exactly..dressed appropriately like DeNiro for the review lol

It's a very influential film. 🤣

Well, we'll all get there one day, and all I can do is envy you for growing up in such a fruitful time for cinema

Same here.

I'd be happy with one masterpiece in my career....most film makers never even get that far :)

Tinderbox... I think Heaven's Gate became his 2nd masterpiece over time. And much more appreciated later on.

Cimino was a self-indulgent narcissist who made ONE of the greatest films ever. He also made Heaven’s Gate and The Desperate Hours, both unintentional jokes in their own way.

Sad part is what wanted his Magnum Opus to be was Heaven’s Gate

Only problem is, things went to Cimino's head, and Heaven's Gate was the result.

Thats because the industry was destroyed by piracy and file sharing. The only projects that get greenlit are ones they can guarantee will have an audience, so the lowest common denominator is the target audience. Blame the greed and stupidity of the average human being

wow that's a bad take. think about what you just said for more than a minute. its not even remotely true...

This movie is horse shit

I liked De Niro a lot though I this. Its the most sympathetic character I think I've seen him play. I'm used to see him playing unlikeable characters but he's so so good in this.

@@jothishprabu8 I never watched the whole film but saw the russian roulette scene & a few others. It is a very long film & I think by 79 people were sorta done with the depressing Vietnam type films. That's part of why many feel star wars did so well. People wanted to go to the movies to be excited & entertained

@@natalieps2387 by 79? Were there really that many Vietnam movies already out by 1979? I always think of mid 80s being the heyday for Vietnam movies. Platoon, Full Metal Jacket

@@natalieps2387 You have no idea what you are talking about. This and Coming home where the first two US films to have the war in Vietnam as a backdrop.

It takes me back.

Agree.

There is a 40th Anniversary bluray out now. It looks great.

I'd love to see it in IMAX

I will not let these films be forgotten. Just know that there is at least 1 young person that appreciates these master pieces, experiencing them for the first time. Movies used to really mean something, and if we keep watching the ones like this then they still do.

Several years later, They've stopped making DVDs in favor of streaming and I'm not a happy camper...

Its because they dont make movies this good now so you are taking it all in.i did the same.

That was always one of my favorite parts. Having grown up in very more Russian Greek Orthodox / Eastern European immigrants steel mill community in Western Pa. (Clairton was 5 minutes from me), it was comforting.

This movie is not for most younger adults that will probably not appreciate it as much as us older people that have been through some tough times.

For me it’s the juxtaposition of the second part of the movie. Seeing them joyful and celebratory in a huge and traditional fashion seems like it drags at first. But on a rewatch, knowing what happens to them, I think it’s so powerful to see them together and joyous and overall ignorant of how horrible the war was.

I found the film boring but liked your comment.

Can you expound on the drop of wine symbolism?

@@derfunkhaus more foreshadowing.

@@williamshaw9047 lol at the idiot

@@derfunkhaus Blood will spill over in Vietnam, that's what

True, perhaps if it was very early in the conflict, but there was no dialogue of politics or there thoughts on the war. They had the mentality of draftees but the faces of career soldiers.

Mainly it was Hollywood bullshit, as usual, but the movie is so well done and the cast is so great, you don't really mind.

Don't take these thing literally . There's a story here.

you are correct, sir

@Red I truly believe the movie experience of the 1970s was the greatest since moving pictures were invented.

Nice generalised view of everyone that goes to cinema these days lol.

@@johnmc3862 Compare the movie audience of 1979 to 2021 lol.

@@johnmc3862 He is right.

They don’t make them like they used to. It was all about story and characters back then.

@@theholymackerel072 story. Character. They used beautiful real locations to film. Not that green screen garbage and stupid marvel movies

When was that? In the wedding scene?

To me it's one of those movies that really has something to say, but then doesn't really say much of anything. Which the critics love. Plus, they all seem to old for Vietnam anyway, even if they weren't drafted but enlisted.

It’s crazy that his directing career plummeted after this with bomb after huge bomb. At least we have this great movie

It drags on in places.

Mike Rogers 🤣

And no Cham-pag-nay.

I don't understand the joke, I must be missing something. Christopher said in a tv interview in 1979 that one of his brothers went to Vietnam and he was afraid something bad was going to happen to him.

@@dora1980 it refers to a famous Saturday Night Live Skit Walk-in was in.

@@mego73 I didn't know that.

What do you mean UNCUT? The uncut Deer hunter is 3 hours and 45 minutes. And they cut 45 minutes! Did you see the whole almost 4 hour film?

There were long movies back then, but usually not with such a somber tone. Also, Vietnam was barely a memory when the movie came out.

Exactly..Only after the film was awarded with 9 Oscar nomination could the theater owners justify screening a 3 hour movie every night..

It went into wide release once the studio saw the rave reviews. I think Time magazine made a big deal out of it being the first movie for which New York City theaters were charging five dollars for tickets. I saw it twice in my small town, the first time with a Vietnam vet. First time I had ever seen or heard of Meryl Streep. The scene outside the church, after the wedding, as the couple was getting into the car, in which Meryl was just standing there watching them, smiling, she looked absolutely like a real person, not an actress, and I couldn't take my eyes off her.

So what if it does?

It's tough because I agree with you somewhat and know that some Vietnamese see it the same way. They think this film is antivietnamese. I can't agree with that. Think of Abu Gharib in Iraq and the torture given out by our side against Iraqi prisoners. It seems to me that war brings out the worst in everybody, no matter the nationality. You can't say for sure that American POW were not treated to horrific treatment under the Viet Cong or prisoner camps run by sadists. The film needs to be appreciated for the reasons S&E outline in their review: the Vietnam middle section is condensed to encapsulate the most horrific experience that innocents from the Midwest could endure. Another point is that the inferior technology of North Vietnam had to be reinforced with brutal methods to instill fear. It was a bulwark against this disadvantage, for better of worse.

The Asians in general have less respect for human life, executing American wounded, cutting their genitals off pulling out their intestines in some cases. In Vietnam if you have a war film that depicts a VC dying they call you anti Vietnamese so their reaction is no surprise

@@jimmycakes7158 Human life, animal life, the planet. Most Asian countries don't give AF

Would it have made the film more digestible and the overall plot arc more understandable if they removed the entire Roulette scene (you know, to paint the Vietnamese in a better light). Would that have made the film better? Pretty sure it wouldn't have, and pretty sure making the Vietnamese look more caring and the Americans as equally heinous would have also defeated the purpose of of the movie, which was to show the trauma that the experience of war inflicts in one small group of friends perspective, not to document both sides tragedy in an unbiased and fair perspective.

Yeah maybe like contra lol

His best? What about Heaven's Gate? Just kidding. :D

He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen and an incredible actor

Thought it OK. The pacing was odd, like a super long wedding. But then, it zips through 4 or so years, to 1975....

It was PBS. They didn't have to.

interesting. other clips certainly had "censored" blips.

@@TobeyStarburst 40 years later and it would never have passed on today's PC tv.

Back then, the only "F" word was FUCK. Faggot wasn't even considered an obscenity back then. Even now, it's commonly used among teenagers, especially in hip hop culture I noticed. So no, it's not going to be censored. Certainly not in 1979.

Foreshadowing.

Yes it does because many of us CAN'T see it again.Once is more than enough for the Deer hunter. And If I could give an advice to someone who hasn't seen it and wants to see it is , switch on the lights and don't watch this film alone or very late at night like I did almost 30 years ago.

When you’re into fisting, you’re into fisting

The friends were together in the exact same unit on the same misson which would be rare if it ever happened at all

@@jimmycakes7158 Good point

@@jimmycakes7158 Not all of them, they stumbled across Deniro at the end of his mission before they were all captured together. But what's the point. It's all fiction, so why be nit-picky.

Christopher was 35 and he looked 25-27.

The movie takes place around the time the war was ending and they’re pretty much young adults (early ‘20s).

@@TooCooFoYou Yeah, I get it's not the 60's, but to me they still look/seem too old for the story. That's just how I see it though, I don't think the filmmakers made a mistake, and tried to pass older guys off as much younger, or anything like that. But for me, it was a distraction.

That's the problem with Hollywood: they go for big names over realistic casting. Look at "Shaving Ryan's Privates", Stephen Ambrose scoffed at the fact that Tom Hanks was playing a Captain. He claimed Hanks was way too old to be playing a captain.

If all you got out of this film was the age of the actors .....

@@SandfordSmythe-Exactly. I was thinking the same thing.

Stupid comment but ok. Have you called the academy to report the mistake

The movie didn't come to Chicago until early 1979 after the Oscar nominations were announced...it only played in NY and LA in December 1978 to qualify for Oscar consideration...after the new year is when is slowly started to play in different markets around the country...that's how a lot of movies got released back in those days and still do depending on their importance and Oscar caliber prestige....that's why you see 1979 here in the caption and that's when Gene and Roger themselves finally saw it....

If you don't embrace sadness, you'll never truly appreciate happiness.

war is hell.

It's s symbolic thing. At the time of the movie, there was still anger at the torture they did.

@@SandfordSmythe It's not symbolic. Michael Cimino in 1979 (search the interview , it's here on youtube) said that the russian roulette was a real thing in Vietnam.

@@dora1980 I'm not aware of that. I always saw suicide as the flip side of war. MASH the movie came out during the war, and it had a catchy theme song of "Suicide is Painless" which summed up my attitude towards possibly going to Vietnam. The scene had a powerful effect, and I think we miss a lot by seeing it as a documentary.

​@@dora1980 it is symbolic. the visualization you see of the later 2 russian roulette scenes is pretty obvious, young men playing a game of chance with death as both vietnamese and white men in business suits watch and bet. all the while laughing and treating their lives as disposable. theres no honor in it, it takes the war and reduces it to a crude game of chance for the entertainment and enrichment of rich people who themselves dont have to put their lives in the line

For me, everything that happened before and after they were in country really hit me. They were just working class regular folks who had no idea what was heading towards them. Great performances.

I wondered why three guys in there late twenties and/or early thirties suddenly decided to all join the military and go off to fight in Vietnam at the same time.... That seemed pretty ridiculous to me.

@@tomwellman4500 It happens. They probably took pride in their country, and since they were all friends, they joined together for america.

@@kakashi101able, please. Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken were both 35 when the Deer Hunter came out in 1978 (and both looked every minute of their ages), and John Savage (who looked slightly younger) was 29. "It happens." Yes, but it's not very likely--especially for a war that had already been raging for several years before these three friends suddenly decided they wanted to join "for America". I'm sorry that I didn't like this movie as much as you did. Don't even get me started on the fact that they all met up again when they were in Vietnam (as if the entire country is the size of Mayberry) or any of that ridiculous stuff about being forced to play Russian roulette. You found it gripping and compelling. I found it overlong and pretentious.

Whew. I'm not the only one who didn't think it was all that and a bag of chips.

I agree. “The notebook”. Is a real movie about true love. Meryl streep dosnt hold a candle to that Spanish actress in GILI. And bob denior character could of been played by Gilbert Godfrey

No the film is about the struggle many soldiers feel returning to so called normal life after witnessesing things no person ever should do. My favourite part was De Niro's character returning home.

I saw this movie years after it won all its awards. I could not figure out what all the fuss was about. Three working class guys in there late twenties/early thirties all decide to fight in the Vietnam War at the same time? They all get shipped out on the same day and all end up not only being captured but also being held in the same prison camp.... That was simply to much disbelieve for me to suspend. And the whole being forced to play Russian roulette thing? Sheesh!

Probably because it's not about Vietnam, but about how war and it's trauma effected a community and a group of friends. They could have easily made this happen around the Korean War, or WWII.

It still suggs, no matter what war it was based on.

Is that you, Jane Fonda?

You are right. It's a terrible film.

Idiots

That's Heaven's Gate you're talking about.

Heaven's gate was boring and cruel to animals. The Deer Hunter was cruel to the audience's intelligence.

@@dominickk5293 Right about Heaven's Gate. Wrong about The Deer Hunter.

I gave you a thumbs down.

tomloft2000 same

I don't think pointless. The roulette, I think, was a stand-in for war itself, which we never see much of in the movie. It's chaos, random chance as much as anything can be. That's the brutal truth of war that gets a lot of veterans truly demoralized: that lives are taken and broken without meaning, design or justification, and even more importantly, that there's very little one can do to protect one's self. Militaries and soldiers go on an on about drilling and preparation and fitness and weapons and equipment and patriotism and just cause and rah-rah-blah-blah, but it's really all crap, isn't it? That's the roulette...De Niro's character is special forces, Green Beret apparently, and he keeps a steadier head than the other two, who either give in to the emotional breakdown (Savage) or embrace only the chaos (Walken), but they all equally have to play the game. And in the end, survival isn't really enough. De Niro can no longer shoot the deer: He knows too much about how it feels to be on the other end of a weapon by the end.

The Russian roulette was a metaphor.

@@raymondm.9954 Something like the song " Suicide is Painless" in MASH?

These "two turds" think otherwise because it's a terrifically powerful film.