Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter directed by Michael Cimino.  With Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage. An in-depth examination of the way that the Vietnam war affects the lives of people in a small industrial town in the USA.

The Deer Hunter Synopsis

The Deer Hunter is an epic 1978 American war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Rusyn American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, a small working class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh and then in Vietnam, somewhere in woodland and in Saigon, during the Vietnam War. It is loosely inspired by the German novel Three Comrades (1937), by World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque, the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, which follows the lives of a trio of German World War I veterans in 1920s Weimar Germany.

The Deer Hunter meditates on and explores the consequences (both moral and mental) of battle and the effects of politically-manipulated patriotism upon common values (friendship, honor, family, and the like) in a tightly-knit community. It deals with such controversial issues as suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, infidelity and mental illness. The scenes of Russian roulette, while highly controversial on release, have been viewed as a metaphor for the Vietnam War itself.[1] The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It was also named by the American Film Institute as the 53rd Greatest Movie of All Time on the 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.[2]

[1]Ebert, Roger (March 9, 1979). The Deer Hunter. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved April 30th, 2010.

[2]"AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx.