The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter is one of those masterpieces that are forgotten, ignored or underrated by those who make Top 100 lists it is a movie directed by Michael Cimino, Released on the 8th of December 1978, based in Western Pennsylvania during the late 1960s. The story follows three Russian –American friends, Michael, Nick and Steven, living in the steel mill town of Clairton. In which there life consists of hanging out in a local bar and enjoying weekends of deer-hunting.The title refers to the passion for deer hunting shared by Michael and Nick . Michael and Nick have both found a love interest with Linda, in whom she’s uses, their love as an advantage to juggle both men. But their placid life is soon to be changed after they are enlisted in the airborne infantry of Vietnam. (The use of helicopter-borne air mobile troops by the United States in the Vietnam War was widespread, and became an iconic image featuring in newsreels and movies about the conflict.) They all celebrate a goodbye at Steven's wedding and they leave to Vietnam, where they are captured by the enemy and forced to play a game of Russian Roulette. They escape and return home, but their lives are forever changed. Nick stays in Vietnam, Michael returns to Linda, and Steven is handicapped after losing a leg in the war.

I choose this film because of The “Russian Roulette” portrayed to an extent showed the physic logical, mental brutality of the soldiers involved within Vietnam War. Not only through being sent to war and not excepting the reality of what the term  Vietnam war or the vivid imagery that it proclaimed, but the unexpected of being captured by the Vietnamese and then being face within a life or death situation. This only gives an inside to the uncovering of the Vietnam War whilst adding on to why the Vietnam War transformed very quickly from a supportive war to a negative war especially being covered through the media. The characters played by actors De Niro, Walken, and Savage in the deer hunter being forced to play the game Russian Roulette which has a sense of irony to it considering both solider ancestry consisted of a Russian background. However the director Michael Cimino shot the Russian roulette scenes were shot in real circumstances, with real rats and mosquitoes. Also that “The woman tasked with casting the extras in Thailand had much difficulty finding a local to play the vicious individual who runs the Russian roulette game. The first actor hired turned out to be incapable of slapping De Niro in the face. The caster thankfully knew a local Thai man with a particular dislike of Americans and cast him accordingly. De Niro suggested that Walken be slapped for real by one of the guards without any forewarning.” To an extent some viewed the Russian Roulette as partially truthful.

The game Russian roulette comes from Russian prison guards forced inmates to play and bet on the outcome. Within the Vietnam War it was a game played when a single bullet is put in the chamber of a revolver, the chamber is spun and participants blindly pull the trigger. The game ends when there is only one contestant remaining. 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnedpq_russian-roulette-from-the-deer-hunter-1978_shortfilms 

 Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_Hunter#Vietnam_and_the_Russian_roulette_scenes

http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=1728