Blog 10 AEE

The message of the film,Deer Hunter, is portrayed in the contrast between the first hour in the film, and the rest of the movie. The first hour shows the three main protagonists, Steve, Nick and Mike, in their home environment. They represent the typical, naïve American teenager; unaware of the cruelties of the war. We see them hanging out and casually drinking beers as happy, normal boys. During the first hour, we see Steve’s wedding to his fiancé Angela. In this scene we see foreshadowing of the tolls the Vietnam War is about to take on the boys. There is a superstition that if wine spills from the newlyweds’ cup, then the marriage will likely fail. The wine splashes on Angela’s dress, suggesting that their marriage will ruined. As we see later in the film, the war breaks apart their marriage. The wedding is just a preview of how much destruction the war will have on the boys, even after they have returned home.

The first hour of the film portrays the boys before they enter war. Their idea of risk and adventure is passing a big truck on a tiny road. While they are in Vietnam, they see awful things happen to those around them, such as a woman and her child being blown up. They stare death in the face when they become P.O.W.s and narrowly escape being drowned and shot. This new exposure to death and war affects all of the boys in a negative way. One returns home physically crippled, another returns home mentally crippled by PTSD, and the other gets sucked into the drug-world of Vietnam and never returns. At the beginning of the film the boys meet a green beret from the war, when asked about the war he responds “Fuck it.” At the time of their meeting, the boys cannot grasp what the Green Beret means, but by the end of the film the boys have experienced the same trauma of the war.

This film represents an anti-war Vietnam film. The war turned three naïve boys into three ruined veterans. Each of the boys represents a way in which the war can destroy young teenagers, mentally, physically, and completely.