010 The Deer Hunter

In this episode we discuss Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter starring Robert Deniro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, and John Cazale.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:25

Welcome to Filing, where we love to think and rap about what we love. I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined shortly by Brandon Mitchell. We are rapping and denoting fondness for cinema. We are ideophiles, storyphiles, and cinephiles. Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens. Our discussion is a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you haven't seen this movie, stop listening to us right now, go watch it, and then return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings. This is the ninth episode of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life. The After the Life is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th. Go to thefest2026.com for details about the event. In this episode, we're discussing the 1979 epic The Deer Hunter. The lead character of the Deer Hunter is Michael. Michael's a steel worker and a hunter. He is also preparing to be a soldier that eventually goes to and returns from the Vietnam War. Michael's best friend Nick is also preparing to go to Vietnam. Before they go, Nick asks Michael to make him a promise. Michael promises to not leave Nick behind in Vietnam. But Michael loses track of him, and Nick loses track of himself and his mind after experiencing severe trauma during war. Prior to this traumatic experience, Michael, Nick, and their friends Stevie, Stan, and Axel enjoyed one another's energetic camaraderie. They demonstrated this while working together, drinking together, hunting together, taunting and goading each other, while occasionally and recklessly racing past, into and around the front of a dump truck moving at full speed on a narrow road, all the while not wearing seat belts and gambling the title of each other's cars on the success or failure of this maneuver. It seems as if this is just their typical way to get to their favorite bar after work. The Daredevil abandon was all fun and games prior to war, but during and after the war, this state of mind diffuses into a psychopathological mixture of existential disconnect and self-sacrificial guardianship. During the war, Michael, Nick, and Stevie are taken prisoner and forced to play Russian roulette against one another and other fellow American soldiers as a form of entertainment for their captors. Russian roulette involves loading one bullet into a gun's chamber, spinning the chamber, placing the gun to your head, and pulling the trigger while spectators wager bets on the outcome of the trigger pull. The gun is traded back and forth between two people and repeated until one person shoots themselves in the head. Michael, Nick, and Stevie fight their way out of the situation, but at some point, Stevie is injured and loses control of his legs. Nick loses his mind and retreats into the back alleys of Saigon, and Michael loses his best friend. After his tour in the war, Michael toils to keep his promise to his lost friend Nick and eventually finds him. Nick is found competing in a deadly underground game of Russian roulette in Saigon as the U.S. military removes the remainder of American personnel from Vietnam. When Michael confronts him, Nick does not recognize Michael. Nick is detached from his memories as he marches toward another round of Russian roulette unbothered by the risk of death. Nick's life, according to his actions and state of mind, is not only unworthy of protection, but so trivial that risking death is not worth considering. Death appears to be his pursuit. And so Nick marches to the table to put a gun with one bullet in the chamber against his head, to pull the trigger, and excite the gamblers betting for and against him for no apparent reason at all. Michael offers his own life as a sacrifice in order to save his friend. Pays to enter the game to compete against Nick. He seemingly does this in order to jog Nick's memory and remind him that he doesn't belong here or have to do what he's doing. Nick begins to remember. He remembers hunting deer with Michael before the war. He remembers Michael's stated goal of killing a deer with one shot. Michael then watches his friend fire one shot into his own head. Michael returns from Vietnam to be with his friends that remain alive. The theme of the deer hunter is the contrast between friendships before and after the Vietnam War. The plot theme or central conflict of the movie is a man and his promise to protect his friend versus the friend who requested the promise and later loses his mind during war. The results of martyrdom and insanity is death or trauma. One might actually value trauma and death, but they are not good values. Perhaps the cinematic representation of trauma and death is a therapeutic value. The aim of therapy is to heal dis-ease, and the first step of treatment is the awareness of the trauma because in order to fix something, you have to be aware it exists. That fundamental starting point for treating trauma may be simple enough to understand for those of us not dealing with trauma, but I imagine it's different for the traumatized, because the mental damage of trauma is damage to one's consciousness. It is damaged to one's faculty of awareness. It is damaged to what one needs most and lacks to heal the mind, the mind itself. The visual and oral grandeur of a movie will engage one's awareness if one is not experiencing trauma. I imagine the exaggerated sense of reality in cinema will also engage the traumatized. But perhaps therapeutic values are best sought from a medical professional like a psychologist and not a filmmaker. Although the nature of making films, particularly characterization, is a psychological process and product. That said, it's impossible for me to know the reality of the American culture's appreciation and accessibility of mental health therapy during the 1970s, because I didn't live during that time. But I can imagine mental health care was less evolved than it is now. So perhaps cinema served the culture by at least providing psychological perspective. Perhaps the value of the deer hunter is educational. The sensory perceptual realism and power of cinema can educate us about the consequences of war. This is especially helpful for those of us who have not experienced the direct trauma of participating in a war, but who share the responsibility of governing the protection of the lives of all individuals in our culture. If all this is learned, perhaps the value of the deer hunter is life. If we are more careful and thoughtful in our responsibility to participate in the governance of military power and action, then we will save more life. We may discover that the standard of value is life, and the means to protect it is in part rationality, honesty, and compassion. The Deer Hunter was released in 1978. Again, it's impossible to know the reality of the 1970s or the Vietnam War if one was born after it. Those people can only experience filtered glimpses. Cinema provides the most realistic peek into the past, but it is not the event. It is not the history. And we all know that. But cinema is so immersive, we forget that knowledge because we want to forget and need to forget in order to feel. And that feeling is real. And if the feeling is distressing or disturbing, if the feeling is traumatic and we learn and we choose to change and we improve our life, that is a value, and obviously important if we appreciate the constant alternative to our life, our death. The final step demonstrated in the Deer Hunter, and another therapeutic value is acceptance. A group of friends sings God bless America and cheers a round of drinks to their deceased friend. The deer hunter is a long, slow, and at times tedious examination of life before and after a war, and represents the most fundamental option we have. Live or die, persist or perish.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

All options lead to that. Ultimately, there is no other option. Accept it and move forward. Accept it and live. Accept it and go file it.

SPEAKER_05 10:09

One thing I want to note is uh this movie starts with what appears to be over an hour-long prologue. And I personally find that very difficult to get through. What do you think, Brandon?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Um maybe the exact opposite. I think the first hour of this movie is my favorite part. And to me it flies by and the last hour slows into a serious crawl to me. Like I'm uh I've watched it two times over the last week, and both times it gets through the first hour, and I'm like, wow, that hour just moves. Like this movie's not gonna seem like it's that long. And then uh at some point, you know, I'm in what seems to be like it's gotta be so close to the end. And I'd pause it and be like, 48 minutes left? What the hell? But maybe that's partly from my own faulty memory because when I s the last time I saw it before this watch was 20 years ago. And I had in my mind that the second time De Niro goes hunting and sees the deer, I had that in my mind that that was the end. Like that was the final scene of the movie, and that's where you notice his change, and that's not the case at all. There's the whole final third, I think, after that. So that could have been what threw me off there. But no, I I I really like the the first like wedding sequence and and getting to know the the characters, and you know, I mean, I think it may it feels like a coppola style movie at the beginning, you know, like I think The Godfather does some similar things.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

There's a wedding in the prologue of The Godfather.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's like and and it has a clear reason for it, you know, to just see what life is like before Vietnam not only terrorizes these three main characters, but the whole community, you know, and then by extension, like how many other communities across America or whatever country people get sent away from when they go to war, you know. So I think it has a a really uh really clear point. Uh it the the length and and stuff like that does maybe take away from uh making this a movie you really want to revisit for any reason. I think it's kind like kind of half a powerful movie, and at other times, like uh I don't know, I feel like the the idea of the movie. Yeah, the idea of the movie is so crystal clear and you get it. It's not something that you have to go back to and say, I wonder what they were going for in this section. Let me revisit that, where a lot of other movies that I'm way more interested in tend to make you want to do to like they leave you with questions, maybe, and uh, and this one's I think so clear there's there's no questions left over at the end of the movie. You even the way the movie ends, and we'll we'll we'll get to that. I mean, you referenced it there in your your um description to start. Um, you know, that that has a uh a weird vibe to it that you can leave the like you definitely leave the movie thinking about that scene a little bit more because it there is more to come, I think, from the story, which is good, and it has this sad quality to it, the God bless America singing that after you've gone through this whole movie and experienced all the depressing and like disturbing uh nature of the whole thing, uh there is some sort of kind of either ironic or it almost feels inappropriate. Yeah, right. But at the same time, how you described it, it does the the the answer to it all is you know, no matter what you just decide whether you're gonna move forward or not. You know, and that's what these people that are back home have to inevitably do. Yeah. So before we get to the the um big wedding whole sequence, though, the first shot in the movie is like kind of my favorite thing in the entire movie.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

You're talking about the shot of the steelwork factory under Highway Underpass. That's the first shot of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

But yeah, yeah, yeah. The underpass. Not yeah, I I thought you were saying in the steel in where the people are working in the steel mill.

SPEAKER_05 16:19

Yeah, in the background, in the background is the Y shot of the factory.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Right.

unknown 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Which um those shots are great. The contrast between the Pittsburgh area steel mills and the mountains that they go hunting is awesome. Because they're both landscapes, you know, um, but have a completely different feel, even though the dudes seem to love both, you know. Like they they don't look down on the rusty, smoke-filled landscape of the steel steel mill area. They seem to love that as much as they or maybe even more than when they go to the woods, you know. Cause the the cinematography and when they go up in the mountains is so unreal, but they definitely don't take too much time take taking it in. They're just kind of being the same type of group of assholes busting on each other the whole time, even though they're in like this completely unreal, beautiful landscape. Interesting. But yeah, anyway, the uh the truck barreling down through the underpass, it's just such a good setup for this almost like dangerous impending doom that's coming to all these characters.

SPEAKER_05 17:56

Yeah, I want to talk about that shot in a little more detail.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

I agree that the truck the movement of the truck seems like it's going too fast and it's reckless, which I think is a critical characteristic of the entire movie and the n the nature of the characters. But the color and lighting of that opening shot, which looks like a painting, is very ominous. It's dark, it's it's seems like it's just before dawn. The factory is pretty much silhouetted, and a lot of the frame is underneath the highway underpass, so it's very dark. And there's just a dirtiness and griminess to the shot that immediately made me feel kinda disgusted. And that's maintained throughout the whole movie.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Because most of the time we're spending in this small town of Clairton, Pennsylvania. And it's late 1970s, which was economically a difficult period of time in America, and it was almost 50 years ago. And so there's a deep contrast with modern 21st century experience in that time period in terms of the setting. And so there's there's something about that that turns me off. I don't know. It's not it's not even that it turns me off, it just unsettles me. And there's so much focus on that. And maybe it was a different experience when the movie was released because it was modern at that time, it was contemporary, and representative of what things look like. It's just so different now. It looks like almost like a third world country. And I find that interesting, but the emotional experience is dark and uncomfortable. I think that's purposeful. And I love those white types of wide shots. I think they're so detailed and so meaningful when done well, and this is done really, really well because there's so much meaning in it. I have this criticism of all movies that use beautiful wide shots, they don't linger on them long enough. I would like to s see them longer, experience them longer, and see people interacting in them longer. And that's just a general criticism I have of wide shots like that, especially landscapes or cityscapes. Um But I digress. To your point, that truck that barrels into frame seemingly faster than it should be on a winding road is pretty unsettling as well. And then the camera starts pushing in to follow the truck. And then I think it cuts to another shot where the truck's pulling around a corner way too fast, and then it barrels past the main bar that all the friends like to go to.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

And there's some sort of ignition stuff flying out the exhaust pipes, you know, just like that. It just gives a little extra sense of Like a connection with the war stuff that's gonna be happening later on. Yeah, there's something adds explosive happening. Yeah, there's like little tiny balls of fire or something shooting out of the exhaust pipes. And so it's it's I don't know. It's one of my favorite things in the entire movie because it sets sets this tone. And then and then by contrast, I mean you what you see the guys working in there, and the way that that's shot, you know, the camera's all up in there, and there's sometimes big flames just looking like they're so close to the camera, and the flames are in between the camera and characters that we're looking at. So it seems super dangerous and really grimy. Everybody's covered in soot, but then they get off work and they're immediately they're just like, hey, this is our life. This is kind of awesome. You know, it's like there's a uh juxtaposition there that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Because you're d you're watching it saying you feel disgusted, but these characters don't seem like they feel disgusted by just that opening shot.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

I find I found the the scene in the factory pretty interesting because I've never been in a steelwork factory. I have no understanding or knowledge or observation regarding how that works. Certainly not how it worked in the 1970s. And so it was interesting. It looked like guys working in a volcano that was kind of under some degree of control with machinery. I mean, there's literal molten lava flowing through and sparks flying everywhere, and they're in head-to-toe protective gear. I thought it was pretty fascinating. And then they take you through the whole process before they even get outside of the factory and go home for the day. How they get cleaned up. And I thought that was interesting too because it was all men blue-collar men getting changed, showering together, unashamedly just going through the process of cleaning up before they head home. And you go from the one locker room to a shower to another locker room to exiting out of the factory. And the whole time there's just this energy of just so many men together in a room ending their work day and transitioning to the rest of their day. And I thought that was really interesting. I can't I can't say I've ever experienced anything like that, where I was in a workplace that included all men and hundreds of them or dozens of them, and everyone's moving in lockstep with each other. Can't say I've ever experienced that. Maybe high school, but that was an all-man. So again, an indicator of the time period. And I thought that was interesting. Yeah. Because, you know, these guys have a particular way of treating each other, a certain level of camaraderie and like physical interaction of kind of like pushing each other. That reminded me of high school. You know, you you had friends that would sometimes, you know, like kind of push you or you know what I mean, in a friendly way, not in a in a way in which they were trying to fight you. And so it reminded me of that. And there was also a lot of taunting and goading um amongst well, that happens later. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Um, yeah, I mean, there's definitely some there's there's that throughout with all of those guys, but we also that's where we learn that at least De Niro's character, Mike, is going somewhere, he's leaving. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and there's something else I was sort of picking up on, which uh I'm not a hundred percent sure about, so I want to bring it up and see what you think. Because I mean, obviously, Christopher Watkins going to Vietnam as well, they seem to be talking Mike up a lot more, and just kind of the way Christopher Watkins positioned in a lot of those scenes seems like he wants to be noticed more. But yeah, you know, I like but I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't know if you got that from it as well. It seemed like Mike's getting more of the attention, and Christopher Watkins kind of like trying to fit his head in there. Um, I don't know if trying to take some of the attention away from Mike or just kind of get in on it. But I sort of was picking up on that through just the way he was positioned in some of the shots.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Um I didn't notice that I did get the sense that Mike with at least within this group of five friends was the de facto leader. You know, he had a i primarily because most of the attention was directed toward him.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:57

And he had probably the more serious things to interject. I mean, immediately when they walked out of the factory, they see this phenomenon in the sky called sun dogs. And they're all looking at it and they're asking him what that is, because obviously Mike would know. And he does, and he explains it, and then Stanley messes with him, kind of taunts him a little bit, and then Mike is unaffected by it. He just looks at him, and after he explains what a son dog is, Stanley says, you know, what the fuck are you talking about? You're full of shit. And Mike just calmly looks at him and says, Would I shit you about something like that? And then it's over. And then Stanley completely reverses and actually compliments him. And by saying, only a doctor would understand the things you say. Which is basically an implicit way of saying, You're an intelligent guy. And so that's the impression that I get that, and and Christopher Walken throughout this opening scene is well, his character's name is Nick. So Nick is interjecting jokes. That's the first thing that we hear Nick say. He says a joke when he's sitting in the laugh locker room. Did you hear about the happy Roman Ke Gladiator? Mm-hmm. And it's hard to pick up on. I didn't pick up on it the first time I watched it, but when I slowed the movie down and watched it scene by scene, I picked up on that. So I didn't get the impression that Nick was trying to one up or taunt or goat Mike or anything. That's definitely Stan's job. I just he was a guy in a group, you know, and when guys are in a group, they kinda put themselves out there. And if anything, I think, and we learned this throughout the movie, Nick is just a slightly different person than Mike and a little less secure in himself.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah. And that's that's I think I was just maybe picking up on a little bit of that. I mean, he's likable, he's arguably the most likable of that whole group because I don't think Mike cares as much about being likable. You know, I think they they have a they have a really good scene together where Mike's kind of talking about how everybody the whole group's just a bunch of assholes. Yeah. And he has a little bit more respect for Nick, saying, you know, like everybody's cool, but if it wasn't for you being around, I wouldn't go hunting with all these dudes.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

I I really understand that relationship.

SPEAKER_05 31:16

That's a great scene. And it really Christopher Wagon's he won the best supporting actor, Oscar, for this role. And I think this scene is one of the reasons why. Because he tries to explain to Mike why he goes hunting. And he explains to Mike, I'm not I don't care about hunting, I'm not in it for the hunting. And he tries to explain why. But he it doesn't seem like he's really made it clear to even himself why. But he's so he says something about the trees. And he then he tries to explain his reason for liking the trees. He really can't do it, and he kind of cuts himself off and says the trees because I don't know, it's just the way they are.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:13

And it's it's really well acted by Christopher Walken because you immediately learn that Nick has a serious component to him. It's a little less thought through and evolved than Mike's. And I think that's where that the that relationship, why that relationship is important, because Mike recognizes that Nick is capable of being serious, and Nick also recognizes that in Mike, and I think it's kind of obvious to each other where they both are and where they're both different, but they can still enjoy the same activity but in different ways, and they totally respect that about each other. And it's a pretty it's a pretty beautiful thing, and it's a pretty important thing with human relationships to have those complementary differences.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 33:15

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

That's one of my favorite scenes.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, and it's me too. And it's um the differences between them are shown later in the wedding where Nick is sort of like the life of the party. He's out dancing with everybody, having a great time, cracking jokes, and mics just hanging out almost like around a corner, just peering in, just watching everybody, appreciating it, but he doesn't have to be in there showing off doing all this goofy stuff. He's more like an observer in that in that scene.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Are you sure John isn't the life of the party?

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Which one's John?

SPEAKER_05 34:07

John is the fat one.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Well, in a sense, I mean he's a life of his own party.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

Shout out George DeZunza. Yeah. I apologize if I mispronounced your name, but you're the man.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah, he's awesome. I I heard some stories about that, you know, wedding sequence where Michael Chimino, the director, was like, we're doing this like a real party, and it took weeks to shoot that whole sequence, and he's like just stocking it with actual alcohol and stuff. So I'm like, either that Zunzo guy is the best drunk actor there is, or he was definitely getting down on that free supplied alcohol for Junie.

SPEAKER_05 35:07

Because man, he That sounds exhausting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

Um method directing.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

But I heard that's I heard that's kind of how it went, and it was just like weeks of everyone getting up in there, and you can drink if you want to. Chimino's trying to just shoot it, sort of in like in that almost like that Robert Altman-y way. There's a little Altman to his style where there's you know just a ton of things going on and and dialogue kind of overlapping and not being recorded at the most precise level. Um, so I mean, you know, I love that type of shit. I do. But um, but yeah, so I think he he was sort of almost trying to set it up like documentary style of just throwing a huge party, but but you know, you can feel the exhaustion in that scene after 55 minutes of it or whatever. Um, it seems like everybody's been up for weeks.

SPEAKER_05 36:17

Well, as an audience member, I'm exhausted by that point and starting to lose attention because we're 50 minutes into the movie and there's been no choices made. Yeah, yeah. True. So I get to that point. I mean, I know this was my problem when I was younger watching it, because I would always I always get unfocused and sleepy at some point during the wedding scene because I have no understanding or very little understanding as to what the incentive is to continue watching this. Might be because I'm not a big fan of weddings. I like them, but it's not even in the top 25 things I would want to do on any given day is go to is go to a wedding. You know, I find them pretty boring. I mean, I'm I to your point about being exhausted, I I I I felt I felt the weariness of being in that. But everyone in the all the characters in the movie are turning up. They are pretty excited and dancing. And I think it was at this point in the movie where I saw what appeared to be Russian dance routines. That I got I got to a point where I was like, what is this? And I actually had to look it up and learn that it was a Russian Orthodox church, and the characters were of Slavic or Russian descent. Right, right. And the church is actually in Cleveland, Ohio. And this the cross street is one of the streets is called Starkweather. I don't know if you've caught that in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

I did catch that because I was thinking back to uh Matt Nay. Yeah. Shout out Harvey Starkweather. Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah, there's like a bum on the street drinking. Yep. I don't know if he's a bum. I think he's just a regular guy.

SPEAKER_05 38:48

Like based on our modern sensibilities, I think he would be a bum. But back then, it's just, you know, just a guy, just probably a Russian or Polish man enjoying his Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Right. Under a Stark weather sign. Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a lot of alcohol in the first hour in in a lot of different scenes. There's maybe that's why I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

I was so exhausted because I was I was uh I don't know, feeling the the depressive hangover that was to come.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yeah. Well, I mean, there so they get off work in the morning, yeah, and they immediately like you would do, you know, I've worked night shifts before, and you know, you're getting off work. It just happens to be 7 a.m. And so you drink. So all these guys are drinking beers early in the morning, but then there's a weird scene that cuts to Merrill Street in her house with her drunk dad, yeah, who's like super abusive.

SPEAKER_05 40:09

I don't know. I shouldn't laugh. I only laugh because it doesn't even need to be in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

There's there's no purpose to well, that's where I'm thinking maybe it's because there's so much alcohol in this first hour, even with that, you know, Russian guy that's just having a a drink out in the street in at in the morning or whatever, and then definitely everybody's getting hammered non-stop, whether they're at the wedding or going to their bar after they get off work or after the wedding, going back to the bar, just throwing beer everywhere. It's like such an overabundance of alcohol in the first hour that I'm that it makes me wonder if that's some something that he's sort of bringing up. You know, that it's people are just drowning themselves in alcohol to get by in this town.

SPEAKER_05 41:12

Well, alcohol is the number one drug in this country, and drinking is a big part of Russian culture, so I've heard. I have absolutely no real way of knowing. Um, so I I tend to think that it was a completely unnecessary scene and contributed to the tedium of the movie. It's not like we ever saw our father again, you know, it's not like the trauma she experienced from that affected her relationship with men or her interactions with other people. It seemingly was just like, hey, this is just what my dad does, slaps me around sometimes. I mean, it does get her into Mike and Nick's trailer because in the next scene, she is coming to Nick and she cries and she is looking for another place to stay. So, and then it puts her at that location. So you could argue that for the purpose of moving a character from one point to another, um, to simplify the production, I guess is the reason. But you can't tell me there isn't an easier way to put her at that location than adding an entire scene that really doesn't contribute much to the movie. And I think there's a few scenes that do that. One one other thing about the Russian dance sequence um, the primary person who was doing that was Steven, who loses his legs in the movie. So I think there's some significance there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Um there's a bunch of kids trying to break dance.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

Breakdown.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

There's kids. Did you catch any of those scenes? Kids? Yeah, there's like little kids, they're they might be off in the corner and they're like trying to do that thing where they're down on the ground and they're swinging their one leg and trying to jump over it. I don't know what that move's called in breakdancing, but they're I mean they're not good at it at all.

SPEAKER_05 43:26

I did not see that, but you know, principal photographic took place in 1977, so you know hip-hop was in its infancy at that point.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Yeah, yeah. So some of the kids were on it. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 43:40

That's cool. Um, I did not see that, but this is gonna give me a reason to watch the deer hunter from start to finish once again.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah, that's that's the main thing we're trying to do here. Is figure out why we should ever go back to this movie again. And I I think we figured it out.

SPEAKER_05 44:04

So it might be a little unclear as to what the real inciting incident is to the main conflict. It's a little unclear like what the main conflict is. Um, and I think that's again due to the tedium of the movie. It's so long and so slow that these things are easy to miss, and there's so much additional characterization with side characters and superfluous scenes that it's kind of confuses and muddies everything. But I think that about 53 minutes into the movie is when the first real choice is made, and that's when the wedding ends, and the wedding couple drives off, and Mike gives chase and starts ripping off all his clothes, ends up at a basketball court. Nick's chasing him. Mike's completely naked. He leans up against a basketball hoop pole. Nick leans up against it on the other side. They're both sitting, and Nick asks Mike to promise him to not leave him there. And they don't even say what there is, we just know it's Vietnam. And Mike is very drunk and makes that promise. And to me, that's really the cause of the third act, the final movement in the movie. And to some degree, a lot of the action sequences in the second act, which was the war movie component, uh the movement that took place in Vietnam. Uh would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Yeah, it's it's definitely a crucial scene and for sure the third act when he goes back to Saigon to get him. I mean, I think it's all related to that promise. Right.

SPEAKER_05 46:15

Yeah, I just emphasize that because that's that's a real choice. That's a that's a real commitment to do something, but it's a weird kind of choice because it's a promise. It's yeah, in the event that something happens, I will do this. I promise. And you're like, okay, a lot of a lot needs to happen in order for that to really be the inciting incident. And I thought they did a fine job, you know, making all that happen. And then and then we move forward. Um I didn't mean to skip past the wedding and all the rest of the prologue because I know you love this portion, but even after the inciting incident, the prologue continues.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Yeah, well, one other thing at the wedding that I don't want to skip by is the scene where some kind of quiet, sad vet comes in and sits at the bar, and the I think I forget who's all there. Maybe Stan's there. All the guys who were going to Vietnam are there. But yeah, I wasn't sure if Stan was there or if it was Stevie. It was Steven, yeah. But okay, so yeah, so then they're kind of that's an interesting scene because they, you know, have a differ definitely a different outlook. They're they have respect for the dude. Um, they know they're gonna be like this guy. They kind of start where they are asking him questions of what's it like, and that dude has been through the stuff that they're about to go through. And um it's just it's a little bit of an interesting scene, I think, watching them because they go through different things where they kind of get mad at him, um they're drunk, so they're kind of acting very inconsistent, you know. And and I'm not really sure like what that dude's deal is. I mean, maybe he knows somebody and he's just showing up to pay respects or something, but he's all messed up from probably just being in the war and getting back. But um, yeah, it's it sets sets some of the contrast up that they're gonna they're gonna go there and and be changed.

SPEAKER_05 48:44

Yeah, it's a character that foreshadows future events. Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Well yeah, we can move off the wedding. It's you know, if you're gonna say you like a part of the movie, it's kind of the only option.

SPEAKER_05 49:03

What to move away from it?

SPEAKER_01 49:06

No, the the wedding part. I mean, it's it's kind of hard to be like, yeah, then they go to Vietnam and get captured. That's the part I really like.

SPEAKER_05 49:20

Yeah, I mean, if you listen to my summary, um I think I enjoyed talking about mostly what the movie was not and a little bit what it was. You know, it takes you know almost three hours to get to a point that I'm okay with, and even then I'm not really settled with it because it was awkward. We talked about it earlier, anyway. Yeah, you're right. It's it would be difficult to say that I loved when all of those soldiers were captured and forced to play Russian roulette with each other until they were all dead. I love that part. It's my favorite part. You know, it's it's hard to say you love that, but it is a thrilling scene, and it is exciting, suspenseful, it's really disturbing, it's action-oriented, so it's it's a little more exciting to watch, we'll put it that way. Yeah, um, it's interesting because I'm not sure if Russian roulette was a very well-known thing before this movie. I knew I know I know that I grew up seemingly to have always known that. I know I discovered it at some point, I don't know when. I was probably in grade school or middle school, or I was young when I first heard about it. And you know, I was in grade school just uh a couple years after this movie was released in One Best Picture. And so I did a little bit of research into the origin of Russian roulette, and there's no definitive real origin of that. That is to say, it's unclear if that happened in real life. But it was first it was put it was put into a book that I think came out in 1840. Um The earliest example of Russian roulette was found in a short story called The Fatalist in an eight in an 1840 novel called A Hero of Our Time. The character in the story was trying to prove to other people that predestination wasn't a real thing. And to prove that, he created this game of chance and performed it, put a bullet in a gun, spun the chamber, put it to his head, pulled the trigger, didn't fire, and then he pointed it at a window, fired it, and it broke the window. And so that's it was written by a Russian poet, which is why I'm assuming it's called Russian roulette. So that's the only origin I could find of it. And originally uh the screenplay for the Deer Hunter was a movie about Las Vegas gamblers. The actual writers of The Deer Hunter just took the Russian roulette component and then adapted that unproduced script about Las Vegas gamblers into an entirely new screenplay.

SPEAKER_04 53:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 53:14

So I don't know if that was widely known. I don't know if Russian roulette was widely known in the culture prior to this movie, but it is now. And so I knew it so well that when I first saw the movie, it really was not that suspenseful because I knew it. And I don't know, I think there's just a dreary way, dreariness to the overall production that is I don't know, it is less appealing to me. And I don't know what it is. I'd have to figure I'd have to think about it more.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Yeah, well, for me, this scene was, I guess, predictable when I first saw it because I had seen Meet the Febles before seeing this movie where they do Meet the Febles is a Peter Jackson Muppet movie, and there's a whole dream sequence flashback where one of the characters is in this exact scene. And so I saw I saw the scene play out, except with like Kermit the Frog style Muppets and a bunch of like little Vietnamese raccoon dudes or something like that. So when this scene, when I first watched the deer hunter and this scene showed up, I was like, what the heck? It's like that scene from Meet the Peebles.

SPEAKER_05 55:03

Yeah, it's really funny.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

So that kind of that kind of spoiled it for me, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

But yeah, again, I don't find that scene particularly interesting. I don't find the Vietnam War sequence prior to that particularly interesting. It's kind of weird watching it now, just the way it's edited together and how the I mean it's a really bizarre sequence. And I'm I'm pretty glad it wasn't very long. And I think it's a good choice to just get to the primary component of a story, which is the Russian roulette scenes. Um the first Russian roulette scene, because that's how and why, or at least partly how and why Nick loses his mind, and it is the primary action that compels the entire third movement of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Yeah. It's how all three of them sort of lose their mind. Mike is the one that's trying to hold on to it. You know, because I mean, by the end, there's maybe a glimmer of hope for Stevie because he's still he's out of his little cocoon area where he's trying to recover and get some amount of sanity back.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

He leaves the VA hospital.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Right.

SPEAKER_05 56:40

I want to talk about this real quick because I thought it was remarkable the very final scene when they sing God Bless America, because everyone is very serious and solemn, and you have a very good perspective of Steven because he's on the far side of the table facing the audience, and he's looking at his friend Axel, who is basically a Neanderthal, and is smiling during it, and he gets wide-eyed for a moment as if to kind of excite or goad Axel into getting excited. It's weird, it's weird in the context of the scene and the solemn behavior of all the characters singing God bless America after all of that trauma from the second act and the third act. But I mean it's kind of acceptable with Steven because he lost both of his legs, he shot himself in the head, he lost the use of his arm, and he's the one guy trying to relive their life prior to war, as they did in that very bar, as young, excited men who enjoyed each other's camaraderie. I thought that was really interesting. I thought that was a really good choice in the performance of that character who um was John John Savage uh was the actor who played Steven. And I thought he did a pretty good job. Um, about as good a job as you can. Um I thought that was my thought that was my that was my favorite scene. He had a scene in the prologue also where his Polish or Russian mother comes to the bar to grab him, and she has a stick, and she's kind of pushing him to the church because he's getting married, and she's being just so cruel, and she's angry and just upset, and she's not a nice person, and she's not happy that Steven's marrying this woman, and at one point everything settles down, and he just looks at his mother and he's like, I love her, and I'm gonna marry her. And he just walks away, and there's nothing his mother can do. And I thought that was a good scene. And I thought that was a I mean, I thought that was a powerful choice, you know, in the face of a disapproving mother, which can be can be difficult, especially when you're young. And especially if you love your mom. You know, because you don't want to disappoint. So good job, John Savage.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

Um Yeah, on that on that note, performance-wise, yeah, this movie to me is majorly about the acting. Certainly. It's like the screenplay kind of is a little all over the place. There's there's some good there's some good well-written stuff, but have you read the actual screenplay?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

No, I'm just going off of the movie. Okay. They made a lot of changes in the production and area.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

It seems like it seems like a um may like there's a good portion of maybe improvisation or something like that, like just the way the the scenes are played out. I mean, especially in the the wedding sequence and all of that stuff. But um really they're like the actors they get a lot more out of the characters than the screenplay itself has in there. Um, one of them, I mean, all I I would say across the board, all of them do this. But Meryl Street in particular, it's like she brings a lot to that character that's not necessarily in there. I mean, like, it's almost unclear why she's even in the movie at times, with I mean, just like I mean, I I kinda get it, but it's if there's a reason for her to be in it, it's her performance. Like she makes it, in my opinion. Because it's not crystal clear what's going on with her or why they would even put her in.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:05

That's pretty much every almost every character in the movie. Um, even the lead characters, you know, it's like and that's because I think the movie is so naturalistic. I think when you lean so heavily naturalistic, you're gonna have scenes and performances that you can do without because they're not integrated to the theme or to the conflict, they're just kind of there to add some naturalism, they're just there to show things as they are, and that's the purpose, you know, as opposed to, well, how does this integrate to the broad meaning of the movie and the central conflict? Does it? If not, don't include it. I mean, that would be what a movie would do that is less naturalistic, and so and I think that's also what contributes to the boredom. I think as good as Meryl Streep's performance is most of the time, um, it's also kind of melodramatic at times and has more of an over-exaggerated soap operatic feel to it. Like when she initially goes to Mike's trailer to meet Nick after her father slaps her, her behavior, although probably appropriate and realistic, just seems over-exaggerated and it's not subtle or nuanced, or it seems overly dramatic. Like the way she cries and runs, it's almost like we're suddenly back in the 1940s cinema. And is natural, I mean, I think the purpose of naturalistic filmmaking is to be as realistic as possible. And when you have a performance like that in that scene, it completely kind of misses the mark, misses the goal of being realistic. So, but I think Merrill Street did a pretty good job for the most part. But I agree with you. She's for the most part unnecessary. There's probably a way to make her necessary. We could think about it now. I haven't really thought about her character. She's obviously the love interest of Nick becomes a love interest of Mike. There's a conflict between the two characters. Does that contribute to the conflict? I think they tr maybe are trying to do that, but it doesn't come across to me as successfully complicating the conflict between the two.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

Yeah, the the scene that really sticks out to me is Mike gets home from Vietnam, doesn't go to his coming home party because he's dealing with do I even belong here anymore? Am I embarrassed to be who I've become?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:27

Like he most likely has likely has PTSD and doesn't want to be around anybody. Right. So he drives to the motel room. Then that scene's good. When Robert Janeiro goes to the motel room and like is all by himself, that's a good scene. Anyway, I digress.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Well, I'm saying, yeah, so so he goes to the house in the morning after everybody's left and meets with Meryl Street. And I I think this is the scene I'm talking about. Um, she has some dialogue with him that essentially. Boils down to she says something like, I don't need I don't know what I feel, right? You know, and I think that's the crucial moment for her character and what her character represents to the whole movie, which is like whatever happened with this war and these people getting pulled away from their friends and their families and going over there and then coming back different people, it even jumbles everyone that's back home. Like it had such a much more enormous impact. Sure. And she kind of with I don't I don't think her character is like super well developed, but I think that scene um gets at it, and I think she's able to like take whatever lit limited dialogue and scenes she has and is able to play it in a way of I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to move on, and I don't have Nick anymore. What am I supposed to do? Like, I I gotta fill this hole somehow. I guess it's gonna have to be Mike, who's not really emotionally available to her when he gets back. Yeah, but yeah, and they they kind of are trying, even though they're not sure what they're doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:31

Yeah, and to your point, she's not very well developed, and therefore doesn't, I think, achieve either goal of well representing people's the effects of the trauma of war on people that didn't go to war but witness those who did and interact with those who did. And she doesn't contribute to the conflict because there's n never, at least in my experience watching this movie, I never think that it's contributing to a conflict between Nick and Mike, if she has conflicting feelings for Mike, you know? And yeah, it's it seems to me that they that's more of the purpose, but it I think there's even less evidence that I mean, other than the fact that they that's what happens, you know, and she is quoted as saying, isn't this weird? And they're both kind of resistant to it at first. I mean, she originally asks Mike to go to bed with her and asks for that kind of comfort, and then Mike says to her, I'm feeling very far away, I'm feeling this, and he just leaves, and then she's in the trailer alone, and then she leaves, and then the very next scene we cut to her getting out of a shower at the hotel room and just saying these general statements, like, isn't this weird? And she kind of walks out and she's trying to talk to Mike, but Mike's on the bed, fully clothed, asleep, and so there's no indication of what happened, and so she's right, it's all really weird because we have no idea what's going on, and we have no idea why you're in the movie. So, but even with that, Meryl Streep is such a good actress that she can be entertaining to watch in the scenes that she is in. And I found that if one were to take a even slower watch through of the deer hunter, which I would recommend, actually, and I would recommend finding certain scenes, just fast-forwarding through the scenes you don't like, and just finding a scene that looks interesting and watching that scene, it will be entertaining. Because one of the things we skipped over was a scene that I had mentioned previously that I found really entertaining, which was when Mike got home from Vietnam, he asked the taxicab driver to drive past his trailer where all his friends are, waiting for him, throwing a party. The taxiab driver takes him to a hotel room, and there's an entire scene of Mike alone in the hotel room processing his thoughts and feelings by himself. He doesn't say a word. It's a decently long scene of just watching him kind of squirm and pace and self-soothe to try to deal with whatever's going through his mind. It's it's a it's a good it's a good scene. And the light, the lighting's interesting, the sound design's interesting, and I wish we could have gotten to that sooner because, you know, um I think the movie could be edited down to probably two hours or two hours and 15 minutes. Probably two hours and 15 minutes is the perfect length for this movie because you could take that first hour and six minutes of prologue, put that in 15 minutes. You could even cut out the whole Vietnam sequence, you know, and just cut right to the Russian roulette sequence, you know, and maybe some of the sequence after that, you know, because I think some of the stuff in the hospital is interesting, and I think important to the development of the Nick character. Um, yeah. And I do want to give credit to the scale of this movie, the scope of this movie. There are a lot of scenes with a lot of extras and a lot of vehicles, and yeah, and a lot of set dressing, and I found that to be really interesting, and obviously that's very difficult to do and coordinate and manage. And I think the movie did a pretty good job doing that with these with those scenes, one of which was the hospital scene, and there's a number of other scenes like that, probably the best scenes in the movie, and they would have probably stood out more if the length of the movie wasn't so long.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:47

Yeah, it would be something interesting, maybe to see. Like if you cut that opening to 15 minutes versus 55 minutes, what you would lose, because I do think there is a a point to it, you know, to well, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:08

It's a point is the point is to contrast the before and after of the war, right? But it's it it's to me, it's boring, you know. It's like if you if you want to do that, make it more interesting by putting people into situations that are compelling, you know. It's it's I I especially the wedding sequence. I mean, I think if they would have got to it sooner, it would have been interesting. But I think it's the naturalistic styling. I mean, it's that is a difference between you and I. You like that style of filmmaking, and I find it boring. Because it's like, what's the difference between being at an actual wedding? It's like, right, you know, it's a boring version of like being at an actual wedding is more fun than being in a movie theater just watching a wedding. Because it's an actual experience being at a wedding, and I can leave and I can change my perspective and I can interact with different people. In a movie theater, I'm just forced to watch the perspective of what the filmmaker intends. And I just don't think that's good filmmaking. I think it's it's I think it's bad filmmaking because I think what's so compelling about cinema is people making hard choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices. I think it's the same in life, although also it's like making hard choices is exhilarating. And it's exhilarating to see that in the movies. I would rather see characters do that and the cinematography be awful than see great shots of people not making compelling choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices. I mean, that's drama. And and I think this movie straddles the entertaining components, components of drama, action movies, and documentary, natural, naturalistic documentary, and it's collectively, I think, a kind of a mess and surprising that it's so celebrated and considered a masterpiece. But I can't, it's difficult for me to judge that because I wasn't alive when it was made and released. And I am I don't appreciate it's impossible for me to appreciate the cultural atmosphere of living through the Vietnam War and getting on the other side of it and coping with the after effects. I don't know what that was like. Maybe it was really enjoyable to see it represented in this way at the time because it was such a discombobulating experience for so many people. So I get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:24

Yeah, I mean, this came out before Apocalypse Now was a thing, you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:29

So you well, that's a bigger movie. That's like that that deals with Vietnam, but I think Apocalypse Now deals with more.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

Oh, yeah, for sure. I'm just saying there was no Apocalypse Now to compare it to. So I think as these movies start coming out, like when you're just on the heels of Vietnam being over, but people are starting to come home and deal with stuff, and then you see it represented, you know, I think that's that's kind of a big deal. It definitely after 50 years, yeah. Um it loses loses some of the impact.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:18

Yeah, that's what I'm yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:19

That's what I'm touching on.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:20

Yeah. It's like that, and I think that has to be emphasized. It's like this is a 48-year-old movie as of right now. Um, and it has to be viewed from that perspective. And so I think it would be helpful to understand a little bit about the 1970s and about the Vietnam War. I think you can get some of that understanding from watching it. Um so in that respect, it's a bit of a history lesson, and 50 years is a long time for people. Not so much in the full context of the universe, but for a person's life, it's a very long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:08

It's over half of one's life. So and you know, you think about the evolution of American culture since the 1970s, it's it's pretty amazing like where we are now. Like life is great right now, I think. And the movie like The Deer Hunter gives you is it's a bit of a time machine. And so in that respect, I kind of like the naturalism because it really tries to capture what it was really like in the 1970s and the late 1970s, and it mixes that with some artistic landscapes and cityscapes, which is fun. And so when I look at the movie from that perspective, I tend to like it more, and I tend to wonder then, I wonder if I'll ever see this movie again. And I don't think I will because of the first hour. Like whenever I think of it, I just get so bored just thinking about it. So it's like, I wish I could I need to be able to figure out a way to download that movie and try to edit it. Yeah, that would be fun. That would be fun. Um I do want to say another thing about the experience was I thought the sound was awful. And I did a little bit of research and discovered that that is not an uncommon experience for people to watch the deer hunter and remark that the sound is bad. And I did a little bit of looking into as to why that might be and also the movie won an Oscar for best sound. Yeah. And so I wanted to dig a little bit deeper and and figure out was there's something wrong with me, or is there something wrong with this movie, or both? Probably both. Um but I did find that other people are having that issue, and there seems to be some question as to whether the transfer from film to digital caused a caused an issue with the audio. And then the streaming of that, and then the receiving of that, because there's a wide variety of television and sound systems in households across the world. And I think my television may have been of a mono or stereo setup. I don't have additional speakers, and this particular movie was mixed in Dolby surround sound, and it was mixed in a manner that aimed to be naturalistic. So when you're out in the world and you're interacting with people, sometimes you don't hear them well because of ambient noise. And so their distinct aim, according to the director, was to emulate that. And I think as a result, there are times where you have a very difficult time, or at least I had a very difficult time, hearing what people were saying because of the mix. And so I think to some degree it was the intention of the filmmaker to contribute to bad sound, but also a product of how I was experiencing the movie in 2025.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:42

And so when I watched the movie scene by scene, I had spatial audio headphones on. Now the movie's not mixed in spatial audio, but I was able to hear the movie a little bit better and actually pinpoint when it was difficult to understand what people were saying and why. And I think part of it has to do with the sound mix, but also part of it has to do with the compositional choices of the cinematography. And I have one example that I want to talk about to illustrate this. So early in the movie in the prologue, the group of friends is in a car and they recklessly U-turn around a dump truck to go to the bar they like after work. And so they park in front of the bar and they're getting out of the vehicle, and they're all excited and shouting, and the camera is pointing at the car, and it is on a tripod in front of the bar outside. And it's tracking Mike and Nick as they walk past the camera. As they walk past the camera, their back is to the camera, and they're talking to each other, and they're really low in the mix. Steven, who's not even in the frame, is shouting with excitement, remarking about what they just experienced. You can hear him really clearly, and every so often, one of his shouts m overpowers one of the lines of dialogue that Nick or Mike are saying. And they're they're up the obvious focus. And I had to watch the scene, I probably watched that sequence 12 times and could could still not understand completely what Mike was saying. And I don't think that was a product of anything other than the sound mixing choices of the filmmakers. And so in my initial watch, I experienced that consistently throughout the movie. And I thought that the audio was quote unquote bright, which means it had a higher a generally a higher frequency sound to it. And which is ultimately annoying. Because you're getting into territory that sounds like a screech. And when you blend all that together, you know, a screeching running your fingernails down a chalkboard is really irritating. And as I said earlier, I would prefer to have bad cinematography than um bad story truck stuck story structure, but also um I would rather have bad cinematography than bad audio. I'd rather the audio's gotta be good. It has to be good, good to great because bad audio is just an awful experience because I think it triggers something in my mind that is painful ultimately. It triggers a I think it triggers the flight or fight mechanism in my mind. I don't know if it's the same way for all people, but there's something to do with sound that um can dig tends to dig deeper into the brain than than visuals. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:46

Yeah, it could be, and it's it's harder to pinpoint too, you know, like sound can go completely unnoticed in a way. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:57

You know, it's it's like a hidden it should go completely unnoticed. It should be something that people walk out of the movie and they aren't remarking on the sound. Because typically, if you're remarking on the sound, you're either a cinephile that loves music and scoring and sound design, or it was bad audio. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:19

Yeah, I don't I don't think this movie has great audio. I don't it doesn't rub me the wrong way, like you're describing, but I'm also like an Altman file.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:33

Do you have surround sounds key in your in the room that you watch movies?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:37

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:38

I think that is why your experience was okay because you've optimized your environment for watching movies. I, on the other hand, have not.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:48

Yeah, and so on mine too, there's gonna be a subwoofer and a lot of low end that might cover up whatever that screeching nature is. Now, again, I I don't I'm I'm uh I guess a little ambivalent on the sound in this movie. It's not my favorite. I I don't even love the score of this movie. Um so I'm surprised that sound I'm I'm surprised that sound would even be a nomination for this movie. I think it's okay because I like this style. I think Altman does it better than what's represented in this movie, but I I understand it and I I kind of accept the struggles with this type of movie and the audio that is provided in these type of movies. But but um yeah, so I'm kind of like it, I'm right in the middle with this movie. So if you say you don't like the sound in this movie, uh I'm like that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:57

You know, yeah, and I think I mean I think it's not really gonna defend it.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:01

I think it's fair to the movie too, because it was obviously mixed for cinema venues in the 1970s that were acoustically engineered environments to give people a grand oral experience. So I can appreciate it. So if you're gonna watch a deer hunter on your phone, maybe consider a different medium um or device to watch it on, or watch it with headphones. Um if you watch it on your TV, um buy a surround sound system just to watch the Deer Honor. You should have that anyway. I should have that anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:56

I would say, yeah. If you're gonna watch any movie, set yourself up with the right system for it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:03

Yeah, I mean you can buy an inexpensive sound bar these days that is right pretty extraordinary. Yeah. So anyway, um yeah, where are we at? I mean, we're just we're just kind of jumping around, and yeah, you know, it's not an overly complicated movie. Um, I don't think there is a complex uh second cause of action. I think the second plot point is just a discovery that's made by Mike that uh introduces the third movement, which is Mike is visiting Steven, and Steven shows Mike that he's receiving this money from Saigon, and Mike concludes that it's from Nick. And so if it's money coming, you know, because it's hundred dollar bills, and he had seen and he had seen that kind of money getting traded during the deadly game of chance. Because Mike when Nick discovered Russian roulette was a game that was played in the back alleys of Saigon, Mike had discovered that too. Nick got there and Mike was in the crowd watching. So Mike was kind of fascinated by this subculture. And so when he finally visited Steven and saw the money, he concluded that Nick was still alive. At that point, he didn't know. And that is what we would call a discovery, and that compelled the rest of the the movie and Mike's actions, and the third movement of the movie. Um it was a bizarre it was a bizarre type of characterization if you think about the full movie, because in the third movement, Mike confronts Nick, and Nick seemingly doesn't recognize him. But we're to believe that Nick is sending money to Steven in Clareton, Pennsylvania. So he remembers one of his friends, but he can't remember his main friend when he's standing right in front of him, and there's no clear reason if that's true or why that would be, other than oh, he just lost his mind, but he didn't because he's making this money, send to Steven. So not only did he not lose his mind, but he still has sympathy enough to try to help Steven out. So is that why he's doing this whole thing? It's like, I'll I love my friend Steven so much that I'm gonna risk my life to help him because he doesn't have any legs and he only has the use of one arm. So, and he's about to have a child and he's married, so he can't do anything, so I have to do that. I mean, put aside the stupidity of that, it doesn't make sense for the character. So, did you catch that?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:43

Did you yeah, I can I think I can rationalize that in in an irrational way. I mean, that's what rationalizing is because um so okay, you can look at it like so Stevie and Nick went to Vietnam and once they get a stretch to listen to this rationalization. Yeah, right. I know it's gonna be a tough one. All right, go. Steven Steve Stevie and Nick go to Vietnam, and when they get there, they're presumably in the same platoon while Mike is in a different one. Because Mike's a green burner, he's special forces, yeah, yeah. Right. So when they meet each other in Vietnam, yeah, it's almost as if Mike barely recognizes them at that point. Right. Because he's in combat, he's flamethrowering and machine gunning dudes once one guy's flamethrower.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:49

There's only one soldier.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:51

I just extrapolate and say he's probably done this multiple times with kind of how proficient he is and almost you know, glass-eyed to the whole thing. Yeah, it's definitely his favorite thing in the world. So so something of the sort has already happened where you compartmentalize and you and you just you're I'm a different dude now. I'm just dealing with this stuff. Okay. Then they go through the horrifying Russian roulette scene all together. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:27

And Mike saves it, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:30

So he does, however, both Stevie and Nick have to go through an experience of watching their best friend tell them shoot yourself in the head and do it. All right, and and that amongst everything else, can fracture a brain, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:59

And a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:01

Yeah, yeah. So they go through that. The two that somewhat make it out of there, you know, intact now are fascinated by the existence of, oh, this horrible, most traumatic experience of my entire life is now turned into a game, and they're fascinated by that. And perhaps Nick gets to a point where he's just like, it's all like, what the hell's the point of anything? Like, I can't reassimilate into any life that makes any sense, except I do understand this world somehow. And he keeps doing it and he keeps magically sort of not dying, but he's like, I'm not doing this to profit, I'm doing this because nothing makes any sense. And he knows that Stevie survived but lost everything, and he's just like, as long as I'm doing this until I'm dead, and as long as I'm making money, like, what good is it is that money to me? I'm gonna send it to Stevie, and hopefully his family uses it. And and then and then it comes back that, like, he doesn't think he's gonna see Mike again, and then when he sees Mike, who's made a promise to him, and he Mike goes there to bring him home, he's already gone. And he's just like, This is what I do. I just sit here and switch him until I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:48

What do you mean he's already gone? Mike's already gone to Nick or Nick's already gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:53

No, Nick. Nick's always already gone to himself. Yeah, but he's sending money to Steven. Right. So he's he's made the deal to himself. I'm gonna keep doing this. This is the only thing I understand. As long as I keep money, that's my point.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:10

It's like he isn't gone, he isn't lost. I know. He's making like a value judgment. He's insane. No, he's not. That's my point. He's not by that very action, he's not insane. He's he's making a value judgment. He's saying, I'm gonna do this dumb thing and help my friend. And then when I see my other friend, and then when I see my other friend, I can't remember him. And you're suggesting maybe because Mike pushed him into that role that he's disconnected his mind from one friend, but not the other. It's it's it's a weird mixture of um seeming selective amnesia, which is I don't think that's a thing. I don't know, I don't know. Maybe it is only one way to find out. I mean, I mean, if you were to believe the reality that is the deer hunter, it's a real thing. But um I used did you just ask me to participate in a game of chance with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:32

I thought maybe that slid by uh it did not.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:39

Do you know what the odds are in Russian roulette?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

Uh, I guess six to one or one one one to six. Yeah. One out of six. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:52

So there's a 16.7% chance of being shot if it's a six-cylinder revolver.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

I unless you have three bullets in there. Then it's a 50-50 coin flip. I always think so. I always think about the the scene in in uh Vietnam where his master plan, Mike's master plan, is give me three bullets. And he I think he still shoots himself with that, right? And it's a click. I think he loads the three bullets. So for my first question is Does the Vietnamese guy put three bullets in a row? Or does he space them out? I don't remember. I don't remember. And they don't show it. Yeah. I'm just saying, as a hypothetical situation, like, what what do you think he did?

SPEAKER_05 1:40:46

Because I think in the first scene of Russian Roulette, they loaded one bullet, spun it, gave it to one guy, and then just handed the gun to the other guy. But it they do. But then in the final scene, they load the bullet, spin it, one guy shoots, and then they remove the bullet, put the bullet back in, spin it again, and then give it to the other guy. Which that makes sense too. Yeah, I read something that it's one in 600 or 1 in 6,000, depending upon the weight of the bullet, because it's more likely for the bullet to uh rest on the bottom of the cylinder due to gravity, but I think that's probably not true considering yeah, because they slam it in there, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you were to just let it spin and then let it stop and then slam it in there, um better odds. Probably better odds. Well, like you said, only one way to find out. I mean, you could do it and just not put the gun to your head and just check it out, right? Right, you know? So, um, probably not the uh most responsible thing to do with a firearm. So I would not recommend that. And the filing podcast is not recommending any variation of Russian roulette, but I would recommend reading the short story The Fatalist from the Russian poet from which the game originated. I haven't read that, but I might. Sounds compelling. But I digress. So what I don't know, because we're jumping all over the place. Um there's some characters we haven't talked about. Um we haven't talked about Axel.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:59

Do you know what the term fucking A means? Well, in some context, it's means hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:14

It is an affirmation. I've read some things that the A stands for affirmative, and it originated out of military culture. Did you know that the character Axel, which is the large Neanderthal type dude who is pretty much drunk the whole movie and supposedly used to be a place kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers? Um, not the actor, but the character. Oh, okay. I think Stan taunts him at one point because he's trying to kick open the back of Mike's car, and Mike shows him how to do it, and then Stan remarks to Axel, Well, I guess we know why you're no longer kicking for the Steelers. Yeah, okay. And so in the origin I thought that was just a joke. It could have been, but it could have been, but the way it was kind of worded, it kind of alluded to the possibility that he at one point was kicking for the Steelers. Which, if you look at the size of the guy, you could kind of believe that. And anyway, it's interesting too, you don't really learn much about the axle character, but he is wearing a military jacket and he is saying fucking A all the time in the movie, which is a term that supposedly originated from military culture. And so I'm led to believe that he was already in Vietnam. He already went to Vietnam and he's back, but they don't really make that clear, and we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:57

Yeah. But in the original So maybe he went early and didn't have a lot of combat.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:03

Or he didn't or he did, or it's just not addressed. Um Yeah, we don't know. And anyway, in the original screenplay, I did a search. And in the original screenplay, he says fucking A twenty-five times. Wow. Yeah. Which was reduced significantly in the final edit of the movie. I don't know how many times he says it in the final edit of the movie, but he says it enough to be purposeful.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:38

He's obviously it's obviously a vulgar vulgar term and speaks to the mind of the character, but we don't really get to know him that well. He's kind of a goofball, kind of a jackass. Everybody knows those types of guys when hanging out with your assembly of friends. So not much to say about that character. Other than that. Do you have anything to say about the character Axel? Nah. Do you want to talk about Stanley?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:23

Yeah. Um, what's that actor's name?

SPEAKER_05 1:46:27

I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Beasle? It's that's that's it, that's a different actor. That's the that's Jesus Christ. Uh Beasle Christ from Passion of the Christ. John Kazale. Kazale. Kazale.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:46

That dude rules. Like every movie he's in is awesome. This is probably the worst of all the movies that he's in. Yeah, he plays the most irritating characters in the movie. He's so good. Um, yeah, it's he's he's interesting in the in I was clocking stuff in the beginning of the movie because there's two scenes early on where he's checking himself out in his reflection, just really hardcore. Like it is the most important thing in his entire world that he looks perfect. And then it's like uh yeah, you know, I mean, I guess you can take from that what you want, but um yeah, I don't know. He's he's definitely a weird character, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:31

Um yeah, John Cazell plays insecure characters really well. He plays uh Fredo in the Godfather movies and Dog Day Afternoon. Dog Day Afternoon. Is he Al Pacino's love interest?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:53

And uh then there's the Deer Hunter. I'm not too familiar with the rest of his filmography, but in this movie, uh The Deer Hunter, he is uh consistently taunting Mike, who is uh the obvious leader of the group. And he is a little self-absorbed. And by you know, he's looking at himself for prolonged periods of time. You know, so there's that could that could indicate uh an insecurity in his looks, you know, he's just trying to make sure everything's perfect. But he's also pretty rude and kind of sloppy, and they're all kind of sloppy, but he's one of the more sloppy ones, and he's just not well organized, and he's not very thoughtful. There's a scene where he they go hunting and he forgets his boots, and he asks Mike if he can borrow Mike's boots, and Mike doesn't want to give him his boots because every time they go hunting, it's one thing or another. You know, and Mike decides to take hard stance, I think, in an effort to teach him a lesson, because that's the scene where he pulls the bullet out of the gun and he says, You see this, this is this. And it's true, that is a bullet, that bullet is a bullet, and I think that he's saying that just to emphasize this is my position. My position is my position. Uh you're not gonna change it. You know, and Stan is not uh sophisticated enough to understand or uh see that. And who comes to his defense? Nick comes to his defense. You know, and Mike picks up the boots, gives them to Stan, and turns to Mike and says, What's wrong with you? In that Christopher Walken way of saying that. I was not trying to do a Christopher Walken impression right there. For the record, I can't do a Christopher Walken impression. But there's a manner that he has. And you know, it's a very charming New York style of communication.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:25

And we see that scene later in the third or second movement. I can't remember. Where I think it's the second movement of the movie. They're hunting. The friends. They're in a log cabin.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:44

And Stanley is getting taunted by Axel. And he pulls out his pistol, Stan, points it at Axel, pulls the hammer back, and is daring Axel to continue to taunt him.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:10

Um he's telling him to take it back.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:16

And this is just another scene that kind of illustrates the carelessness and the risk taking of all these guys throughout this movie. Which I think is a metaphor to the carelessness and thought thoughtlessness initiated by political leaders to get us into the Vietnam War. But uh in this scene, uh Robert De Niro, Mike comes in, grabs the gun from Stan, and proceeds to empty the gun's cylinder, put one bullet in it, bullet in it, spin it, put it in Stanley's face, and pull the trigger to teach him another lesson, which is okay, you want to fuck around? We can fuck around. That's what this is, you know. So not only did Mike do exactly what Stan was doing to Axel, he took it to the next level, which was, you know, risk Stan's life. But anybody who's handled a firearm or taken a firearm class knows that holding a gun that is fully cocked is does not take much to fire. It's like you do not have to press that trigger very hard. And so Stan got a taste of his own medicine, which he did throughout the movie. And the only one who was really doing that was Mike. And so I thought that I thought the Stan character was one of the more interesting, probably the most interesting supporting character, other than Mike and Nick. Which I mean, I suppose you I mean Christopher Walken won the best supporting actor for his role, so he's a supporting actor as well, but a little bit more of a lead than Stanley. Um Axel is very secondary, and John is kind of secondary, and who's the fat guy who works at the bar, and then Steven is um maybe a is the is a level up from Stanley. So there's a definite hierarchy um to the attention given to each character, and probably at least amongst the group of male friends, Stanley's probably fourth in line, but still a very memorable role because John Cazale is such a good actor, and it's integrated. That's why it's so memorable as well. It's integrated to the theme, it's integrated to the conflict, which is if the conflict is primarily between Mike and Nick, and perhaps between time periods between before the war and after the war, they do a good job of pairing similar scenes with Stanley before the war and after the war, and demonstrating how they changed. And it's in part memorable because John Gazelle's a good actor, but also again, and I emphasize memorable because it's integrated, it's easier to remember, it's understandable, it's connected, and that's really important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:01

There's also a little bit of context on the people that go to war versus the people that don't. And especially you bringing up Axel may have already went. That's I I I think I believe you. I didn't think about it until you brought up those details, but I think I believe you.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:23

Um, and you probably would have remembered if the prologue wasn't an hour and six minutes. Every opportunity I get.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:34

There is a uh line of dialogue too where Zeus is like, hey, you know I'd be going too if it wasn't for my knees. Right. And it, you know, it draws that line between the people that go and experience this, they change, and the people that don't, they have to stay home and live with the fact that they don't know the extent of what these people have gone through. Right. You know, and there's just a divide there. That's there's no way to escape it. Right. You know, you just have to, it's another thing that once time goes on, you just have to accept those things and move on. And that's where those friends are in the final scene, you know, because uh Stan's still there, Mike's still there, but they have experienced a scene where Mike pointed a loaded gun at Stan and pulled the trigger. So they're connected now because of that thing, you know, and maybe that'll fracture them, or maybe that'll finally give Stan the level of understanding that he kind of needs if he's gonna stay in a relationship with Mike.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:53

He's around the table when they're singing God Bless America, so it appears as though Stan understands. And that final scene reminds me of the final scene of the prologue, which was all the friends in the bar initially very excited and loud, playing pool, drinking beer, spraying beer on each other, and then John sits down at the piano and starts playing a very somber song, and everybody stops, everything calms, and everybody has their eyes focused on John as he's playing. And he finishes the song and then turns to look at them, and then the sound of a helicopter starts to fade in, and we cut to Vietnam. It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie, and it pretty much you one um I don't I don't think quite makes the hour and six minute long prologue worth it. But it's I do really like that scene. I do because one of the things that that I kind of find funny about the prologue is the exaggerated camaraderie, physical and verbal camaraderie amongst all the friends, and how much how crazy they seem, and how raucous they are, and consistently throughout the whole prologue, for like first hour of the movie, and then you get to this scene that it just relaxes and it calms and it's it's it's nice, and also it's foreshadowing a more somber future, and I think the transition from it to Vietnam is done really, really well. Yeah, even though I really don't like the entire Vietnam sequence, unless I view it more comedically, and that's difficult to say because it's a horror show of a of a scene. I just don't think it's very well put together, but that's fine. Um and I don't need to discuss that, but that final scene in the in at the end of the prologue was was good and important to juxtapose the final scene of the entire movie, which was singing God bless America in the bar and cheersing the death of their friend Nick.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:09

Yep, I agree. I mean, I think it uh it shows that all of these people are capable of thinking seriously about what's going on. Yeah. And again, it goes back to all this alcohol abuse and being a bunch of goofballs. I think culturally that stuff it's you know, it is almost shocking to see adult men acting that way on the regular where it's like, yeah. I mean, I I I guess it happens nowadays, but I think with like less frequently or something.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:03

I don't know, I don't know, but I'm guessing that these characters were supposed to represent younger people, and they do not come across as young in their appearance.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:17

They look no much older. They seem, I would say, you know, they seem like maybe 20s, maybe like, you know, I don't think they're teenager or like 18 or 19 or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:31

Um this maybe this is my modern sensibility, but they look like yeah, late 20s, early 30s. And that could have been how 20-year-olds looked in 1978. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:44

I know stories from my dad and all his friends while we were little kids, they were crazy and acting the fool, I think. And so I think it was more common back then. Um, but uh yeah, I think I think what it's showing is even so, if they're like, we're a bunch of men, we work hard at the steel mill, we don't give a fuck, drink all the time, drive, whatever. We're in control of our lives and destinies. This moment, it's like they're doing that because they know what's inevitable. These guys are gonna leave and go to war. We don't know what's gonna happen, and they they know enough to take a moment to sit together and be like, yeah, I know. We we're we're we're letting loose, trying to have fun as much as possible, but there's no delaying the inevitable at this point. Yeah. And and then it cuts right to Vietnam. And I actually like I don't again, it's hard to say you like, right, but I don't mind the Vietnam sequence because I appreciate you know how long this movie is. There's moments like the transition to Vietnam that makes it seem like it's moving along quickly. Because you get in there, time has passed, these guys have been separated, you learn all this stuff within minutes, and they're trapped and in this quintessential scene and sequence right away. You know, it's like how iconic that uh Russian roulette scene is. It almost seems like that's gotta be the climax of the movie. And it's just no, that's probably not even halfway through, you know. And so I appreciate that how it and it and it doesn't do the normal tropes of a Vietnam movie, which were probably there were no tropes yet at this point, but there isn't like a whole bunch of sequences of them getting to Vietnam and getting to the platoons and meeting their captains and all this different stuff, and it's just like you dropped into it, you see the crucial scene that you need to see, and then you get that float down the river sequence, and you're out of Vietnam, you don't have to go through all that crap. So I I appreciate that part of it.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:36

Yeah, like I I understand that, and I would agree with you. I'd have to take a deeper dive and analyze that whole sequence in more detail, which I don't think I'm gonna do. I will say I do like the final shot of the movie after Mike meets with Nick and Steven in Vietnam. There is a series of explosions in the fields just outside the village that they're in, and they really quickly jump and lie down on the ground to protect themselves, and then they look up, and the smoke from the explosions is starting to clear, and you can see many, many, many perhaps dozens of little black figures in the distance running toward the village. I really like that shot, and I think the sound design at that point is really interesting, too. There's a really high-pitched sound happening, maybe violins or some other sort of instrument that really adds to the tension. But I really like the visual of it, of seeing the smoke clearing and seeing like these little black figures almost the size of ants. And you it doesn't even seem like they're running, it just you just get the sense that there's these this swarm of things coming, and then it cuts, and you're in on the river in that prisoner hut about to venture into the Russian roulette sequence. So I like that.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:30

Do you have any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:33

Just one. My other top favorite part of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:38

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:42

When they're uh when all the friends are uh like on the mountain top and they're arguing and fighting and making fun of Stan, and they're throwing shit at him, and they throw some ham or something at him, and he happens to catch it and then just starts eating it. That's the best part of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:07

No, it's not. I got a better part.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:11

This is my favorite part of the movie. Although the part you mentioned is funny. Check this out. Nick is in Vietnam. He's gone AWOL from the hospital, and he walks into a brothel, and he goes to the bar, and there's a bunch of girls dancing, similar to how you'd see it at um a dance club, but they're standing on tables. And then a girl comes up to him and invites him up to her room. She brings him into a room to proposition him uh for sex. Um, and there's a baby in a crib in the room. The baby's kind of crying. And Nick is talking to this girl, and you get the sense that Nick's resistant, and she's trying to pull him into the bed. And he kind of pushes her away and turns around and he walks to the window and he looks out to the streets of Saigon, and she's pulling at him, and the camera cuts to outside of the window, looking up toward the window, as Nick is head is just outside of the window, looking over the railing, looking down at a street fender who's selling a variety of different objects. Some of the objects are these little statue elephants, and Nick is looking at this and saying, Oh, little elephants. I gotta go get me one of those. And I thought it that was so funny. And it made me wonder because uh Nick then Nick then leaves the room and walks out into the street and just starts to wander. And eventually he hears a gunshot, and then he hears another gunshot, and that draws him into the underworld of Russian roulette in Saigon. But I wonder, what if he went to that vendor and bought himself a little elephant statue? Would the direction of his life gone in a different direction? And what attracted him to that little elephant in the first place? I think as a cinephile, as a movie lover, as an audience member, I was really robbed of the opportunity to dig deeper into Christopher Watkins' character, Nick, and what drew him to those little elephants. So perhaps in the sequel, we can find out. It'd have to be a prequel, though, because sequel, he's dead.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:36

Well, you know, he ends up buying them. The elephants? Yeah. I didn't in uh Stevie's drawer that he's keeping all the money. Oh, there's elephants, those elephant statues are in there.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:50

I totally sending those.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:52

Oh, nice. Yeah, he sends those elephant statues. Okay, okay. That's a clue. That's a clue.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:57

Yeah. So it's like, I wonder if there's any other clues that indicate to us a fascination that Steven has with elephants. Hey, another reason to watch the deer hunter and its hour and six-minute long prologue.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:21

I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:22

What we can do is I'll we'll watch it together, but I'll watch the first hour, and then I'll be like, yo, you can come in. We're about to get to no no no no. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:36

I wish there was a fast forward button that could just fast forward shot to shot.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:44

I mean, really, all I need is a one second fast forward, and just we just need a to re edit because we can get rid of that scene with Meryl Streep and her dad. We can probably get rid of the scene with Stevie's mom talking to the pre.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:00

Can we redo the sound design too?

SPEAKER_01 2:12:03

Oh yeah, definitely. Great.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:06

Anyway, his mom, Stevie's mom talking to the priest. Yeah, we can get rid of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:10

Yeah. We don't need that. And then, yeah, I'll I'll give you uh I'll give you around 20 minutes we can cut out of the wedding.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:21

That might be the whole wedding, thanks. I mean, we might be able to start the movie at some point in the wedding. And then just let the movie carry forward. I need that opening shot with the truck barrel and down. You got it. I mean, I think the opening shot is necessary. I think the opening scene in the steel work factory is necessary. The sequence of them leaving the factory could get severely chopped down, if not totally chopped out.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:02

I don't need it. Um and definitely we definitely need the scene of them driving to the bar like a bunch of daredevils.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:14

Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. We didn't mention that because a lot of the stuff in the beginning shows Christopher Walkins' predisposition to being a gambler.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:25

I mentioned it in the summary.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:29

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:30

So, yeah, so that that factors in.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:33

Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. I mean, he.

unknown 2:13:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:38

Yeah, they're all not wearing seat belts, and he's betting the title of his truck that that Mike is gonna kill them all. Or get into an accident or not be able to perform this maneuver around this huge dump truck going full speed. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:57

And then he does and he gives the title back.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:00

Like he won in, you know.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:02

And the interaction of them after they were successful doing that is important. And that's why I watched it 12 times because I couldn't hear it. But Mike says something to the effect of, hey, don't bet against a sure thing. And Nick's like, there's no such thing as a sure thing. And Mike's like, yeah. And that cuts inside the bar. I mean, that's a really important sequence of dialogue that gets totally, I think, missed because of the mix. So yeah. Anyway, um, yep. My final thought on this movie is it's worth watching, provided you approach it with a perspective that it is a 50-year-old movie, it's historical, I think it's educational. I think that it's really sad, really somber, really slow, sometimes dull, too naturalistic. So I wouldn't be surprised if anybody decides to not watch this movie. But I think if you're a Cinephile, you pretty much have to. It's the one best picture, it's a very celebrated movie, very important movie in American culture. I think it was one of, if not the first Vietnam movie. And if you grew up in the 80s and the 90s, you grew up on a lot of Vietnam movies. And the effect of the Vietnam War on the culture and on the art and entertainment film industry continued well through in and into the 2000s, once the war in Iraq and war in Afghanistan started. And it just movies like this kind of put history in perspective, especially the last 100 years, if you know anything about it, 100 plus years, it's just like war after war after war after war with no break. And even when we weren't fighting a world war or a hot conflict, still had the Cold War happening. You know, there's a lot of conflict. So if you're into history, I think it's worth watching this movie. And if you're into thinking deeply about characters and what's good and what's not good about movies, definitely worth watching. I think you can learn a lot from a bad movie or mistakes in movies if you aspire to be a writer or a storyteller or a filmmaker or an artist of any kind. Because an artist at their best is communicating meaning, and sometimes the absence of meaning can compel one to think about that, and that can emphasize how important meaning is, and how important being thoughtful and careful about all the components of your art form. So, in that respect, I really enjoyed watching the deer hunter, I really enjoyed analyzing the deer hunter, and I really enjoyed talking about the deer hunter. And I'm an idea phile, I'm a story file, I'm a cinophile, so um, I may not be a deer hunter phile, but I do love the quest for meaning. And I love trying to understand it and I love talking to you about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:46

Nice. I agree. I feel relatively the same. I don't think I'd be a I'm not a deer hunter file. Uh don't know when the next time I'll watch this uh or if ever. Um, but I've seen it a number of times. I think after doing this, it's pretty seared in my brain, so I can re- I feel like I'll be able to recall it from now on. Uh, I think it's important to watch, just like you said. If you are a Cinephile, you gotta get this in there so you can be able to discuss it. It's got it in my opinion, it's most valuable for acting. I think I think you can really get a lot of out of watching what these actors are doing with what they're given. And not saying they're not given anything. It's just they make decisions that really broaden these characters. That I'm not sure whether uh they have as much depth on on the page as they do once these actors get a hold of the role and whatever they add to it. So so yeah, if you're an aspiring actor too, check these people out. You can De Niro and uh Merrill Street. Like if you're an actor, check them out. You might get something out of those those actors.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:24

Yeah, I agree. And with that said, I think that's a wrap. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 2:19:29

Yeah, I agree. That's a wrap.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:30

All right, y'all. Go file it.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:33

Go file it the podcast deployed in the pod! We're raping about gods in the movies we love talking about the most things to file it. Finally, stories movies, sounds