Wow! What a great film. Maybe the amount of time for the wedding and reception was a bit long (which helped move it past the 3 hr mark), but overall it carries such power. The "God Bless America" at the end has such a different spirit than the triumphalist singing at ball parks these days. The two scenes with DeNiro and Walken doing Russian Roulette (and especially the difference in DeNiro in those scenes) are outstanding.
I note that this film and Coming Home (also post Vietnam drama) dominated the Academy Awards that year, no doubt reflecting America's attempt to come to terms with that war. But overall, there is no contest. This could well be the best post war film ever.
Full Version: The Deer Hunter
QUOTE(Darrel Manson @ Sep 24 2007, 03:27 PM) 
Wow! What a great film. Maybe the amount of time for the wedding and reception was a bit long (which helped move it past the 3 hr mark), but overall it carries such power. The "God Bless America" at the end has such a different spirit than the triumphalist singing at ball parks these days. The two scenes with DeNiro and Walken doing Russian Roulette (and especially the difference in DeNiro in those scenes) are outstanding.
I note that this film and Coming Home (also post Vietnam drama) dominated the Academy Awards that year, no doubt reflecting America's attempt to come to terms with that war. But overall, there is no contest. This could well be the best post war film ever.
I note that this film and Coming Home (also post Vietnam drama) dominated the Academy Awards that year, no doubt reflecting America's attempt to come to terms with that war. But overall, there is no contest. This could well be the best post war film ever.
The Deer Hunter might be my favorite film. Period. It's so complex, and so beautifully acted. But boy is it ever a lousy date movie. I learned that the hard way when it first came out.
QUOTE(Andy Whitman @ Sep 24 2007, 12:30 PM)
The Deer Hunter might be my favorite film. Period. It's so complex, and so beautifully acted. But boy is it ever a lousy date movie. I learned that the hard way when it first came out.
I don't know. It has a wedding. (Lots of a wedding -- and an Orthodox wedding at that) Don't girls go for wedding movies?
QUOTE(Darrel Manson @ Sep 24 2007, 03:35 PM)
QUOTE(Andy Whitman @ Sep 24 2007, 12:30 PM)
The Deer Hunter might be my favorite film. Period. It's so complex, and so beautifully acted. But boy is it ever a lousy date movie. I learned that the hard way when it first came out.
I don't know. It has a wedding. (Lots of a wedding -- and an Orthodox wedding at that) Don't girls go for wedding movies?
Sure, but the bullets in the brain ... not so much.
Just watched this for the first time. Loved it.
Hadn't realized so much of it would be devoted to a Russian Orthodox wedding. My wife and I got married in a Russian Orthodox church, and there were only a few details in the film that felt "fake" to me -- like the bit where the priest asks the bride and groom some questions, which I assume is a concession to western audiences' assumptions about how wedding ceremonies are done (my wife and I don't recall being asked ANYthing). But the film did keep the candles, the crowns (my wife and I had wreaths instead), etc., etc.
Also hadn't realized that the characters were all of Russian extraction. Was this a deliberately ironic nod to the fact that the Viet Cong, being Communist, were, at least broadly speaking, on the side of the "Russkies" during the Cold War? ("You think the 'other side' is the enemy, but people from the 'other side' have come to this country and become fully integrated Americans!" That sort of thing. And note the scene where Walken's character gets ticked off by the doctor's curiosity over the ethnic origin of his name. "Is that Russian?" "It's American!") Or was the Russianness of the characters a subtle reference to the recurring theme of Russian roulette? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?
Re: the Russian and/or Orthodox thing, I neglected to pay attention to which specific years this story is set -- though the climax does coincide with... hmmm... I'm not sure if those final events seen on the news would have taken place in 1973 or in 1975. (The Americans didn't pull out of Vietnam all at once, right?) At any rate, the Russian Orthodox Church granted autocephaly (self-government, slightly better than autonomy) to its North American churches in 1970, only a year or two or three at most before this story begins; and these churches continued within an entity known as the Orthodox Church in America. Thus, the Russian Orthodox church in which I got married -- and presumably the Russian Orthodox church which these characters attend -- is Russian in ethnicity only, without any hierarchical ties to the Russian state church (which, of course, was regularly dogged at that time by allegations that it was too chummy with the Soviets). So it is interesting that this film, much of which is centred around a Russian Orthodox church in America and on the parishioners who proudly assert their Americanness, would be set right around the time that they were coming into their own, so to speak, and becoming a truly American church rather than a "mission" of some foreign church. I wonder if that was a coincidence. At any rate, it was still a rather new development when the film came out in 1978, so it might have been on the filmmakers' minds; it wouldn't have been the sort of thing you would have had to read about in a history book or something.
The IMDb says John Cazale died shortly after filming was completed -- and apparently he was engaged to co-star Meryl Streep at the time. What a sad but proud distinction, to have co-starred in only five films, ALL of which were nominated for Best Picture (and three of them won). (The other two winners were the two Godfather films, in which Cazale played Fredo. The two non-winning nominees were The Conversation -- which lost to The Godfather Part II! -- and Dog Day Afternoon.)
More thoughts later, if any occur to me.
Hadn't realized so much of it would be devoted to a Russian Orthodox wedding. My wife and I got married in a Russian Orthodox church, and there were only a few details in the film that felt "fake" to me -- like the bit where the priest asks the bride and groom some questions, which I assume is a concession to western audiences' assumptions about how wedding ceremonies are done (my wife and I don't recall being asked ANYthing). But the film did keep the candles, the crowns (my wife and I had wreaths instead), etc., etc.
Also hadn't realized that the characters were all of Russian extraction. Was this a deliberately ironic nod to the fact that the Viet Cong, being Communist, were, at least broadly speaking, on the side of the "Russkies" during the Cold War? ("You think the 'other side' is the enemy, but people from the 'other side' have come to this country and become fully integrated Americans!" That sort of thing. And note the scene where Walken's character gets ticked off by the doctor's curiosity over the ethnic origin of his name. "Is that Russian?" "It's American!") Or was the Russianness of the characters a subtle reference to the recurring theme of Russian roulette? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?
Re: the Russian and/or Orthodox thing, I neglected to pay attention to which specific years this story is set -- though the climax does coincide with... hmmm... I'm not sure if those final events seen on the news would have taken place in 1973 or in 1975. (The Americans didn't pull out of Vietnam all at once, right?) At any rate, the Russian Orthodox Church granted autocephaly (self-government, slightly better than autonomy) to its North American churches in 1970, only a year or two or three at most before this story begins; and these churches continued within an entity known as the Orthodox Church in America. Thus, the Russian Orthodox church in which I got married -- and presumably the Russian Orthodox church which these characters attend -- is Russian in ethnicity only, without any hierarchical ties to the Russian state church (which, of course, was regularly dogged at that time by allegations that it was too chummy with the Soviets). So it is interesting that this film, much of which is centred around a Russian Orthodox church in America and on the parishioners who proudly assert their Americanness, would be set right around the time that they were coming into their own, so to speak, and becoming a truly American church rather than a "mission" of some foreign church. I wonder if that was a coincidence. At any rate, it was still a rather new development when the film came out in 1978, so it might have been on the filmmakers' minds; it wouldn't have been the sort of thing you would have had to read about in a history book or something.
The IMDb says John Cazale died shortly after filming was completed -- and apparently he was engaged to co-star Meryl Streep at the time. What a sad but proud distinction, to have co-starred in only five films, ALL of which were nominated for Best Picture (and three of them won). (The other two winners were the two Godfather films, in which Cazale played Fredo. The two non-winning nominees were The Conversation -- which lost to The Godfather Part II! -- and Dog Day Afternoon.)
More thoughts later, if any occur to me.
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