Am I the only one that doesn't get The Deer Hunter?

This may be irrelevant, but I'll add this.

I saw Michael Cimino's Vietnam epic twice at the theatre. I also remember the first time it was shown on TV was on a local channel, uncut and with no commercials. The filmmakers offered it to the major networks, but they wouldn't show it with all the violence, De Niro's pecker and heaven forbid, no ads. The Deer Hunter is tough for many because it's long, full of contradictions and seems clumsy structurally and thematically because it doesn't ever come out and say what it's really about. It's all about the feelings and emotions of the characters [and the director], but the actual "plot" makes it harder to connect to them and the movie. That, plus some people find it racist. It's bewildering and powerful at the same time. The Russian Roulette metaphor does threaten to derail the film, especially at the end, when the film's other major metaphor, "One Shot", is spoken by Nick to Michael as a form of recognition before he goes ahead and self-destructs. However, having this final Vietnam scene sandwiched in between Michael's second deer hunt where he refuses to shoot the deer and the quietly powerful finale ("God Bless America" - which I take as a tribute to "There's no place like home" rather than "Let us win wars") helps one to let it slide.The ending scene, combined with the music over the end credits, probably ties it together best for me. It's not gung ho but rather sad and sober.

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I think it's very much a film of it's time....remember Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Born on the Fourth of July, and Platoon those didn't exist. But when The Deer Hunter came out you had Taxi Driver and Coming Home. Two very different and more localized films.



The Deer Hunter tried to be a less Hollywood more realistic and it didn't really fit into any specific genres/movements.

I also fully agree that I do not mind a movie that is 3 hours, it's just what they used with the time. The editing in this movie is very poor in my opinion.

I like longer movies such as Lawrence of Arabia or Gone with the Wind. But this movie was just too long for it's script. In the wedding church scene, before the big party starts for example, they film the roof of the church way too long amount of time, and that's just one example, as to they just needed to cut this thing down.

The movie also has unnecessary subplots, such as the woman character having an abusive father, and this seems to not have anything to do with the function her character serves in the plot, nor does it have to do with any Vietnam themes, and they should have just cut it. The singing in the bar goes on for way too long too. Yes guys like to sing, we get the point...

I also found that once they get to Vietnam, the shooting and fight scenes, are not well shot, such as breaking the 180 degree rule in camera angles, making things confusing, as long as choppy editing going on there as well.

So overall, I feel they just needed a better editor and they would have had something good most likely.

The Deer Hunter has a lot going for it, but its length really hurts it...Goodfellas, Scarface, Titanic, and Pulp Fiction are also very long movies, but I never feel the length with them.

Thanks to those who gave good points on this matter, but I thought that way that these themes are conveyed weren't very entertaining, nor make me feel emotional. Irony pony here shares most of the problems i had with the movie. And like someone has said about me nit picking about stuff i don't like, its just that I don't see what made the movie great unlike most people that have seen it. I just didn't buy most of the movie. From the supposedly amazing performances from the 3 leads. Deniro was being Deniro for most of the movie, the scenes involving russian roulette were riveting, apart from that

The grueling wedding sequence that's supposed to give character to the men, to show us how they are bonding, to show their friendship and brotherhood, to establish the love interest of michael (deniro does sure love his blondes). The pay-off doesn't necessarily make what seems like an eternity of 3 hours worth the ride. The apex of the film i assume is the return of the soldiers back to normal life, with consequences to the men such as losing all but one arm, to nick being supposedly dead. But if the characters are not likable or relatable, or makes you care for them, or makes you worry for them, or any of these things that make you want to see the characters and CARE for them, then how are you supposed to enjoy the themes of this movie? With stories and themes like the deer hunter, the CHARACTERS are the one thing you can't make dull. When Michael doesn't join the rest of the dudes for his VERY OWN RETURN PARTY, he visits Linda later on. Here is where i am supposed to feel that he has betrayed nick, that he has stolen his lover. But did Nick even show that much love to Linda in the first hour of the movie? Nick barely even interacted with Linda.

He asks her to marry him. She says yes.

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1) I will never get the DeNiro being DeNiro criticism in regards to his acting. All of his major roles in the 70's and through most of the early 80's are distinctly articulated characters. They all have their own nuances of character, their body language is different, have entirely different notions of the world which you can see in how they react and look at the world. Sometimes he has a similar cadence of speech between these characters, and he always has the same face, but I could in an instant distinguish between the characters he created in Deer Hunter, Mean Streets, King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, New York New York, Godfather 2, Hi Mom etc etc etc with little more than a glance. Michael, while one of his less showy characters, is possibly one of the most interesting. A complete enigma who seems to be silently bursting over with emotions and ideals he doesn't quite know what to do with. I've watched the movie half a dozen times and he is still a mystery to me. In the best possible way.


2) If at the end of the day you aren't engaged by this films characters, you aren't engaged by them. It happens. But I feel the distance you might be feeling towards them is less to do with the fact that they are 'likeable' or not, and the manner in which Cimino chooses to reveal them to the audience. There are very few revelations about their internal would that are telegraphed to us. We get only a partial sense of who these man are to each other, since we drop in on them at one very specific moment in their life (a wedding before three of them get shipped off to the war). There are constant allusions to the life they have lived before the film began, but it is rarely spelled out. The audience is meant to fill in a lot of the blank spaces. And I don't think it's even possible to make all the connections to entirely know who they are (what exactly, for example, is "One shot". It obviously means something very specific to them, but we are left trying to understand what that might be, even if we kind of understand it on an abstract level). I think of character building like this as being much like a haiku poem, which is deliberately skeletal and brief, and yet the hope is that we will somehow see beyond what we are explictly shown or told. The reason all of these characters, even the very small ones, still live with me after the movie ends, is because I have a very personal understanding of who they are. Not just an exact understanding that was dictated to me by the script.


3) There keeps being this common refrain that these characters aren't likeable or relatable. Frankly, don't get it. They are all flawed in their own ways, but since when should that be a hurdle for seeing the humanity in a person, whether in a fictional setting or our real life. And as long as the director and the performance shows us this humanity, even if it is the simpering potrayal of John Cazale, it shouldn't be hard to find empathy for them. Now, it seems for some here, the opening scenes don't seal this deal for everyone. Which is fair enough. But them just not being 'likeable' enough, nope, doesn't make sense to me.

Crumbsroom did a good job resuming the significant points, I didn't went to that detail because I knew right away it didn't worth it, I just tried to make the OP emphasize with the story, mentality and not explain him what this movie meant because he doesn't strike me as someone who is interested in those aspects. The Deer Hunter is not a movie that you dislike without making specific points, and the acting, or didn't like the character A or B doesn't cut it in this sort of movies if you're serious about watchong a movie picture for more than being entertained (that seems to be your goal). This is a film you see, analyze, understand and maybe emphasize. Like Crumbs said, every scene, specially the weeding is relevant to the whole picture ahead, I mean, the weeding is in my view one of the most important scenes and probably my favorite, I don't recall exactly the scene entirely and I don't own the DVD but it has so many things to think about, the mother talking to the priest, the women before the ceremony, the brotherhood and how they reacted to each other, the scene of the guy punching his girlfriend, two best friends going to war loving the same woman, thr veteran drinking scene still makes me think.

For me there are two different criticisms that sometimes get overlapped.

One is the criticism that a character isn't likeable. In certain films, I think that this is a valid critique if a lot of the intention of the film seems wrapped up in you as a viewer liking and siding with the characters. To me, this criticism usually applies more in genres like comedy or romance.

The other is the criticism that you are citing--that the characters seem to lack humanity. There's a difference between not liking a character and thinking "Um, this doesn't feel like a real person" (or whatever would pass for "real person" in the context of the film).

I really liked The Deer Hunter and I didn't feel its length at all. I was surprised by the long opening act, but as the film went on I realized that it was showing you all of the little lines and hooks that connect the characters to each other and to others. It gives us the ecosystem of their lives and that makes what happens to them--to all of them--all the more tragic. I think that the messiness and the loose structure of the first hour is what makes the characters actually feel like real people. I thought that the performances were excellent, and taking so much time to ground the universe of the film means that more outlandish sequences (like the roulette parts) are easier to take because there's the emotional connection to the characters.

However, if you are watching a film and you don't feel as though the characters being portrayed are realistic, and that film is also 3+ hours long? Yeah, you're probably not going to like that film very much.

Maybe you have to really get the type of place they are from to get where they went. Small company town circa 1960s is going to fly over a lot of heads these days. Hell, it went over a lot of heads in the 70s. We're talking people who generally stayed where they grew up, and the rest of the world was complete unknown. You graduate high school, marry your high school girlfriend, and work where every other guy works.

That type of character development is what made films from the 70s work. To appreciate Rocky, we need to get what kind of guy he is, and where he comes from. So you end up with scenes that might seem out of place today, but without them, you don't understand the people. Saturday night fever has Tony working in a paint store, and then living with his parents. Hanging out with his stupid friends. It's all part of explaining who these people really are.

The Deer Hunter is one of my favorite movies. Seen it a million times. Favorite DeNiro movie. His depiction of Michael would be my ideal man: handsome, a gentleman, brave, kind, fun.

A perfect movie, IMO & that’s all I need to say.

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I know I’m late to the party, but THANK YOU for articulating that.

I thought the Deer Hunter was a phenomenal film and used its time greatly. When it was finished, I couldn’t believe it was over, it felt like only 1 1/2-2 hours past. I was invested in the film pretty early, from remembering the film, there isn’t a scene I would remove.

I understand that, it's just when it comes to showing the character's backgrounds, I feel that The Deer Hunter overdid, to the point where I felt 'okay, we get it now', but that's just how it was for me.

Honestly, when I read threads like this or posts like the above, I become convinced my don’t-engage-and-work-in-headphones policy applies online as well as IRL. You think it overdid background, fine. Does that really merit its own thread?

You know, because of this post? I'm actually going to give the movie another watch. I took it in for the first time in maybe 2020 because I thought I needed to at least experience it, given what I've read others post on it. It wasn't really for me and, while I could appreciate it for what I could take it for at the time, I didn't much care for it. Nothing bad. Just nothing outstanding as a film, IMO. OF course this is what I'm thinking now, trying to recall memories and reactions from a year or so back so take this all with a grain of salt. I've proven often that my memory isn't what it probably should be. Anyways. I'll track it down again and give it another watch. So thanks for taking a moment to write that so directly.

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Same here. Seen it many times & I loved it from the very first scene.

One of my fave things is the very extreme cut from all the fun at the wedding to the brilliant opening scenes in Vietnam. What a contrast! Can’t think of another movie with such an extreme cut, but, no doubt, many here could.