically dubious metaphor for the war. Running for three hours, it begins, Godfather-style, with a long wedding party at which a group of Russian emigrant steelworkers get drunk and then hunt deer before boarding their plane for the heart of darkness. Starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage and John Cazale, this is a modern version of the Second World War drama The Best Years of Our Lives, showing how men and America itself cope with the horrors of war and its aftermath. It is a story of reconciliation and national renewal, by turns shocking and moving, which won the best picture Oscar as well as statuettes for Walken and director Cimino. There were also nominations for De Niro and Meryl Streep, in her first major role. With its mournful guitar theme, this intense drama lingers long in the memory and elevated Cimino to the front rank of American directors. But his next film was the notorious flop Heaven's Gate, and he has only worked occasionally since.

The three-hour running time is taken up with crosscutting of a wedding, a deer hunt and a game of Russian roulette. Presumably the audience has to guess the point, if any; meanwhile it may be repelled by this long and savage if frequently engrossing film.