From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Deer Hunter
Directed by	Michael Cimino
Produced by	Barry Spikings Michael Deeley Michael Cimino John Peverall
Written by	Deric Washburn (story & screenplay) Michael Cimino Louis Garfinkle Quinn K. Redeker (story)
Starring	Robert De Niro Christopher Walken John Cazale Meryl Streep John Savage Anthony Cimino
Music by	Stanley Myers
Cinematography	Vilmos Zsigmond
Distributed by	Universal Studios (US) EMI Films (non-US)
Release date(s)	December 8, 1978
Running time	182 min.
Country	United States
Language	English Russian Vietnamese French
Budget	US$15,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Deer Hunter (1978) is an American film about a trio of Rusyn American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. It is loosely inspired by the German novel Three Comrades (1937), by World War I army veteran Erich Maria Remarque, that follows the lives of a trio of World War I veterans in 1920s Weimar Germany. Like that novel, The Deer Hunter meditates and explores the moral and mental consequences of war violence and politically-manipulated patriotism upon the meaning of friendship, honor, and family in a tightly-knit community.

The film features Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep. The story occurs in southern Vietnam and in working-class Clairton, Pennsylvania, a Monongahela River town south of Pittsburgh. It was filmed in the Pittsburgh area; Cleveland and Mingo Junction, Ohio; Weirton, West Virginia; the North Cascades National Park, Washington State, the Patpong region of Bangkok, Thailand (as the Saigon red light district), and in Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand.

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Act one 1.2 Act two 1.3 Act three 2 Credits 2.1 Producers 3 Cast 4 Filming locations 5 Awards and recognition 6 DVD releases 7 Miscellanea 8 References 9 External links

Thematically ambitious, The Deer Hunter is in three acts: life before war, life in war, and life after war. In the late 1960s, Rusyn-American steel workers Mike, Steven, Nick, Stanley, John, and Axel are preparing for two rites of passage: marriage and military service. Mike, Steven, and Nick are reporting to the U.S. Army and headed to fight the war in Vietnam. Steven is marrying the day before leaving to the army; excepting bridegroom Steven, all the friends go on a last deer hunting trip.

The first act depicts their Western Pennsylvania life at work, at home, at the bar, and at church. Steven is marrying Angela in a stately shotgun wedding (her pregnancy by another man implied and later confirmed when Steven tells Nick he's not "done it with Angela"). Afterwards, the bride and bridegroom exit the church to the strains of Mnohaja lita (God Grant You Many Years) to a wild reception with drunken singing and dancing to Ukrainian and Russian traditional music in the the local VFW hall. The reception's dual purpose: celebrating the marital and martial rites of passage.

In the background saloon of the hall, away from the celebration, a returned Green Beret sergeant is drinking heavily; a fore shadow upon the friends. After almost provoking a fistfight with the sergeant, Mike drunkenly streaks through the neighbourhood; catching up with him, Nick makes him promise to not abandon him in Vietnam.

Next day, on the final, pre-war hunt, Mike, the community's best deer hunter, berates Stanley being unprepared and forgetting his boots. Preparedness, as an existential theme is visually developed in the primitivism of the hunt, and the hunting ground as a spiritual place, all underscored with Eastern Orthodox liturgical music. The Deer Hunter, Mike, kills his prey and mounts it as trophy atop the hood of his 1959 Cadillac car. After the hunt, on the night before the comrades leave for war, John, their barkeep, plays Chopin's Nocturne in G-minor, Opus 15, No. 3, a bridge returning them from the primitive elation of hunting to the refined calm of civilization. The music's introspective mood communicates their fraternal love for each other, and contrasts their first-world modernity with the primitivity of the third-world peasants against whom they will soon war.

The second act depicts their infantry combat in Vietnam; Mike, a special forces sergeant, fortuitously encounters Steven and Nick shortly after they disembark from a 101st Airborne infantry helicopter assault on a village. Shortly before that, Mike, the lone survivor of his ambushed Green Beret unit, incinerates with a flamethrower a North Vietnam Army scout who has just killed villagers hiding in a spider hole. The three comrades' battlefield reunion is brief; the NVA are attacking to capture the pro-American village; mortar explosions end the reunion.

The NVA capture and deliver them to the local Viet Cong. In a riverside prisoner of war camp, they are among several U.S. Army and ARVN prisoners. The bored guards gamble for entertainment, ordering their PoWs to play Russian roulette. All three play; Steven survives his turn with a slight wound and is punished by incarceration to an underwater cage. Believing Steven broken, Mike considers abandoning him; Nick angrily rejects Mike's consideration.

Nick and Mike play each other. To engineer their escape, Mike bluffs the drunken Communist Vietnamese jailors to allow their revolver three bullets. The Vietnamese are elated by the American's insanity, and increase their wagers. Mike and Nick each survive a round despite the revolver's three bullets. On Mike's second turn, he quickly shoots and kills the tormenting head jailor; they then overpower, disarm, and kill the other jailors with their own weapons. After rescuing Steve and escaping downriver on a floating tree, an American helicopter rescues them, but only Nick succeeds; the weak Steven falls to the river; Mike follows him in rescue. Steve breaks his legs in the fall; Mike carries him to friendly lines.

Meanwhile, the psychologically dead Nick is recuperating in a military hospital in Saigon. Afterwards, he aimlessly searches for Mike in the red light district. After an aborted tryst with a prostitute, Nick encounters Julién Grinda, a champagne-drinking Frenchman outside of a gambling den featuring Russian Roulette. Grinda entices Nick to participate, then leads him in to the den. Unbeknownst to Nick, Mike is in the crowd, as a gambler. Though Mike sees Nick, they do not reunite. Angered by the false machismo of the non-warrior, Nick calls the bluff of the rigged game, spoils the gambling, and is ejected from the den. After fighting with the bouncer, the American and the Frenchman are chased from the den to Grinda's sports car. To aid their escape, Nick tosses money into the air, stopping the pursuing angry crowd. From amongst the crowd, Mike calls to Nick, but the noisy crowd drowns his voice.

Back in the U.S., a welcome home party is planned for Mike, but he tells the cab driver to continue down the highway, passing the house. Mike spends the night in a hotel and chooses to return to the house the next morning when Nick's girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep) is alone. Mike eventually becomes romantically involved with Linda. Although Nick and Steven are still missing, Mike, Stanley, John and Axel go on a hunting trip. Mike gets the opportunity to kill a beautiful buck, but aims away at the last second, unable to follow through with another killing. In their hunting cabin, Stan pulls out his revolver, and Axel makes a lewd comment about Stan's girlfriend. Stan becomes angry and threateningly points the gun at Axel. Mike enters the room and quickly disarms Stan, who insists the gun was empty. When Mike discovers it had been fully loaded, he empties all the rounds out of the gun except one. He spins the chamber, places the gun against Stan's head and pulls the trigger. The gun doesn't go off. He then leaves the cabin and throws the gun into the mountains.

Mike later reunites with Stevie, who has lost his legs and is partially paralyzed and recovering in a Veterans' Administration hospital. Stevie reveals that someone in Saigon has been mailing large amounts of cash to him, which indicates that Nick is still alive -- and playing Russian roulette.

Mike travels to Saigon just before its fall in 1975. With the help of the Frenchman Julién Grinda, he finds Nick in a crowded, loud roulette club, but Nick appears to have no recollection of his friends or his home in Pennsylvania. He is under the influence of heroin, and has track marks on his forearm. Mike pays the club management to face Nick in the game. During the final match, Mike tries to persuade him to come home. Mike speaks of his and Nick's time together during their deer hunting trips. Mike reminds Nick of his deer hunting philosophy, which is to only take one shot. Nick finally smiles and acknowledges Mike by repeating the words "one shot". With that, Nick raises the gun and shoots himself in the head.

Mike brings Nick's body home to America, sadly fulfilling his promise from the night of the wedding. The film ends on the morning of Nick's funeral at the Russian Orthodox parish. Singing somberly "Vichnaya Pamyat" or "Memory Eternal," the remaining friends leave the church, and the film ends with the group having a mournful breakfast together while quietly singing God Bless America.

The film was written by Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker and Deric Washburn, and directed by Cimino.

• Joann Carelli - associate producer
• Michael Cimino - producer
• Michael Deeley - producer
• John Peverall - producer
• Marion Rosenberg - associate producer
• Barry Spikings - producer

Actor	Role
Robert De Niro	Michael "Mike" Vronsky
Christopher Walken	Nikonar "Nick" Chevotarevich
John Cazale	Stanley aka "Stosh"
John Savage	Steven Pushkov
Meryl Streep	Linda
George Dzundza	John Welch
Chuck Aspegren	Peter "Axel" Axelrod
Shirley Stoler	Steven's mother
Rutanya Alda	Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov
Amy Wright	Bridesmaid
Pierre Segui	Julien Grinda
Joe Grifasi	Bandleader
Father Stephen Kopestonsky	Russian Orthodox Priest

Filming locations include:

• Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.
• Patpong, Bangkok, Thailand - the area represented red light Saigon.
• Sai Yok, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand
• North Cascades National Park, Washington State, U.S.A.
• Mingo Junction, Ohio, for the steel mills.
• Struthers, Ohio, for external house and long-range road shots

Academy Awards record
1. Best Supporting Actor, Christopher Walken
2. Best Director, Michael Cimino
3. Best Editing, Peter Zinner
4. Best Picture, Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, John Peverall
5. Best Sound, Richard Portman, William L. McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, C. Darin Knight
Golden Globe Awards record
1. Best Director, Michael Cimino
BAFTA Awards record
1. Best Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond
2. Best Editing, Peter Zinner

The Deer Hunter won Oscars in 1978 for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. In addition, it was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep), Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.

This film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It is also ranked number 53 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time^[1]

The theme song of The Deer Hunter, Cavatina, written by Stanley Myers and performed by classical guitarist John Williams is commonly known as The Theme from The Deer Hunter.

The Deer Hunter has twice been released on DVD. The first 1998 issue by Universal, with no extra features and a non-anamorphic transfer, has since been discontinued. A second version, part of the 'Legacy Series', was released as a two-disc set on September 6, 2005, with an anamorphic transfer of the film. The set features a cinematographer's commentary by Vilmos Zsigmond, interviews of the cast and crew, and deleted and extended scenes. The region-2 version of The Deer Hunter, exclusive to the UK, features a commentary track from director Michael Cimino. The film was released on HD DVD in 2006.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• During an AMC broadcast of the film, gossip said Robert De Niro requested a live bullet in the Russian Roulette revolver, to heighten the intensity of the situation.^{[citation needed]}
• To render himself ghostly, Christopher Walken exclusively ate rice, bananas, and water for the week before his death scene.
• Chuck Aspegren (Axel), was a Gary, Indiana, steelworker, in his first acting role.
• During screenings of the short version of the film, director Cimino bribed the projectionist to interrupt it, in order to obtain better reviews of the long version.
• The tie-in novel-isation opens with an epigraph by Ernest Hemingway:There is no hunt like the hunting of man; and those who have hunted other men long enough to like it, never care for anything else thereafter.
• The deer hunted in the story are Red Deer, not native to North America.
• The geography of the hunting mountain scenes clearly identifies it as the American Northwest, not the Northeast.
• The movie popularized the Vietnamese phrase Đi đi mau — which means Go faster!
• The Russian roulette scene has been parodied in The Simpsons, as well as in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and television advertisements.^{[citation needed]}
• In the finale of the film Shaun of the Dead, the protagonist wears his necktie as a sweat band, like SSG Michael Vronsky (Robert De Niro) did in combat.
• In the New Zealand movie Meet the Feebles, the Wynyrd character has a flashback to his Vietnam POW experience; he and others are caged and forced to play Russian Roulette.
• The video game Conflict: Vietnam features a play level where characters are captured by NVA troops and forced to play Russian roulette.
• The Russian roulette scene was aped in the gangs-in-schools drama film 187; local gangster-students threaten their teacher at his house, asking, "Have you seen 'Deer Hunter' Mister G?"
• All scenes involving John Cazale, who had end-stage bone cancer during the shoot, had to be filmed first. Cazale passed away shortly after filming wrapped. Because of his illness, the studio initially wanted to get rid of Cazale, but his real life girlfriend, Streep, threatened to walk if they did.
• The workers leave the mill, go to the bar and begin watching the start of a Steelers football game. That means their shift would have begun around 4 a.m. on a Sunday, which is possible, but not likely.

• The Deer Hunter Discussion forum
• The Deer Hunter at Filmsite.org
• The Deer Hunter at the Internet Movie Database
• The Deer Hunter at All Movie Guide
• The Deer Hunter at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Deer Hunter screenplay
• The Deer Hunter: Viewings of the film The Deer Hunter have been tied to a number of Russian roulette suicides (Snopes.com)
• The Deer Hunter Review
• The Deer Hunter at Unofficial french website
• The filming location Detectives have sleuthed The Deer Hunter
• Newspaper articles on the filming of The Deer Hunter

Awards
Preceded by Annie Hall	Academy Award for Best Picture 1978	Succeeded by Kramer vs. Kramer

v • d • e Films Directed by Michael Cimino
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot • The Deer Hunter • Heaven's Gate • The Pope of Greenwich Village • Year of the Dragon • The Sicilian • Desperate Hours • The Sunchaser

v • d • e Academy Award for Best Picture: Winners (1961-1980)

1961: West Side Story · 1962: Lawrence of Arabia · 1963: Tom Jones · 1964: My Fair Lady · 1965: The Sound of Music · 1966: A Man for All Seasons · 1967: In the Heat of the Night · 1968: Oliver! · 1969: Midnight Cowboy · 1970: Patton · 1971: The French Connection · 1972: The Godfather · 1973: The Sting · 1974: The Godfather Part II · 1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest · 1976: Rocky · 1977: Annie Hall · 1978: The Deer Hunter · 1979: Kramer vs. Kramer · 1980: Ordinary People Complete List · Winners (1927–1940) · Winners (1941–1960) · Winners (1981–2000) · Winners (2001– )

v • d • e American films of the 1970s
1970 •1971 •1972 •1973 •1974 •1975 •1976 •1977 •1978 •1979