The Steelworker Who Hunts The Deer and Plays Russian Roulette

A Throwback 

 

    With the 250th year of this country, and more importantly my 40th review, known as the United States reaching a milestone of showing off that it only took 250 years to reach such a state shit of existence though the greatest question of: was America ever great in the first place? still needs to be answered. I don't have an answer to give but at this momentous time, it only makes sense to look back at American history and reflect on one of the biggest wars of the past to echo for 40 plus years. The failure being known as the Vietnam war.

A war that was initiated to stop the communist dominoes from falling and spreading their red influence over the rest of the world but all that came out of it was too many dead civilians, too many dead American soldiers, and a solidified guarantee that the military industrial complex will grow forever like the deadly cancer it is. 

    In the years that follow the war, there will be movies about it and the one that I have on the forefront of my mind is Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter.

 

I always thought this poster was dumb

    Though I did have a quick thought of writing about that John Wayne movie The Green Beret's because if there was ever a comedy of errors, its that film all the way.

Aldo Ray is pretty good in the movie though 

A Quick History

    I have been reading the book Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film that Sank United Artists – A Witty Insider Account of Epic Hollywood Disaster and Human Absurdity which with a blowhard title such as that you wouldn't expect much but it surpasses expectations and delivers the goods about how Michael Cimino's third film Heavens Gate destroyed a studio which is still a verdict still needing to be presented for me to believe it but the book is good so far. It's possible in the near future I might do a proper book review of this but as I continue reading this text, I come around to the notion that I need to re-watch The Deer Hunter. For this was the film that granted Mr. Cimino carte blanche to make Heaven's Gate.

    A film that looked to have come out of nowhere and steal the show at the 1979 Oscars ceremony. A new hot director with only his 2nd film. Though not his debut film, as that would be Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, this one can be considered his first personal film. For his debut was a stepping stone and introduction to the film industry that he was a guy that was able to complete a film on time and on budget without any issue. A lesson that he would forego as time went, for there were several issues throughout the production of The Deer Hunter, by the time he made his third film.

    Now, I had seen this particular film a couple of times over the years though it was never one to be placed as a favorite of all time. The first time was in high school, during the true blooming years of movie watching, and at the time I thought it was good. It wasn't great but in high school you focus on the more exhilarating stuff such as the Russian roulette sequences and the hunting. The character stuff as well but it doesn't really connect well when one is in their late teens. I would watch the film a couple more times over the years, probably about 3 since those late teens into my late 20's, and as now I am in my 59th year of existence; I have seen it once more with a new clarity.

The Film in 3 Parts

Part 1

    As the film is broken into 3 parts, I have no choice but to write about each section. 

    The first part of the film is showcasing an untarnished America that has never existed but is one that we, or a particular niche in American society, idolize or fantasize as having existed before it all went to shit. Though I cannot agree with this on personal terms, its interesting to see how well it works in bringing these characters to life.

    The film following this group of small town American guys but the main three: Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage) are the main main guys but you get a good amount of side characters, with a very strong performance from John Cazale as Stanley, that help bolster the characters and bring depth to it all. These are hardworking Americans celebrating their lives for what they have and ultimately coming together for Steven's wedding. 

    One of the more interesting parts to the film is that this portion is told through the lens of these characters as being first generation. All of them having ancestry from the early 1900's Eastern European influx in the Eastern part of the country. The setting is Small Town, Pennsylvania though I believe some of the exteriors are shot in Cleveland since there was a panel of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor #8 showing off the landscapes to Wallace Shawn during the time of My Dinner with Andre.

    As the men clock out of their steel mill gig, get cheers for heading off to Vietnam, and then go to the local bar to have some early morning drinks you get the notion that Michael Cimino isn't all that interested in the personal relationships between man and woman. 

    Meryl Streep is in the film playing the character of Linda who is just a woman that just gets beaten down, rejected and is hardly there on the page but even with a lack of actual character, Streep brings a real sense of loss and wanting that the character suffers from. 

    What matters to Cimino is the interpersonal relationships between men. Men dealing with their own sense of insecurity, their lack of communication, but most of all the lack of emotional acceptance to this force called love. 

    Now during this whole hour that introduces the main characters, Michael is the odd man out of the bunch. Completely reserved and unto himself. He plays everything close to the chest. Everyone else around him is alive and open to the world but Michael cannot exist this way. The people around him are more of acquaintances that he grew up alongside more so than friends. He sticks to being a wallflower to fit in except when it comes to Nick. His one true and only friend. He won't admit but its plain to see in his eyes that he needs Nick in his life. Both Nick and Hunting. As hunting is the only place where he can feel totally in tune with the present and to some semblance of accepting his existence. Which is why he's so adamant on going hunting even though they have to go to a wedding.
    And what a beautiful wedding ceremony it is. Eastern Orthodox, I suppose Russian?, ceremony for Steven and Angela (Rutanya Alda) and its spectacular. The gravitas that Cimino shows off in this sequence with the way he shot it and the drama through just looks. Nick looking at Linda then Linda looking at Michael and Michael just trying to avoid eye contact. From this comes the reception where everyone is just having the best of time. The only sour note coming from the 3 main characters interaction with a returning Green Beret who they antagonize into trying to tell them a war story but all he can reply with is: "Fuck It."

    The only worthwhile advice one can give when it comes to that place. The reception winds down and the newlyweds leave with Michael and Nick chasing them down. Michael this whole time avoiding hitting dancing floor and being with the crowd and instead drinks and drinks and becomes more and more uninhibited. So much so that he strips himself down as he runs down the street. Nick chasing him and the two sharing a a small silent moment together. Not much said but that's more than enough for the both of them.

    The Hunt. From that early morning end to the wedding, the remaining cast of characters drive off into the mountains to go hunting. Fun is had on the way up to the mountain but as soon as they arrive, a situation grows. Stanley having forgotten his boots wants to borrow Michael's. He says no but Nick defuses the situation by letting him take the boots. Michael relenting. 

    A crucial moment as Michael cements his philosophy of the world to the rest of them for the first time. Holding out a rifle bullet and stating "This is this. This ain't something else. This is this." while the rebuke Stanley gives is calling Michael out as being a homosexual since he never wants to hook up with any of the women. 

    This is quite possibly the most important scene as it is the only moment when Michael is able to express himself. It's the only snapshot of how this guy has been living all these years. Believing that the individual on their own is all that matters. It breaks down the coldness of the character, of the self-exile, and of the self hatred. 

   Can I definitely say it is the most significant moment of the film? Most likely. Maybe. I don't know. I need coffee. Then there's the hunting scene itself and what a scene. So much so that one must watch it and even that is insignificant to what the power of it all.

    After that fantastic scene, the first hour winds down and ends on their celebratory return to town with the deer on the hood of the car. Late night beers in the bar and John Welsh (George Dzundza) sitting down at the piano and playing some Chopin as the men settle down and watch. The piano playing on as the movie shifts into high gear as the setting changes to Vietnam

Part 2

    Vietnam. Shit's fucking tough. Michael has apparently gone through Green Beret training and we catch up with him at the end of a mission that went bad. He was the only one in his group to survive and kills an enemy combatant without hesitation with a flame thrower when he wakes up. Nick and Steve get dropped off via helicopter at Michael's location and the three meet up for the first time in a long time from the looks of it but then enemy bombing cuts the meeting short.

    They are taken as prisoners of war in some desolate river cabin by Vietnamese persons. Whether or not soldiers, this cannot be determined. It just seems like the three along with other American and American allied troops are stuck in this hell. I remember reading a theory somewhere that the three had actually died and this is their purgatory but nothing verifiable to support this can be found.

    The soldiers are then forced to take part in the fun parlor game of Russian Roulette. All for the enjoyment of the Vietnamese who place bets on who'll shoot themselves and who'll pull the trigger to an empty barrel. Absolute brutality that will go a long way in giving the Vietnamese no leeway in being anything other a villain. But even with this shortsightedness, the film does an amazing job in creating this insanely intense sequence that goes on and on to reach this violent climax.

    Watching it now is interesting to see about the actual intent of these moments being used as a metaphor but also I am now in the belief now that Michael Cimino could not have realized any of this without the effort of Deric Washburn.
    Apparently, through the Wikipedia of the film so take what I say with a grain of salt, the original script, The Man Who Came to Play, was about something entirely different. A story about men going to Las Vegas to play Russian roulette. Cimino was given the script and had questioned the purpose of the Russian roulette sequence when first dealing with the material as that doesn't seem to be something, this only being conjecture, that he probably couldn't make heads or tail of. This indifference though leaves me to theorize that maybe he just didn't know what to do with the material when it first began. 
    Watching the various other films of Cimino that I have had access to, he always seems to come off as the type of filmmaker that isn't interested in containing metaphor or subtext in his films. If you look at Heaven's Gate, everything on the screen is on the screen. If you look at Year of the Dragon, whats there on the screen is the screen. He has a sense of a maximalist while also striving for perfection. Each of those films are as, for a lack of a better term, blatant as can be and done in a very beautiful way but there is nothing in between the scenes and so the mise-en-scene is straight forward. 

    The characters in those films are wholly his and exist in a similar manner of those in The Deer Hunter. Aloof, idealized, masculine with something sensitive hidden underneath the surface but then again, this is probably just the interpretation of the material by the actors. There is a reason why the first hour of this film is strictly about the characters. He just loves these types of people or at least the imagery of these people.
    For the Russian Roulette scene though, and in this one in particular, which is the crux of these characters being forced to change their entire being, it seems as though this idea was something he could not latch onto until somebody came along, Deric Washburn in this case, and set it up to became the end all be all metaphor for surviving combat in the Vietnam war. 

    The smallish scope of the film following just these characters wouldn't allow for big scenes of these three going to boot camp, getting orders for missions, or fighting in the jungles in a platoon with other soldiers. There is no room for any of that in this and so to centralize the violence, the anguish, and pain into this 1 consolidated idea is the perfect metaphor for the war as a whole. This idea being nothing new as I believe Roger Ebert had written about it in his review or to some rebuttal but it was one that I can only now feel is the only way to see the movie as a whole.

    So the three manage to make their escape by luckily being seen by a Huey chopper flying past them. Nick manages to get in the helicopter while Michael and Steven are holding on to the landing skids. The chopper tries to get them out but Steven loses his grip and falls in the river and Michael follows right after. Steven comes up with both legs broken and Michael carries him on his back. Reaching a trail of persons leaving and manages to get Steven on an army jeep. He himself having to walk alongside the rest of them.

    Nick ends up at a hospital where he's questioned about his real name which the doctor asks if its Russian but Nick corrects him and tells him its American. Nick, now disillusioned with what has to be some real fucked up PTSD and guilt for being the sole survivor, wanders the streets of Saigon and falls in with a Frenchman who talks of a game being played nearby. A body is taken out and Nick is persuaded to enter the parlor and watches two men sit at a table while a referee/announcer handles the bullet and the revolver. Nick gets mad at the slow pace of the gun and breaks the game by grabbing the pistol and pulling the trigger over and over without hesitation.

    The game breaks, all bets are off, and Nick is being funneled out by the Frenchman who sees a good deal of money in Nick. Michael was in the crowd the entire time and only too late does he try and catch up with Nick. The Frenchman and him driving off into the night with Michael standing in the middle of the road.

Part 3 

    The return home. There are a lot of Vietnam movies that delve into the coming home process but this film in particular showcases the truest part of it all in that the rest of the world stays the same. Nothing has changed. For better or for worse, life is at a stand still and I think it's probably the most realistic aspect I have seen of soldiers coming home. The mundane air of it all being in sharp contrast to the high energy/anxiety they had to deal with overseas.

    Michael comes back but doesn't want any of the attention that a soldier coming home would get. There isn't guilt or anything that is fueling this but just his being. He is as reclusive as ever but with medals and a fancy uniform, he needs to be paraded around. He ends up having a relationship of sorts with Linda and it's here that the movie changes back into the interpersonal drama it always has been. 

    Michael comes back trying to assimilate himself into the role that Nick played. To have the girl, to be more involved with his friends, and ultimately try to wholly achieve this role by being able to hunt. None of this is possible though. Nick is the fundamental person he needs in his life. He tries to hunt down a deer just like he did in the beginning but he can't kill it. He is no longer able to just be in the moment. 

    He meets up with Steven, who no longer has the use of his legs or left arm, and brings him home against his will. Needing him more than Steven needing Michael now. Though in their meeting, Steven reveals that Nick is still alive. Sending him money and wooden elephants. After failing his hunt and failing in being able to be the hero soldier returning home, Michael travels back to Vietnam. The air of defeat in the air as Saigon is just about to fall. 

    It is as though Michael traveled onto the set of Apocalypse Now but just now in the urban part of the cinematic Vietnam hellscape.

    He finds the Frenchman that had put Nick into the Russian roulette games and has him help him find Nick. Michael pays his way inside but Nick ain't listening to what he has to say. Forcing him to go face to face with Nick in order to talk to him. They play the game but its here and only here with the possibility of death and gun to his head where Michael truly revels his innermost feeling. His love for Nick. 

    In this story, the only true love that exists is one that Man has for another Man. Tears streaming down his face for Nick to realize it and Nick smiles that he does. Then he grabs the gun and puts it against his head and pulls the trigger. Ending his life and banishing Michael to his loneliness as he mourns and cry as his best friend bleeds to death in front of him. 

 

The Coda

 

    Michael brings Nick back and they have a funeral for the guy. After burying him, they all go back to the bar to have breakfast. Trying their best to go through the motions but everyone is on the verge of breaking down until they hear John in the kitchen start to sing and hum to himself God Bless America. Soon enough, everyone at the table begins to sing the song and the last words they say is 'For Nick'. 

    I don't know but I've always had a tough time figuring out what was being meant in this final moment. I still have trouble trying to understand it to be honest. Is it just the notion of American jingoism to try and bring some concept of a beautiful ending to something so tragic and preventable? Is it just of immigrants in a country singing for a country they still believe in even though it has taken one of their own? I can only attribute it to what I have seen in the beginning which is of Cimino's idealization when it comes to small town America. That even though a death is tragic there is something of an idolized farewell that they can give to the deceased. All of them singing God Bless America is what they need and the only way to move forward even though the reality of it all is that it's far from that.

The Film Now

    Watching the film now as an older person and I connect with it a bit more. There some sense of inner reflection needed to verify whether I am more connected to it via the idolized America or because the film itself is great, which it is, and that is the end all be all reason. It's still probably top 3 of Michael Cimino's films but I still have yet to see the directors cut of The Sicilian or The Sunchaser but most likely this will be in the top 3 for certain. 

pretty good poster
 

    There are certain films that are easier to become more attached to when getting older. Like Bergman's Wild Strawberries, The Deer Hunter is another one of these kind of films. Losing connection with people we meet in this lifetime and wishing that it can go back to what it was but having to accept it can never be.     For some its easier to deal with but nonetheless is something we must all confront in our own way. Hopefully healthier than the self destructive nature that some have no choice but to face.