Just finished watching the movie, The Deer Hunter. What a movie! It was just so touching and moving, it was incredible - especially so, since I was absolutely prepared to NOT like the movie. I think "Apocalypse Now" turned me off of all Vietnam movies for good. I went into this movie expecting Apocalypse Now Redux, but at the end I am pleasantly surprised.
I think the difference between both the movies is like the difference between art that you can see and appreciate and art that you need to "interpret" and appreciate. AN (Apocalypse Now) seemed like a long, meandering, unfocused saga in which most of the time you didn't understand why someone was doing whatever it was they were doing. You needed to take some things on faith - oh, it is vietnam, so it turned men into monsters. Period. Maybe not to everyone. Doesn't matter. Coppola said so and that is the abject truth. Another thing about AN was that everybody in the movie seemed bad or destined to be a monster. There were no good guys. There might have been a few here and there, but I had switched off my interest by then probably, and finished the movie for the sake of finishing it. Nope - the movie completely failed to draw me in.
DH (Deer Hunter) on the other hand, isn't necessarily short - a few minutes short of 3 hours - but held my interest through the last scene. It wasn't pretentious drivel where I had ponder on universal truths to get a movie. Michael Cimino doesn't take himself too seriously, and there is genuine love for the characters of the movie. They have been through the horros of the war too - and they are horrors, nothing less. But they still have some humanity left in them - enough at least to want to comfort and help each other.
I think to put it succinctly, DH doesn't leave you wanting to kill yourself. There is hope for the future and the message is that regardless of what bad stuff happens, life moves on and people survive. Don't miss it if you get a chance to watch this movie.
I have seen some people complain too much on IMDB about the length of the wedding scene, but I think it was an attempt to portray the bond between the friends before they left for the war. It really set up the characters, their personalities, their ways of dealing with things. It puts the latter actions of the characters in context. The friendship is probably the only thing that actually saves the Deer Hunter's characters from becoming monsters like in Apocalypse Now.
Posted by shanti at June 14, 2003 3:14 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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errr….what about Apocalypse Now turned you off, if I may ask?:huh:
Posted by: Gaurav at June 14, 2003 10:56 PM
The “apocalyptical” tone of the movie? :)
It was long, meandering and just depressing. Not the kind of movie to keep one’s attention for three hours.
Posted by: Shanti at June 15, 2003 7:21 AM
ah well…………………..ok.
Posted by: Gaurav at June 15, 2003 7:32 PM
Yeah, I agree. I expected more out of AN for such a long movie.
I got more out of reading Heart of Darkness, upon which AN was based.
Posted by: Gokul at June 16, 2003 3:54 PM
Hmm.. I should try reading the book then - I think AN gets so involved with the monstrosities of the human heart that it loses the audience half-way in. DH on the other hand, shows actual human beings, not monster and makes them more likeable….
Posted by: Shanti at June 16, 2003 4:05 PM
Have you seen Terence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line” — came out at the same time as the middlebrow “Saving Private Ryan”, which got tons of Spielberg. Tom Hanks hype.. but TTRL was far, far superior. Perhaps among the five best films that I’ve been priviliged to see in real-time ie, upon first release
AN was long but I found it absolutely riveting..
Posted by: Prashant P Kothari at June 17, 2003 11:54 PM
That sounds very interesting, Prashant - I will check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Posted by: Shanti at June 18, 2003 9:19 AM