The Deer Hunter is a 1978 film which tells the story of how the Vietnam War affects the people in the small industrial town of Clairton in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, although it was actually filmed in Cleveland and Mingo Junction, Ohio. It stars Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and George Dzundza. DeNiro, Savage and Walken portray American factory workers and avid deer hunters of Russian ancestry who serve in combat in Vietnam, returning to a significantly changed country significantly changed men. Inspired by German First World War soldier and author Erich Maria Remarque's 1938 novel Drei Kameraden (Three Comrades) depicting the lives of a trio of disillusioned World War I veterans in 1920s Weimar Germany, this film attempts to explore the meaning of violence, predation and survival, the often ghastly misuses of patriotism as well as illustrating the concepts of ethnicity, family, friendship and community ties and how they complement as well as clash with one another.

The movie was written by Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle , Quinn K. Redeker and Deric Washburn , and directed by Cimino.

It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. In addition, it was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep), Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films.

It is also renowned independently for its theme tune, Cavatina by Stanley Myers, commonly called The Theme from The Deer Hunter.

Some people contend that The Deer Hunter sparked a string of Russian roulette suicides because of its dramatic depiction of captured American soldiers forced to play Russian roulette by their Vietcong captors.

External links

• The Deer Hunter screenplay
• The Deer Hunter at the Snopes Urban Legend Reference Pages.
• The Deer Hunter Fan Page
• The Deer Hunter Review