The Deer Hunter – Legacy Series

 

Picture: B     Sound: B-     Extras: B     Film: A

 

 

When uninformed people tell me that only stupid films can be blockbusters and it was always that way, Michael Cimino’s truly brilliant epic The Deer Hunter (1978) is on my short list for films that immediately disprove that myth.  After years of films about Vietnam that only dealt with the return of soldiers to the U.S., Cimino’s classic took on the war with a power only Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick would ever equal, and there is no doubt he is one of the few filmmakers of their high caliber.  Stretching from the fiery furnaces of Steeltowns in and around Clairton and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the burning hell on earth that was the Vietnam fiasco, the film is a brilliantly structured narrative film rarely equaled in cinema history.

 

Robert De Niro heads an amazing cast in a story about a group of U.S.-born Russian immigrant workers who work the steel mills in 1968.  The Vietnam conflict is on and as we watch these lifelong friends interact and have fun in their off time, we find out the time for them to go overseas is approaching.  Before this happens, there is a wedding, a deer hunt, and then all hell breaks loose.  From there, the film gets into a very complex mediation on the U.S. that finds some of its roots in the Western genre, followed by dealing with the cast as well defined individuals that tend to represent a complex microcosm of how warfare and the blue collar life affect people.  Without any sense of phoniness, these are good people for the most part and the early part of the film is key to establishing the content of all of their characters in profound, deep ways for the rest of the picture.  The reach of the narrative structure is amazing, as Robin Wood’s book Hollywood: From Vietnam To Reagan …& Beyond (reviewed elsewhere on this site) begins to explain, and it still misses all kinds of points.  However, that is not a bad thing, just that the film is so well crafted.

 

There are amazing acting sequences throughout, with De Niro joined by John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren and a “at the peak of his powers” Christopher Walken, who very deservedly won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  I want to say much more about the film, what it says, its aftermath, how much it has appreciated in value over the years and its implications today, but that would include spoilers for those who have not seen the film or those who have not seen it in a long time.  I will say that the film is an innovator in its use of drama; narrative and even a kind of violence that is realistic and quick like violence in real life.  This was a hugely groundbreaking film that does not get the credit it deserves, and it has nothing to do with its age.

 

The film has come under attack from both political sides, with the reactionary Left trying to label it a Fascist film, while the extreme Right loathes its honest, rather positive, naturalistic, realistic, complex portrayal of working class people, the kind of people who built the U.S.!  They also only want men who fight any war on film to be part of the Rambo myth of tough guys who are somehow immortal.  That is because the film respects its audience like few other films ever made, a peak of maturity of mainstream Hollywood cinema like few films you will ever see.  Cimino shoots things as they are, even when certain scenes never happened, this film never claimed to be a documentary.  The writing by Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker and Cimino is one of the most multi-layered in Hollywood history and it works, all with no compromises, shot and performed expertly.  No moment is wasted.  That is the way masterpieces work.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image looks amazing, finally restored and cleaned up after all these years.  The previous widescreen DVDs worldwide recycled the badly transferred analog NTSC letterboxed version from the old 12” LaserDisc.  There was cheating, sneaky squeezing and all kinds of color and fidelity issues.  Not any more.  One of the great achievements in the history of motion picture cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C., shot the film in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision knowing it would be blown-up into 70mm prints that were actually letterboxed at the top and bottom to retain the 2.35 frame within 70mm’s 2.20 X 1 frame.  Color is wide-ranging, while detail only previously viewable in film prints comes through as crystal clear as the DVD format will be able to deliver of this epic.

 

The film is available in several forms of Dolby Digital, including 2.0 Stereo with Pro Logic surrounds and Spanish 2.0 Mono, but the best choice is the new Dolby 5.1 mix.  Oddly, that audio mix is credited to Logic 7, a system that works much like Dolby Pro Logic II or DTS Neo: 6, which bounces the sound around the room.  However, unlike previous music DVDs that sounded horrible with Logic 7, this is a good upgrade.  The film was originally released at its best with 4.1 Dolby magnetic stereo on the 70mm blow-ups and Cimino intended it to be heard that way.  He was innovating film sound for dramas at the time as much as George Lucas was for genre films beginning with Star Wars, something he would continue in his next three films.  Some of the audio shows its age from the original source audio, yet I bet the magnetic tracks offered a little more fidelity than what we sometimes hear here.  Too bad this was not in DTS, especially keeping in mind the great music score by Stanley Myers, including its classic instrumental theme song.  The use of hit music is some of the most masterful in cinema history to this day.  The combination of the three will still impress, with the picture becoming a demo favorite much the way Warner’s new DVD Cimino’s Year Of The Dragon is beginning to be for those in the know.

 

Extras include an terrific audio commentary with Zsigmond and film journalist Bob Fisher (one of the most incredibly detailed and generous about shooting film to date) on DVD 1, in keeping with a similar audio track sadly not included here with a British journalist in the same field and Cimino on the British DVD set from Warner Bros. in the U.K. a few years ago with the older poor audio and video for the film.  DVD 2 has the original theatrical trailer, production notes and scenes that are here extended and a few deleted.  Add the fine book-like case the discs are in and that makes this release of The Deer Hunter about as definitive as it is going to get on DVD.  Don’t miss this true collector’s item.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo