Annual 'The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece' thread

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Also did not know John Williams did the score.. Just one year after Star Wars and the same year as Superman... Unreal.

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Well, not quite. Stanley Myers did the soundtrack and composed the famous Cavatina, which was performed by the classical guitarist John Williams (Australian/English). But he's not the same guy as the composer John Williams (American).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8d0DJpbBI

Probably one of the best early films that showed the negative side to war. Amazing.

The Russian roulette scene with Dinero is probably one of the most intense scenes ever.

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Does the wedding scene ever end?

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After patience and concerted effort, I can report that it does. Or it at least it sort of fases away.

That hospital scene single handily won Walken the Oscar.. It's incredible.

And if you're not a blubbering idiot by final 10 minutes you have no soul...

Dissenting opinion.

Cimino turned out to be a fraud and needed an editor.

He was Hollywood's darling until his next movie came out (Heaven's Gate) and was just another long-winded point camera and shoot and keep rolling forever film wasting tons of film and not editing.

He was run out of Hollywood. I guess he was the anti-Clint...who is considered the most economical...and Cimino the most wasteful. But this was the 70's when Directors could just burn money as Autuers and nobody said boo. Coppola almost bankrupted his studio with Apocalypse.

The wedding scene drove me nuts at times, but as soon as you get that shot flying over the water in Vietnam, you know it's about to get real.

I was watching this last night and being totally unimpressed. I didn't have the feeling I was watching a 'classic' movie at all.

All sorts of takes.

We were still known as the Jumpin' Junkies back then because of the drugs available and a lot of them came back with drug habits. Not the really hard stuff, no needles, but there was a lot of good weed, hash, coke, mescaline, LSD around back in those days and if you didn't mass tac at least once at night while stoned shitless you were missing out.

Guys used to volunteer for police call on Sunday mornings just to get to pick up all the roaches from underneath the windows around the barracks.

I include this because it played a roll in how the movie was interpreted by the Vietnam vets. Some were past all of that and they kept quiet about fresh memories that were evoked. Others I think ... it seemed to send some of them over the edge in some ways, at least among the enlisted guys. Apocalypse Now had a similar affect ... it weeded out the guys who couldn't deal anymore.

There was a vague reference to The Deer Hunter made in the movie True Romance where the fictional movie "Coming Home In A Body Bag" was mentioned about the vets that claimed it was the most true to life picture made about the end of the war, especially in Saigon. A lot of vets had different stories of things they'd seen ... the Viet Cong were evil, godless, fricks. A lot of guys kept pictures ... things most civilians never see. War trophies in a way I guess.

Some of the guys started getting out and they went to work for companies like Triple Canopy and Executive Options ... it was legal, contracting as mercenaries, in Europe and Africa long before it became big business here. Several of the guys I knew joined the French Foreign Legion as well ... they just never could assimilate back into society with all the pop culture reminders showing-up everywhere to haunt them.

We still have reunions and our numbers are dwindling ... by that time my little unit, a very special little unit, had formed and we became kinda famous on Ardennes. So we just got another anniversary coin again last year, our 40th, and more and more of the guys are gone ... and they never seemed to conquer their demons - but they fought hard to learn to live with them.

Others went on to do great things ... but very few of the enlisted Vietnam Vets. They did learn to not watch Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter though ... we still talk about those movies every five years at the reunions. I mean there is always speculation about who the real guys were behind the characters ... like there usually are in all good war movies they are based loosely on rumors and facts. It's all part of getting old and having been part of those units.

See, in the movie it was 101st guys, except Michael he was 5th Group outta Bragg. In reality it was all 82nd up in I-Corp that participated in the Tet Counter Offenses Phases I, II and III. It was the 82nd and 173rd who lost the most POWs during those phases ... never to be seen or heard from again and that's where a lot of the roulette stories came from. POWs from bad evacs especially ... the stories are legion. SF was almost always attached to the Degar, also known as Montagnards, which is what Michael was doing in the village and why the 82nd was always sent-in to support up in the highlands where the war scenes took place. The 101st was actually south of there closer to Saigon.

So the 82nd vets connected with the movie in a different way than most ... many had seen the remains of their buddies who had been captured and it was never ever pretty because enlisted were tortured to death or used for bayonette practice or worse ... except one guy who ended up at the Hanoi Hilton, played dumb as a rock and was used as a janitor but ended-up getting tons of intell out of the place and actually survived and helped others communicate.

There was also Full Metal Jacket and Platoon but those were not well respected movies at Bragg although they were liked by other branches and other units. Those two movies were hated at Bragg.

Now, on a comedy note one day we'll have to talk about the night Stallone showed up at Bragg at the Alvin C. York Theater to premier Rambo ... that was a funny night, especially among the Vietnam vets.

The Russian roulette scenes are some of the toughest scenes for me to watch, of any movie.