Blog 10 JCP

The Deer Hunter is film about a group of friends from a small Pennsylvania town who are about to be shipped to Vietnam. The first hour of the movie depicts the pure normalcy that the those who survive the war will no longer have when they come home. Steven has an elaborate wedding to his girlfriend Angela and Nick proposed to his girlfriend Linda. The girl back home has been a theme in most of the war literature we have studied, and it is a staple in this piece. The movie turns to foreshadowing when the men meet the Green Beret at the bar during the wedding reception. He is hardened over from the war, When Mike tries to talk to him about Vietnam all he can say is "fuck it." This soldier is representative of the war will always be with the soldiers even after they come home. Also the fact that Mike wanted to fight the unfriendly soldier shows how unaware of the horrors of war he is. These men are ignorant to the fact that they are not just going to go serve their country and go right back to their normal lives; the war will change them forever. Before they go the Vietnam the friends go deer hunting one last time. Mike kills a deer with "one shot." The one shot is foreshadowing of what is to come with the Russian Roulette.

In the next part of the film Mike, Steven, and Nick unexpectedly meet in combat where they are all taken prisoners of war. For the guards sadistic entertainment they are forced to play Russian Roulette. Nick and Mike devise a plan to use the gun from the guards games to escape. Once free the three are floating down the river, and spotted by an American helicopter. Only Nick makes it to the helicopter, Steven breaks both his legs in the water and Steven goes to save him. Nick was in Saigon trying to recuperate, but remained a psychological mess not knowing what happened with his other friends.

The final section is the "coming home" of each soldier. Mike returns home thinking the others are either dead or missing. He remains isolated in a hotel unable to go back to his family and friends. Mike grew closer to Linda, and eventually went hunting again with his old friends. His change is shown when he can no longer even kill a deer and when he yells at one of his friends for playing with a loaded revolver. Mike knows the horrors and damages that come with war and guns and he no longer wants anything to do with them. Mike learns that Steven is also home but he has lost both of his legs and is in a veterans hospital. From Steven Mike learns that Nick is also alive but still in Vietnam, after bringing Steven home Mike goes to fulfill his promise to Nick to bring him home. Nick is very mixed up with drugs and the Russian Roulette game in Saigon and has lost all touch with reality and his home life. Nick does not even realize who Mike is until they are put against each other in a Russian Roulette match. This is the time when the bullet is in the chamber and Nick kills himself.

This movie takes an antiwar position because it does not show the glories of coming home a hero, but it shows the luck of coming home physically healthy and the inability to come home psychologically the same. Steven comes home without his legs, however he lost more than half of his body he lost half of himself. Nick comes home in a casket, he was physically dead after that last game of Russian Roulette but had been emotionally dead from when he chose to remain in Saigon. Finally Mike although home in one piece will never be the same after seeing the horrors of war and what happened to his best friends. This film shows the sadness that the aftermath of war leaves with the soldiers and their family and friends. Nothing good or honorable comes of war, just suffering.