Directed by Michael Cimino
Written by Deric Washburn
1978 | 183 minutes | English, Vietnamese, French
DVD

Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Pierre Segui, Shirley Stoler, Chuck Aspegren, Rutanya Alda, Paul D’Amato, Amy Wright, Joe Grifasi, Somsak Sengvilai, John McBeth

What it’s about: Mike (DeNiro), Nick (Walken), and Steven (Savage) are three steelworkers in a small western-Pennsylvania town in 1968. Steven is marrying Angela (Alda) and the others are going on one last hunting trip with their other friends before the three of them ship out to Vietnam. Once in country, they are captured by the Viet Cong and forced to participate in games of Russian Roulette before escaping, but during the escape, Steven is injured and Nick becomes separated from the others, eventually going AWOL and disappearing. Returning home, Mike is forced to wrestle with how the war has affected both him and Steven, negotiates a complicated relationship with Nick’s girlfriend/fiance, Linda (Streep), and eventually returns to Vietnam to try and find his missing friend.

Reflections: Winner of 5 Oscars in 1978, including Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor (Walken), this is a big, epic, lumbering movie that’s almost as interesting for the stuff going on around it as for the film itself. There’s the conflict over the script between Cimino and Washburn, and murkiness about who authored what. There’s the controversy over the ahistorical use of Russian Roulette as a major narrative device. There’s Meryl Streep, in her second film role and the first of her 21 (to date) Oscar nominations, taking the role to be with John Cazale, who was dying of cancer as the film was being made (and the poignancy that adds to the final scene, in which she mourns the loss of Walken’s character with Cazale next to her). There’s the fact this was one of the first major American films to deal with the aftereffects of the Vietnam war. There’s a lot going on in the context here that adds to the fascination of the film as a historical artifact.

The movie itself is a long, slow burn, spending about an hour setting up the lives of its protagonists in the few days before their deployment. Indeed, much of the contemporary criticism was directed at the length and pacing, favoring atmosphere over incident. But that’s sort of the point, also–to be absorbed and enmeshed in the world of these characters, Mike in particular, in order to feel the way that world shifts after the experience in the war as he tries to hold on to the things that used to give him meaning. Cimino feels meticulous as a director, lingering in long scenes and letting things be quietly observed rather than stated outright. He’s helped in this project by Vilmos Zsigmond’s gorgeous cinematography which draws out the gritty, chilly beauty of the Allegheny mountains, and by a set of fantastic, quietly-tortured performances, particularly from DeNiro, whose deeply held principles are shaken but not completely shattered, Walken, whose cheery breeziness breaks completely into nihilism, and Streep, juggling a complicated and conflicting set of desires as her Linda grows closer to Mike in Nick’s absence.

It is also a very dour experience, ending on an ironic and bitter note as the characters break into “God Bless America” after a funeral, and it asks a lot in terms of patience. But there is a sweep to it, and if one takes it more as trying to capture a mood and feeling rather than represent a historical event in a more literal way, it is moving, even if it’s not exactly the most fun way to spend three hours. There is some top-tier talent at work here, and taken on its own terms, it’s easy to get lost in it, even if it’s not without its flaws.