The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter

Theatrical poster
Directed by Michael Cimino
Produced by Barry Spikings
Michael Deeley
Michael Cimino
John Peverall
Written by Story:
Quinn K. Redeker
Deric Washburn
Michael Cimino
Louis Garfinkle
Screenplay:
Deric Washburn
Starring Robert De Niro
John Cazale
John Savage
Christopher Walken
Meryl Streep
George Dzundza
Music by Stanley Myers
Cinematography Vilmos Zsigmond
Editing by Peter Zinner
Studio EMI Films
Distributed by Universal Pictures (US)
EMI Films (Worldwide Sales)
Release date(s) December 8, 1978
(Limited)
February 23, 1979
(Wide)
Running time 182 minutes
Country United States
Language English, Vietnamese
Budget US$15,000,000[1]
Gross revenue US$48,979,328[1]

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.

The Deer Hunter meditates on the moral and mental consequences of battle as well as the effects of politically-manipulated patriotism upon common values (friendship, honor, family) 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. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director and was 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.

Contents

Plot

Critics and film historians have often noted how the film is divided into three equal thirds or acts. Likewise the plot synopsis is also divided into three acts, spanning the years of 1966-1974.[a 1]

Act I

In Clairton, a small working class town in Western Pennsylvania, in early 1968, Rusyn American steel workers Michael (De Niro), Steven (Savage), and Nick (Walken), with the support of their friends Stanley (Cazale), John (Dzundza) and Axel (Aspegren), are preparing for two rites of passage: marriage and military service.

The opening scenes set the character traits of the three main characters. Michael is the no-nonsense, serious but unassuming leader of the three, Steven the loving, near-groom, pecked at by his mother for not wearing a scarf with his tuxedo and Nick is the quiet, introspective man who loves hunting because, "I like the trees...you know...the way the trees are..." The recurring theme of "one shot," which is how Michael prefers to take down a deer, is introduced.

Before the trio ships out, Steven and his girlfriend, Angela (who is pregnant by another man but loved by Steven nonetheless) get married in an elaborate Russian Orthodox wedding. In the meantime, Michael must contain his own feelings for Nick's lovely but pensive girlfriend Linda (Streep), who has just moved out of her abusive father's house.

At the wedding reception held at the local VFW, the guys all get drunk, dance, sing and have a good time, but then notice an Army Green Beret in full dress uniform sitting at the end of the bar. Michael buys the soldier a drink and tries to strike up a conversation with him to find out what Vietnam is like, but the soldier ignores Michael. After Michael confronts him to explain that he, Steven and Nick are going to Vietnam, the Green Beret raises his glass and says "fuck it" to everyone's shock and amazement. Obviously disturbed and under mental anguish, the Green Beret again toasts them with "fuck it." After being restrained by the others from starting a fight with the Green Beret, Michael goes back to the bar with the others and in a mocking jest to the Green Beret, raises his glass and toasts him with "fuck it." The Green Beret then glances over at Michael and grins smugly, knowing exactly what Michael and the others will face.

Later, during the wedding toast to Steven and Angela, a toast with a tradition of good luck for the couple who drinks from conjoined goblets without spilling a drop, a drop of blood-red wine unknowingly spills on her wedding gown, again foreshadowing the coming events. Near the end of the reception, Nick asks Linda to marry him, and she agrees. Later that night, after a drunk and naked Michael runs through the streets of town, Nick chases him down and begs Michael not to leave him "over there" if anything happens. The next day, Michael and the remaining friends go deer hunting one last time, and Michael again scores a deer with "one shot."

Act II

The film then jumps abruptly to a war-torn village, where U.S. helicopters attack a communist occupied Vietnamese village with napalm. A North Vietnamese soldier throws a stick grenade into a hiding place full of civilians. An unconscious Mike (now a staff sergeant in the Army Special Forces) wakes up to see the NVA soldier shoot a woman carrying a baby. In revenge Mike burns the NVA with a flame thrower and then shoots him numerous times with an M16. Meanwhile a unit of UH-1 helicopters drops off several US infantrymen, Nick and Steven among them. Michael, Steven, and Nick unexpectedly find each other just before they are captured and held together in a riverside prisoner of war camp with other US Army and ARVN prisoners. For entertainment, the sadistic guards force their prisoners to play Russian roulette and gamble on the outcome.

All three friends are forced to play. Steven aims the gun above his head, grazing himself with the bullet and is punished by incarceration to an underwater cage, full of rats and the bodies of others who earlier faced the same fate. Michael and Nick manage to kill their captors and escape. Mike had earlier argued with Nick about whether Steven could be saved but after killing their captors he rescues Steven.

The three float downriver on a tree branch. An American helicopter accidentally finds them, but only Nick is able to climb aboard. The weakened Steven falls back into water and Mike plunges in the water to rescue him. Unluckily, Steven breaks both legs in the fall. Mike helps him to reach the river bank, and then carries him through the jungle to friendly lines. Nick is psychologically damaged and recuperating in a military hospital in Saigon with no knowledge on the status of his friends. At night, he aimlessly stumbles through the red-light district. At one point, he encounters Julien Grinda (Pierre Segui), a champagne-drinking friendly Frenchman outside a gambling den where men play Russian roulette for money. Grinda entices the reluctant Nick to participate, and leads him into the den. Mike is present in the den, watching the game, but the two friends do not notice each other at first. When Mike does see Nick, he is unable to get his attention. Mike cannot catch up with Nick and Grinda as they speed away.

Act III

Back in the U.S., Mike returns home but maintains a low profile. He tells the cab driver to pass by the house where all his friends are assembled, as he is embarrassed by the fuss made over him by Linda and the others. Mike goes to a hotel and struggles with his feelings, as he thinks both Nick and Steven are dead or missing. He eventually visits Linda and grows close to her, but only because of the friend they both think they have lost. Mike goes hunting with Axel, John and Stanley one more time, and after tracking a beautiful deer across the woods, takes his "one shot" but pulls the rifle up and fires into the air, unable to take another life. He then sits on a rock escarpment and yells out, "OK?", which echoes back at him from the opposing rock faces leading down to the river, signifying his fight with his mental demons over losing Steven and Nick. He also berates Stanley for carrying around a small revolver and waving it around, not realizing it is still loaded. He knows the horror of war and wants no part of it anymore.

Mike is eventually told about Angela, whom he goes to visit at the home of Steven's mother. She is lethargic and barely responsive. She writes a phone number on a scrap of paper, which leads Mike to the local veterans' hospital where Steven has been for several months. He has lost both his legs and is partially paralyzed. Mike visits Steven, who reveals that someone in Saigon has been mailing large amounts of cash to him, and Mike is convinced that it is Nick. Mike brings Steven home to Angela and then travels to Saigon just before its fall in 1975. He tracks down the Frenchman Grinda, who has made a lot of money from the Russian-roulette-playing American.

He finds Nick in a crowded roulette club, but Nick appears to have no recollection of his friends or his home in Pennsylvania. Mike sees the needle tracks on his arm, a sign of drug abuse. He realizes that Nick thinks he (Michael) and Steven are dead, since he is the only one who made it back on the helicopter. Mike enters himself in a game of Russian roulette against Nick, attempting to persuade him to come home, but Nick's mind is gone. In the last moment, after Mike's attempts to remind him of their trips hunting together, he finally breaks through, and Nick recognizes Mike and smiles. Nick then tells Mike, "one shot" and raises the gun to his temple and pulls the trigger. The bullet is in the gun chamber and Nick kills himself. Horrified, Michael tries to revive him to no avail.

Epilogue

Back in America in 1974, there is a funeral for Nick, whom Michael brings home, good to his promise. The film ends with the whole cast at their friends bar, singing "God Bless America" and toasting in Nick's honor.

Production

Pre-production

When the movie was being planned during the mid-1970s, Vietnam was still a taboo subject with all major Hollywood studios.[2] According to producer Michael Deeley, the standard response was "no American would want to see a picture about Vietnam".[2] English Company EMI Films (headed by Sir Bernard Delfont) initially arranged financing.[3] Universal got involved with the picture at a much later stage.[4] Scouts for the film traveled over 100,000 miles by plane, bus, and car to find locations for filming. The initial budget of the film was $8.5 million.[5]

The picture reunited producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley; the two had previously collaborated on the cult classic The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Development

The film began with a spec script called "The Man Who Came To Play", written by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker. Producer Deeley purchased the first draft script from Garfinkle–Redeker for $19,000.[2] "The screenplay had struck me as brilliant," wrote Deeley, "but it wasn't complete. The trick would be to find a way to turn a very clever piece of writing into a practical, realizable film."[6] After consulting various Hollywood agents, Deeley found writer-director Michael Cimino, represented by Stan Kamen at the William Morris Agency.[6] Deeley was impressed by Cimino's work on Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and "a few visually pleasing TV commercials".[6][7] Cimino himself was confident that he could further develop the principal characters of The Man Who Came To Play without losing the essence of the original.[7] While Garfinkle and Redeker had nothing to do with the writing or filming of The Deer Hunter, they ultimately shared a "Story By" writer's credit with Cimino and Washburn due to a Writers Guild arbitration process.[7]

Screenplay

Cimino worked for six weeks with Deric Washburn on the script before firing him.[8] Cimino and Washburn had previously collaborated with Stephen Bochco on the screenplay for Silent Running. According to Cimino, he would call Washburn while on the road scouting for locations and feed him notes on dialogue and story. Upon reviewing Washburn's draft, Cimino said, "I came back, and read it and I just could not believe what I read. It was like it was written by some body who was... mentally deranged."[8] Cimino confronted Washburn at the Studio Marquis in LA about the draft and Washburn supposedly replied that he couldn't take the pressure and had to go home.[8]

Cimino would later claim to have written the entire screenplay himself,[8] although a WGA arbitration awarded Washburn sole "Screenplay By" credit. All four writers, Garfinkle, Redeker, Cimino, and Washburn, received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for this film.

In the original script, the roles of Mike and Nick were reversed in the last half of the film. Nick returns home to Linda, while Mike remains in Vietnam, sends money home to help Steven, and meets his tragic fate at the Russian roulette table.[9]

Casting

Shooting

This was the first feature film depicting the Vietnam War to be filmed on location in Thailand. All scenes were shot on location (no sound stages). The cast and crew viewed large amounts of news footage from the war to ensure authenticity. The film was shot over a period of six months.

Each of the six principal male characters in the movie carried a photo in their back pocket of them all together as children so as to enhance the sense of camaraderie amongst them. As well as this, director Cimino had the props department fashion complete Pennsylvania IDs for each of them, complete with driver's licenses, medical cards and various other pieces of paraphernalia, so as to enhance each actor's sense of their character.[3]

The Wedding Scenes

The wedding scenes were filmed in the summer, but were set in the fall.[3] To accomplish a look of fall, leaves were removed from trees and painted orange. They were then reattached to the trees.[12] It took five days to film. An actual priest was cast as the priest at the wedding.[3] The choir featured in the film was the actual choir at the church. They had to sing the hymns more than 50 times. During filming, director Cimino encouraged the many extras to treat the festivities as a real wedding, so as to increase the authenticity of the scenes. Prior to filming the wedding reception, Cimino instructed the extras to take empty boxes from home and wrap them as if they were wrapping real wedding gifts and bring them to the set the next day. The fake gifts would then be used as props for the wedding reception. The extras did as they were told, however, when Cimino inspected the "props" he noticed that the "gifts" were a lot heavier than empty boxes otherwise would be. Cimino tore the wrapping paper off a few of the packages, only to find that the extras had in fact wrapped real gifts for the "wedding". Rutanya Alda actually struck her head quite hard on the doorway during the first take while being carried out of the reception hall; this is why the scene includes John Savage warning her in the take which was used.

The Bar

The bar was specially constructed in an empty storefront in Mingo Junction, Ohio for $25,000; it later became an actual saloon for local steel mill workers.[3] U.S. Steel allowed filming inside its Cleveland mill, including placing the actors around the furnace floor, only after securing a $5 million insurance policy.[3] When the guys are leaving the factory and heading to Welsh's Lounge, Nick (Walken) encourages Michael (De Niro) to drive faster. In real life, Walken has a phobia of going too fast in cars.

Hunting the Deer

Dzundza completely blows the toast line when the group arrives in the mountains the first time. His reaction is legitimate, and a few of the other actors can be seen laughing in response. According to the film's cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, the scene where the deer is shot by Michael (De Niro) was filmed by giving the trained deer a sedative; it took half an hour for the drug to take effect; they had fenced off an area limiting the deer's range and two cameras were used. The deer which Michael allows to get away was actually an elk - the same one often used on commercials for Hartford Insurance.[13] The crew had a very difficult time trying to get the elk to look at them, as it was apparently used to various noises; it finally looked at them when someone in the crew yawned.

Vietnam

De Niro and Savage performed their own stunts in the fall into the river, filming the 30ft drop 15 times in two days. During the helicopter stunt, the runners caught on the ropes and as the helicopter rose, it threatened to seriously injure De Niro and Savage. The actors gestured and yelled furiously to the crew in the helicopter to warn them. Footage of this is included in the film.[14]

According to Cimino, De Niro requested a live bullet in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, to heighten the intensity of the situation. Cazale agreed without protest,[8] but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to make sure that the live round wasn't next in the chamber.[3] Director Cimino convinced Walken to spit in De Niro's face. When Walken actually did it, De Niro was completely shocked, as evidenced by his reaction in the film. In fact, De Niro was so furious about it he nearly left the set. Cimino later said of Walken, "He's got courage!" The cast and crew slept on the floor of the warehouse where the Saigon Russian roulette sequences were shot. The scene where Savage is yelling, "Michael, there's rats in here, Michael" as he is stuck in the river is actually Savage yelling at the director because of his fear of rats which were infesting the river area. He was yelling for the director to pull him out of the water because of the rats. The slapping in the Russian roulette sequences was 100% authentic. The actors grew very agitated by the constant slapping, which, naturally, added to the realism of the scenes.

Filming Locations

Music

Post production

Director Cimino spent five months mixing the soundtrack. Since this was his first Dolby film, he was eager to exploit the technology to its fullest potential. A short battle sequence, for example, (200 feet of film) took five days to dub. For the re-creation of the American evacuation of Saigon, he accompanied composer Stanley Myers to the location and had him listen to the sounds of vehicles, tanks, and jeep horns as the sequence was being filmed. Myers then composed music for the sequence in the same key as the horns, so that it would blend with the images creating one truly bleak experience.

Release

Deer Hunter was released for a one week engagement in New York and Los Angeles for Oscar consideration on December 8, 1978.[16][17] The film was given a wide release on February 23, 1979[16] and eventually grossed $48,979,328 at the box office.[1]

CBS paid $3.5 million for three runs of the film. The network later cancelled the acquisition on the contractually permitted grounds of the film containing too much violence for US network transmission.[18]

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.[8]

Analysis

Controversy over Russian Roulette

One of the most talked-about sequences in the film, the Vietcong's use of Russian Roulette with POWs was criticized as being contrived and unrealistic since there were no documented cases of Russian Roulette in the Vietnam War.[19][20] Director Cimino was also criticized for one-sidedly portraying all the North Vietnamese as despicable, sadistic racists and killers. Cimino countered that his film was not political, polemical, literally accurate, or posturing for any particular point of view.[20] He further defended his position by saying that he had news clippings from Singapore that confirm Russian Roulette was used during the war (without specifying which article).[8]

During the Berlin International Film Festival in 1979, the Soviet delegation expressed its indignation with the film which, in their opinion, insulted the Vietnamese people in numerous scenes. The socialist states felt obliged to voice their solidarity with the “heroic people of Vietnam”. They protested against the screening of the film and insisted that it violated the statutes of the festival, since it in no way contributed to the “improvement of mutual understanding between the peoples of the world”.[21] The ensuing domino effect led to the walk-outs of the Cubans, East Germans, Bulgarians, Poles and Czechoslovakians, and two members of the jury resigned in sympathy.

In his review, Roger Ebert defended the artistic license of Russian Roulette, arguing "it is the organizing symbol of the film: Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole. It is a brilliant symbol because, in the context of this story, it makes any ideological statement about the war superfluous."[22]

Film critic & biographer David Thomson also agrees that the film works despite the controversy: "There were complaints that the North Vietnamese had not employed Russian roulette. It was said that the scenes in Saigon were fanciful or imagined. And it was suggested that De Niro, Christoher Walken, and John Savage were too old to have enlisted for Vietnam (Savage, the youngest of the three, was thirty). Three decades later, 'imagination' seems to have stilled those worries... and The Deer Hunter is one of the great American films."[23]

Reception

Critical reaction

The film's initial reviews were largely enthusiastic. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars and called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made."[22] Gene Siskel from the Chicago Tribune praised the film, saying, "This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by The Godfather."[24] Leonard Maltin also gave the film four stars, calling it a "sensitive, painful, evocative work".[25] Vincent Canby of the New York Times called The Deer Hunter "a big, awkward, crazily ambitious motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since The Godfather. It's vision is that of an original, major new filmmaker."[26] David Denby of New York called it "an epic" with "qualities that we almost never see any more — range and power and breadth of experience."[27] Jack Kroll of Time asserted it put director Cimino "right at the center of film culture."[28] Stephen Farber pronounced the film in New West magazine as "the greatest anti-war movie since La Grande Illusion."[28]

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a praise-worthy review with some reservations: "[It is] a small minded film with greatness in it... with an enraptured view of common life... [but] enraging, because, despite its ambitiousness and scale, it has no more moral intelligence than the Eastwood action pictures."[28]

The film holds a metascore of 73 on Metacritic, based on 7 reviews,[24] and 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews.[29] The RT consensus is:

Its greatness is blunted by its length and one-sided point of view, but the film's weaknesses are overpowered by Michael Cimino's sympathetic direction and a series of heartbreaking performances from Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken.[29]

Top Ten Lists

Academy Award-winning film director Milos Forman considers The Deer Hunter to be one of the ten greatest films of all time.[32]

Revisionism following Heaven's Gate

After Cimino's next film, Heaven's Gate, debuted to lacerating reviews, several critics revised their positions on The Deer Hunter. In his book Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate, Steven Bach wrote, "critics seemed to feel obliged to go on the record about The Deer Hunter, to demonstrate that their critical credentials were un-besmirched by having been, as Sarris put it, 'taken in.'"[33]

More recently, BBC film critic Mark Kermode challenged the film's status among generally-praised film classics: "There is an unwritten rule in film criticism that certain films are beyond rebuke. Citizen Kane, Some Like It Hot, 2001, The Godfather Part II... all these are considered to be classics of such universally accepted stature... At the risk of being thrown out of the 'respectable film critics' circle, may I take this opportunity to declare officially that in my opinion The Deer Hunter is one of the worst films ever made, a rambling self indulgent, self aggrandising barf-fest steeped in manipulatively racist emotion, and notable primarily for its farcically melodramatic tone which is pitched somewhere between shrieking hysteria and somnambulist somberness."[34]

Awards

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 Academy Awards in 1978 for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound.[20][35] 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 (Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn Redeker).[20][35] John Wayne's final public appearance was to present the Best Picture Oscar to The Deer Hunter.[35] It was not a film he was fond of, since it presented a very different view of the Vietnam War than his own movie, The Green Berets, had a decade earlier.[9]

Cimino won the only Golden Globe for The Deer Hunter, for Best Director. Other nominations the film included Best Motion Picture - Drama, De Niro for Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama, Walken for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Supporting Role, Streep for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role, and Washburn for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture.[36]

In total, the film garnered 21 awards and 19 nominations.[36]

Legacy

In 1996, The Deer Hunter was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[36][37]

The film ranks 467th in Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time,[38] noting:

Cimino's bold, powerful 'Nam epic goes from blue-collar macho rituals to a fiery, South East Asian hell and back to a ragged singalong of America The Beautiful. De Niro holds it together, but Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Savage are unforgettable.[38]

As of May 27, 2010, The Deer Hunter is #130 on IMDb's List of Top 250 movies as voted by its users.[39]

Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran who became a counselor with the U.S. Department of Labor, thought of the idea of building a National Memorial for Vietnam Veterans after seeing a screening of the film in March 1979, and he established and operated the memorial fund which paid for it.[40] Director Cimino was invited to the memorial's opening.[8]

The deaths of approximately twenty-five people who died playing Russian roulette were reported as having been influenced by scenes in the movie.[41] Actor Jacques Segui, who plays Julien, lost a friend in real life to a game of Russian Roulette during the Indo-China War.[9]

American Film Institute recognition

Home media release

The Deer Hunter has twice been released on DVD in America. The first 1998 issue was by Universal, with no extra features and a non-anamorphic transfer, has since been discontinued.[45] 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, deleted and extended scenes, and production notes.[46] The Region 2 version of The Deer Hunter, released in the UK and Japan, features a commentary track from director Michael Cimino. The film was released on HD DVD on December 26, 2006.[47] StudioCanal released the film on the Blu-Ray format in countries other than the United States on March 11, 2009.[48]

See also

References

Annotations

  1. ↑ Roger Ebert: "Michael Cimino's 'The Deer Hunter' is a three-hour movie in three major movements."; Tim Dirks: "The overlong film is roughly divided into equal thirds or acts, spanning the time period 1968-1975"

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Deer Hunter (1978). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 26th, 2010.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Deeley, Pg. 2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Director's commentary by Michael Cimino. Included on The Deer Hunter UK region 2 DVD release and the StudioCanal Blu-Ray.
  4. ↑ Deeley, Pg. 169
  5. ↑ Deeley, Pg. 171
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Deeley, Pg. 163
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Deeley, Pg. 164
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 Realizing The Deer Hunter: An Interview with Michael Cimino. Blue Underground. Interview on the The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and the StudioCanal Blu-Ray. First half of video on YouTube
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 The Deer Hunter (1978) - Trivia. IMDb. Retrieved 2010-07-25.
  10. ↑ Deeley, Pg. 168
  11. ↑ Robert De Niro AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute (2003)
  12. ↑ Shooting The Deer Hunter: An interview with Vilmos Zsigmond. Blue Underground. Interview with the cinematographer, located on The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. First half of video on YouTube.
  13. ↑ Deeley, Pg. 174
  14. ↑ Playing The Deer Hunter: An interview with John Savage. Blue Underground. Interview with the actor Savage, located on the UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-Ray. First half of video on YouTube
  15. ↑ Researching the Brothers Karamazov - Guest lectures/ Sheehan. Retrieved May 17, 2010.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 The Deer Hunter (1978) - Release dates. IMDb. Retrieved 2010-07-25.
  17. ↑ Bach, Pg. 166
  18. ↑ Deeley, Pg. 181
  19. ↑ Auster & Quart, Pg. 120-1
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Dirks, Tim. The Deer Hunter. Greatest Films. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
  21. ↑ "1979 Yearbook". Berlin International Film Festival. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1979/01_jahresblatt_1979/01_Jahresblatt_1979.html. Retrieved 2010-07-28. 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Ebert, Roger (March 9, 1979). The Deer Hunter. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved April 30th, 2010.
  23. ↑ Thomson, David (October 14, 2008). "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Knopf. p. 209. ISBN 978-0307264619. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 The Deer Hunter Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved April 30th, 2010.
  25. ↑ Maltin, Pg. 338
  26. ↑ Bach, Pg. 167
  27. ↑ Bach, Pg. 167-8
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Bach, Pg. 168
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "The Deer Hunter (1978)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deer_hunter. Retrieved 2009-09-23. 
  30. ↑ Ebert, Roger (December 15, 2004). "Ebert's 10 Best Lists: 1967-present". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041215/COMMENTARY/41215001/1023. Retrieved 2010-10-20. 
  31. ↑ Siskel and Ebert Top Ten Lists (1969-1998). Retrieved April 30th, 2010.
  32. ↑ Top Ten Lists by Critics and Filmmakers. Combustible Celluloid. Retrieved June 12, 2010.
  33. ↑ Bach, Pg. 370
  34. ↑ Kermode, Mark. "Oh deer, oh deer, oh deer". Film4. http://www.film4.com/features/article/oh-deer-oh-deer-oh-deer. Retrieved 2010-05-27. 
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 All the Oscars: 1978 - 51st Annual Academy Awards. Retrieved May 26th, 2010.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 The Deer Hunter (1978) - Awards. IMDb. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  37. ↑ Films Selected to The National Film Registry 1989-2008. Library of Congress. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 "The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time". Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/500/7.asp. Retrieved 06-02-2010. 
  39. ↑ IMDb Top 250 - The Deer Hunter. IMDb. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  40. ↑ Scruggs & Swerdlow, Pg. 7
  41. ↑ The Deer Hunter and Suicides. Snopes.com. Retrieved June 12, 2010.
  42. ↑ AFI's 100 YEARS...100 MOVIES (1998). American Film Institute. Retrieved May 6th, 2010.
  43. ↑ AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills. American Film Institute. Retrieved April 30th, 2010.
  44. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx. 
  45. ↑ "The Deer Hunter (1978) - DVD details". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/dvd. Retrieved 2010-08-12. 
  46. ↑ "The Deer Hunter (Universal Legacy Series)". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunter-Universal-Legacy/dp/B000AABCU2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1281672115&sr=8-2. Retrieved 2010-08-12. 
  47. ↑ The Deer Hunter HD-DVD. Amazon.com. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
  48. ↑ "Achetez le Blu-Ray Voyage au bout de l'enfer à 19.99 € sur StudioCanal" (in French). StudioCanal.com. http://www.studiocanaldvd.com/fr/produit_6_scv_53855_acheter_Blu-Ray_Voyage_au_bout_de_l'enfer_en_stock.php. Retrieved 2010-05-19. 

Bibliography

External links

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Annie Hall		 Academy Award for Best Picture
1978		 Succeeded by
Kramer vs. Kramer
Films directed by Michael Cimino
1970s
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)  • The Deer Hunter (1978)
1980s
Heaven's Gate (1980)  • Year of the Dragon (1985)  • The Sicilian (1987)
1990s
Desperate Hours (1990)  • Sunchaser (1996)
Academy Award for Best Picture

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

Complete List · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present)