The Deer Hunter Watch Along
Added 2024-01-15 17:00:11 +0000 UTCThis movie was incredible! I've never seen anything like it. Its such a beautiful and tragic movie about friendships and the toll of war on your psyche. I have so many more questions to ask myself about this movie. But from a filmmaking perspective, I felt the pacing, acting, score, story, and cinematography was incredible. I will never forget this movie.
xx
ames
Comments
Thanks for watching Clay!!it’s a really good movie and I’m still thinking about it today. I felt hard to speak at times because I was frustrated and felt the struggles they were going throu. I’ve been learning more about the film. It’s wild
Amalia Wolf
2024-01-18 06:18:47 +0000 UTCYour reaction was perfect. Soothing. Help me in rewatching this. Agree the De Niro/Walken acting was stellar. Mesmerizing. Savage was convincing. Meryl Streep is a true nuanced actor and beautiful. The camera work made the movie even more enveloping. Among the mixture of feelings the movie delivers is a somber sick feeling. Stunning movie. The No. 52 ranking on the AFI Top 100 is well deserved. I liked your outro.
Clay F
2024-01-18 04:31:20 +0000 UTCGood observations JM.. I agree... This movie wouldn't get greenlit today unless spiderman popped up somewhere...
RFK Fan
2024-01-17 17:59:35 +0000 UTCSo many wide shots and long takes. Um, why exactly did they stop shooting movies like this, again? (Otoh, it lets me appreciate these 70s masterpieces even more.) There were also some great lingering shots, like when Nick leaves the phone and the camera shows two other soldiers fighting over it for a good 10 seconds. The wedding sequence. The obvious comparison is The Godfather, which brilliantly uses a wedding to introduce that world. But this one is equally effective: it introduces the entire town, its ethnic roots, and its close-knit, almost oppressive, relationships (the wedding singer who grabs your girlfriend's ass tonight will sell your groceries tomorrow). By taking up so much of the movie, it leaves a vivid impression in our minds, just as it does for Mike, Nick, and Steve before they leave for war. I've always loved Meryl Streep's performance here. Her later roles are brilliant for other reasons, but I don't know if she's ever been so immediate and reactive as she is here. Her character is utterly lost in life, but Streep conveys this with merely a quiet vulnerability. Why does Nick stay? I think we see part of the answer during the hospital interview. He can barely remember his own name, let alone his parents' names and birthdates. Even the thought of Linda can't provoke a response. Maybe the realization that the world can contain violence that is so brutal and senseless (the guards seemed to be running the game simply to pass the time) has made him feel like his old life of the steel mill, drinking, and bowling is simply a lie that covers the ugly truth of what human beings are capable of. Better to face reality rather than bullshit. The kill-or-be-killed "game" might symbolize how many of the the soldiers, who were mostly draftees, saw the Vietnam War: as brutal, interminable violence which was inflicted upon them for no reason (as opposed to WWII, which had a clear and easily understandable objective). According to Wikipedia, the frustration in Vietnam led to nearly 900 "fragging" incidents where soldiers threw live grenades into their commanding officers' tents. (Thankfully, Wiki also says that the deer was brought down with a tranquilizer dart, not a real gun.) Glad you were able to check off a big one! Always excited to revisit this era, when "slow cinema" was the norm.
JM63
2024-01-17 01:49:43 +0000 UTC
