The Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino, 1978.
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Edition screened: Universal 100th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 183 minutes.
Edition screened: Universal 100th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 183 minutes.
Summary: Hunting violence.
Details:
1) The first deer hunting scene begins with pursuit at 1:04:00. The deer is shot at 1:04:48 and we witness it dying through 1:05:05.
2) The second deer hunting scene begins with pursuit at 2:17:55. John Cazale runs the wounded animal into a pond at 2:19:00, where it struggles in the shallow water. This scene concludes with De Niro deciding not to shoot his deer at 2:19:40.
The deer’s death in the first scene is emotional and condemnable, but these hunting scenes are not nearly as visually graphic as they could be. No butchering or similar porn.
Additional comments:
In The Deer Hunter, we meet De Niro as a true-to-life western Pennsylvania buck who loves to go out huntin’ with his buddies. He goes to Vietnam where he experiences the horror and reality of killing for sport, returns home, returns to the hunt, and realizes that he will not shoot the deer. Unfortunately, the lesson most of De Niro’s real-life cousins take from this fictionalized journey is the misunderstanding that an occasional and arbitrary act of decency makes you a good, compassionate man. But that isn't what happened. De Niro's newly found sophistication – yes, sophistication, even via the horror of Vietnam – this expansion of perception beyond small town culture – this bit of terrifying, real, sophistication can help even the most conservative and provincial of souls understand issues larger than knee-jerk defense of clan enculturation: The reality that it could be you, might as well be you, was intended to be you, perhaps should have been you.
In The Deer Hunter, we meet De Niro as a true-to-life western Pennsylvania buck who loves to go out huntin’ with his buddies. He goes to Vietnam where he experiences the horror and reality of killing for sport, returns home, returns to the hunt, and realizes that he will not shoot the deer. Unfortunately, the lesson most of De Niro’s real-life cousins take from this fictionalized journey is the misunderstanding that an occasional and arbitrary act of decency makes you a good, compassionate man. But that isn't what happened. De Niro's newly found sophistication – yes, sophistication, even via the horror of Vietnam – this expansion of perception beyond small town culture – this bit of terrifying, real, sophistication can help even the most conservative and provincial of souls understand issues larger than knee-jerk defense of clan enculturation: The reality that it could be you, might as well be you, was intended to be you, perhaps should have been you.