1978.#79 / #53
Winner of 5 Academy Awards.
Four hometown friends undergo the horrors of war during their time in Vietnam, developing a macabre fascination with Russian roulette and a harrowing distance between themselves and their daily lives back home.
Eddie: We just finished this movie for the first time, and I'm still burdened by the weight of this film. The long takes and quiet soundtrack make the film seem eternally long, but don't get me wrong: it's still great. Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken turn in perhaps the best performances of their careers. There are few things to say about this movie besides it's incredibly heavy and deceptively simple.
If I could change one thing, though, I would've shortened the first act - a drawn-out wedding scene back home. I understand that it serves to contrast the four main characters' lives with their experiences in the war, but it's soooo long and torturous. The Viet Cong should have used the first hour of this movie on loop as torture, rather than a game of POW Russian roulette.
Sarah: Yes! That wedding scene was torturous. For the first thirty minutes of the film I was hating life and hating AFI for putting this on the list. But after that, the movie won me over. The situations are so overdramatized that now I think it was a bit ridiculous, but I didn't think that at the time. I was too busy holding my breath.
I also really admired the cinematography. There is a strong motif of reflections. We see characters reflected in lakes, in car windows, and sometimes the scene itself is a reflection, and then the camera pulls out to reveal we've been watching through a mirror. It's such a smart way to hint at the bigger themes in the movie. Good and evil and real-life vs. war life. Plus, spot the reflections makes a fun drinking game.
Why You Should See It: Any of the Russian roulette sequences. It's only a movie, but the stakes are so high, you can't help get caught up in the suspense.
I can recall numerous occasions of asking eddie what he thought about a particular film so we could critique it. However, more often than not, there were a number of cinematic gems that he had seemed to over look in all those years in film school. The Deer Hunter was one of them, and upon reading this blog, I was so pleased to see that finally, he was going to see the masterpiece that it truly is. Then I actually read his review. Now, he didn't shit on it, but I think of film of this magnitude, there can't be anything negative said about it. Sarah, Eddie and I saw Avatar together and that movie was too long. The wedding sequence in the Deer Hunter is the most necessary part of the film. How anyone could find it tortuous is beyond me. It is long, it is a very thorough first act, but just think about how it compliments the rest of the film. I'm getting shivers just thinking about De Niro and the shots at the bar with the vet. The very next scene we are in vietnam and De Niro is burning shit with a flame thrower! Do your 100 reviews, and watch this one again. Absorb the fist act like I did. That said, let me fix something for you guys. WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT: Fuckin John Cazele, this shit was tight.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I just don't agree. I'll definitely give the movie another chance. I mean, I thought it was great to begin with - just too long.
ReplyDeleteAnd John Cazale gets his props from us in our review of THE GODFATHER, PART II.