The Deer Hunter
Overview
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 co-written and directed by Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...

 about a trio of Russian American
Russian American
Russian Americans are primarily Americans who traces their ancestry to Russia. The definition can be applied to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to settlers of 19th century Russian settlements in northwestern America which includes today's California, Alaska and...

 steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. The film stars Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...

, Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...

, Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, John Savage
John Savage (actor)
John Savage is an American film actor, producer, production manager, and composer.- Acting career :...

, John Cazale
John Cazale
John Holland Cazale , was an American film and theater actor. During his six-year film career he appeared in five films, each of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter.From his...

, and George Dzundza
George Dzundza
George Dzundza is an American television and film actor.-Personal life:Dzundza was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Ukrainian father and Polish mother who were forced into factory labour by the Nazis. He spent the first few years of his life in displaced persons camps with his parents and one...

. The story takes place in Clairton
Clairton, Pennsylvania
Clairton is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Monongahela River. It is part of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area. The population was 6,796 at the 2010 census. Under Pennsylvania legal classifications for local governments, Clairton is considered a third-class city...

, a small working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 town on the Monongahela River
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...

 south of Pittsburgh and then in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, somewhere in the woodland and in Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...

, during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

.

The film was based in part on a screenplay called "The Man Who Came To Play" by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K.
Quotations

Those are sun dogs...It means a blessing on the hunter sent by the Great Wolf to his children...It's an old Indian thing.

[to Linda] I just wanted to say how sorry I am about Nick. And how, I know how much you loved him and I know that it will never be the same. I just wanted to tell you that.

You wanna play games, I'll play your fucking games.

Here's to Nick.

What is there to be afraid of in this war? The war is a joke, a silly thing...I pay my players - cash - American. However, should you prefer German marks or perhaps Swiss francs, that of course can be arranged.

If you are really brave and lucky, I can make you very, very rich.

When a man says no to champagne, he says no to life.

Steven's mother: I still do not believe this. My own boy with a strange girl and not so thin, if you understand my meaning...The next thing you know, he goes to Vietnam...I do not understand, Father. I understand nothing anymore, nothing...Can you explain? Can anyone explain?

Steven's mother: You marry this girl, you leave her with me, and you go with these bums to Vietnam.

Nick: Did you hear about the happy Roman? He was "GLAD HE ATE HER"!

 
x
OK