In most cases, being at least a decade removed from an international conflict adds more clarity and nuanced handling of a respective war, and no war r
In most cases, being at least a decade removed from an international conflict adds more clarity and nuanced handling of a respective war, and no war required more separation from ongoing events than the Vietnam War. Even with the separation from the real-life conflict-turned-political and social quagmire, The Deer Hunter is very much a relic of its period.
Michael Cimino‘s earnest, sweeping portrait tackling lofty themes at their most audacious is the kind of straightforward epic rarely seen on the huge screen these days. While the film is fairly broad and metaphorical in its depiction of the war, its scope and boldness remind audiences of the old-school grandeur of Hollywood filmmaking. Because star Robert De Niro nearly turned the set into a tense wartime setting, the film really needed to be a triumph to rationalize the production chaos.
Robert De Niro Requested To Have a Live Bullet in His Gun While Filming ‘The Deer Hunter’
Compared to his follow-up, Heaven’s Gate, a notorious flop and tumultuous production that altered the landscape of the industry and became synonymous with the term “box office bomb,” The Deer Hunter was a walk in the park for Michael Cimino. Still, a film with this level of scope and thematic weight was bound to create a tense set. Both a story about the decaying idealism of working-class America and a war epic/PTSD drama, The Deer Hunter carried itself as a cinematic opera. In the end, the film met its lofty expectations, winning five Academy Awards, including for Christopher Walken‘s performance as the psychologically scarred Nick.
If the story on the page wasn’t harsh enough, the demands of committed actor Robert De Niro, who played the taciturn and emotionally repressed steelworker-turned-veteran Michael, made the set of The Deer Hunter a harrowing experience in itself. The film’s most memorable (and certainly the most intense), scene features Michael, Nick, and Steven (John Savage), held captive by Vietcong soldiers, where they are forced to play a game of Russian Roulette. Upon returning home, Stan (John Cazale) fools around with them by pointing a revolver, sending traumatizing flashbacks to Michael, who subsequently rips the gun from Stan’s hand, loads one bullet, and pulls the trigger at his head, drawing an empty.
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To add authenticity, De Niro, according to Cimino, requested a live round in the revolver used for the scene. “I think I can do the scene better if we put a real round in the gun,” Cimino recalled what the actor told him. While Cimino was appalled, John Cazale “didn’t bat an eye” upon hearing this request, and he agreed to have a crew member check the gun after each take to make sure the bullet wasn’t in the next chamber. Even with the checks, this is an incredibly hazardous tactic, especially with our knowledge of various tragic deaths that occur due to gun violence. These reckless stunts go against everything in the book of safety precautions on film sets. Combined with De Niro’s own powerful austerity in his performance, you can feel the horrors of the war as Michael points a loaded gun at his friend’s head. The scene packs an additional layer of pathos due to the great character actor Cazale, who died before the film’s premiere.
Robert De Niro’s Performance in ‘The Deer Hunter’ Is Filled With Raw Authenticity
Robert De Niro is one of the most eminent method actors in history. Whether it’s moonlighting as a cab driver when preparing to play Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or demanding the employ of real twenty-dollar bills instead of prop money in Goodfellas, De Niro’s fastidiousness was likely a major headache for his fellow actors, directors, and below-the-line crew members. Call it superficial or egotistical, but in the end, his method of madness pays off. Responsible for some of the finest performances in history, De Niro touches raw nerves in every role, and his preparation makes every character feel like a reflection of the real world.
In The Deer Hunter, he is at his most vulnerable and combustible. Even looking at him sends chills up your spine, as he wears the nihilistic dread from combat on his face. In the film’s first chapter, Steven’s wedding, Michael’s haunted gaze underscores the prevailing sense of doom that Americans constantly felt following Vietnam. Compared to more grounded, polemic anti-war movies about Vietnam, notably Platoon, The Deer Hunter seems broad in hindsight, down to the overly antagonistic depiction of the Vietnamese soldiers. Make no mistake, though, the cast of Michael Cimino’s landmark film wasn’t just pretending to face grave threats, as a live round was in the line of fire.
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