Measuring the impact of The Deer Hunter on its merit and success is only half of the story. The film by Michael Cimino, which earned five Oscars at the Academy Awards in 1979, including Best Director and Best Picture, made the Vietnam War a valuable commodity in Hollywood. The political quagmire, which had ended three years before the film's release, was viewed as a taboo subject in the eyes of studios. A decade following The Deer Hunter's critical and commercial triumph, Vietnam War-set movies became a genre on its own, with the greater public, notably filmmakers, now ready to dissect why America got entangled in this inauspicious foreign affair and how the nation responded to this period. Despite its eventual success, the behind-the-scenes events surrounding The Deer Hunter's production and release unfolded in a tumultuous fashion.
'The Deer Hunter' Was Problematic Before Production
Coincidentally enough, the man who presented The Deer Hunter with its Best Picture award was the star of the lone major Vietnam-set film before 1978, John Wayne. At the height of America's involvement in Vietnam in 1968, during the Tet Offensive, Wayne starred in and co-directed The Green Berets, a staunchly patriotic and sanitized depiction of the war that received full cooperation from the U.S. Department of Defense. Outside this film, which amassed negative reviews, the Vietnam War was Kryptonite in Hollywood. For provocative films that commented on the political and social upheaval of the moment, Vietnam was spoken of in allegory or metaphor. While Robert Altman's M*A*S*H is set during the Korean War, it is unmistakably reacting to Vietnam. Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver is not explicitly characterized as a veteran of Vietnam, but his tortured and disenchanted worldview captured the underbelly of the post-war American consciousness.
RELATED: The 10 Best Vietnam War Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes
As Peter Biskind accounts in his feature story on The Deer Hunter for Vanity Fair, the conception of the film originated from an outlandish theory that the fatalistic game of Russian Roulette was a metaphor for America's involvement in the Vietnam War made by Michael Cimino. After convincing producer Barry Spikings to fund the movie at EMI Films, Cimino worked on a script with Deric Washburn. Before the cameras started rolling, disorder ensued behind the scenes. Washburn was alleged to have had bouts with alcoholism, which affected his work. Additionally, it was reported that he did not obtain testimony or first-hand accounts from any Vietnam veterans. His closest connection to the war was that he grew up in a middle-class family in Pittsburgh and spent six months in the army. For his alleged temperamental behavior, Washburn was fired, but he still received a writing credit on the film.
Michael Cimino's Vision for 'The Deer Hunter' Was Very Ambitious
As a fitting precursor to Heaven's Gate, Cimino's ambitious follow-up war epic whose disastrous and interminable production forever altered the industry, The Deer Hunter also experienced setbacks while filming. Between Cimino's request for his star-studded cast of Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, and Meryl Streep to socialize with each other, and his meticulous construction of the expansive wedding sequence in the first act, the film went over budget and behind schedule. At one point, while filming countless takes during the wedding scene, De Niro and Cazale collapsed to the floor in exhaustion. Throughout production, Cimino was highly protective and exacting of the wedding scene, a sequence that represents an inflection point for modern viewers of the film. In all likelihood, one is either enraptured by the overwhelming pomp and circumstance of the sequence or turned off by its methodical patience.
The most harrowing behind-the-scenes tales of the film's production occurred in Thailand, where the Vietnam sections were filmed. One day, the film's production liaison, General Kriangsak Chomanan, the supreme commander of the Thai military, informed them that a military coup was imminent. As a result, his forces needed all the weapons and machinery that they lent to the production team returned for combat. The General stated, "There’ll be a few people who’ll get shot on Sunday, and then you can have the stuff back." While filming a stunt where De Niro and John Savage hang from a helicopter hovering above a bridge during the escape scene, the actors' lives were put at risk when the chopper snagged one of its skids in the bridge. With the threat of the helicopter flying down on top of them, Savage remained in character, referring to Robert De Niro as "Michael," the latter's character. Ironically, De Niro was the one who demanded that a co-star break character, yelling "Savage, for Christ’s sake, we’re not in character anymore! We’re not in the fucking movie!"
Hal Ashby’s ‘Coming Home,’ a Very Different Vietnam War Film, Released at the Same Time
Coinciding with the production and impending release of The Deer Hunter was another Vietnam film--this one centered around a wounded vet in a VA hospital and the romance he strikes with a volunteer nurse. Everything that The Deer Hunter was (grand, operatic, and conveyed through allegories) Coming Home was the opposite (grounded, humanist, and plugged into the counterculture). The film by Hal Ashbyostensibly corrected its counterpart's misdoings in its broad depiction of the war on the American home front and battlefield. Coming Homewas inevitably pitted against The Deer Hunter upon awards season.
Before the film's limited release around Christmas 1978, The Deer Hunter was marred by controversy. In an interview with The New York Times, Cimino claimed to have been a medic for the Green Berets following the start of the Tet Offensive in 1968. When researchers dug into this, they struggled to find any record of the director's service history. It was discovered that he never served for the Green Berets, but he did enlist as an army reserve in 1962, well before the Tet Offensive. Already interpreted as a peculiar figure, screenwriter Deric Washburn asserted that Cimino "is or was a pathological liar. He lied to everybody—about everything. I don’t think he ever knew where [the truth] was."
'The Deer Hunter's Reception Is Very Divided
The most damaging controversy surrounding the film, one that lingers today, was its racist portrayal of Vietnamese people. An editorial by John Pilger, who covered the Vietnam War for the Times, stated "Hollywood sensed that a lot of money could be made with a movie that appealed directly to those racial instincts that cause wars and that allowed the Vietnam War to endure for so long. The Deer Hunter and its apologists insult the memory of every American who died in Vietnam." Pauline Kael thoroughly deconstructed the film's worldview, arguing that "The Vietcong are treated in the standard inscrutable‐evil Oriental style of the Japanese in the Second World War." On Oscars night, the film was met with protesters in ire over the offensive portrayal of Vietnam.
The Deer Hunter's much-discussed ending, with the remaining characters singing "God Bless America" at the dining room table, ponders the true political affiliation of the film. No one will ever have a definitive explanation of the scene's purpose. Perhaps it demonstrates the tortured emptiness of the characters desperately clinging to a sense of comfort, or perhaps it is merely a byproduct of blatant jingoism. What is certain is that this speaks to the vast allegorical vocabulary of the film. The device of Russian Roulette used to exhibit the decayed soul of America was lambasted by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Peter Arnett, who wrote that "The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie." For the most part, metaphorical storytelling across all mediums is widely accepted, but when deployed for a story set during one of the most divisive periods in recent history, abstract rhetoric is sure to alienate those who experienced the horrors of Vietnam.
'The Deer Hunter' Wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards
When John Wayne, just months before his death, announced the Oscar for Best Picture to The Deer Hunter, "the acclaim was respectful but well short of thunderous," based on a Los Angeles Times report. According to Cimino, following the conclusion of the ceremony, he ran into Jane Fonda, the star and Oscar-winner for Best Actress of Coming Home and devout anti-war activist, in an elevator while on his way to a press conference. Cimino offered a handshake to congratulate her win, but she refused. "She wouldn't look at me," he said. "She wouldn't talk to me." In future interviews, Fonda disparaged The Deer Hunter as a racist film, adding that "our film was better," referring to Coming Home.
The film was and remains an undeniable artistic achievement that maximizes the senses and emotions. On the flip side, its immediate critiques are just as relevant today. In contrast to the more finely-tuned and cynical portrayals of the war that followed in its wake, including Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Casualties of War, Michael Cimino's film resembles something closer to a caricature of the war's likeness and impact. A film as towering as The Deer Hunter should be expected to have a sprawling development process and seismic public reaction. For movies of the 1970s with grand visions of American sociology and recent current events, the behind-the-scenes drama of The Deer Hunter is a lot to handle, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The Big Picture
- The success of The Deer Hunter paved the way for more Vietnam War movies, which were previously considered taboo in Hollywood.
- The production of The Deer Hunter was riddled with controversies, including issues with the scriptwriter and setbacks during filming.
- The film received divided reception, with criticism for its racist portrayal of Vietnamese people and its ambiguous political allegories.
