The Deer Hunter 1978

Looking back, I saw this film when it first came out and remember it as a De Niro film but didn't remember Meryl Streep was even in it. Her performance lead to a best supporting actress nomination and of course this film won best picture of the year.

I was alive during the Vietnam war. When they were younger, my kids asked me if I was a hippy and they really wished I had been. Truth is I was obvilious to the world around me in the 60's, I was only 10 in 1968. My parents lived a relatively conservative life. Dad worked for Lockheed and Mom stayed home and helped out at the school. There was a lot going on outside my little world.

This film starts out with a group of buddies in Pennsylvania working blue collar jobs in the steel mill on their last weeks before heading to Vietnam. They've enlisted to contribute to what they believe is a noble cause. Steven (John Savage) marries his pregnant girlfriend, Nick (Christopher Walken) is dating Linda (Meryl Streep) and Michael (Robert De Niro) is also in love with Meryl Streep's character.

Because a cloud formation tells them the hunting is good, a bunch of the guys head out to the hills. De Niro kills a deer and the group of them seem to get high on the kill.

When they get to Vietnam, they find a country in chaos. The film proceeds to show us the horrors we have come to know were the Vietnam war. The Viet Cong did not discriminate against women and children, they killed anyone. The three buddies were captured by the Viet Cong and were forced to play russian roulette as an example of one form of torture. There appeared to be no purpose beyond self preservation and survival.

The war changed the three of them profoundly in different ways. Steven would go on to lose his legs and could not bare to come home to his wife and child. Nick tried to contact Linda but what would he tell her, how would he explain what he had been through? Nick ultimately shot himself in a game of russian roulette of his own desire. Michael returns home to Linda a changed person. The life has somehow died out in him.

Meryl Streep's character, just as many who did not experience first hand the horrors of this war, tried to understand but there was no way that she ever would.

When Michael heads back out to the mountain to hunt, he finds himself unable to kill. He goes on to observe others enjoying life, but how could he surpress the horrible memories and bring himself to smile or laugh again? I guess some of them did with time. Very sad film.