Calm Before the Storm: Meloncholy and Nostalgia in The Deer Hunter

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A tragic film about conflict within people, Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter presents a world of inner turmoil in which many questions go unanswered. Dreary, uneasy and sometimes unbearable, Cimino's vision casts a small group of friends from a Pennsylvania town as lost in a world they cannot control and can barely comprehend. The protagonist of the film, a confident even spiritual iron worker named Mike, takes his friends on one last hunting trip before shipping off for Vietnam. Upon returning from the trip, the group of men stop at the neighborhood pub that one of them runs. This is the scene that sets up the actual war scenes in the film. It is literally the calm before the storm. Although most of The Deer Hunter does not take place in Vietnam, the war scenes that are depicted are preceded by this scene which sets up the now infamous and unbearable Russian roulette scene.

• The day before Mike and his roommate Nick go off to war, the men return from their hunting trip and hit the pub. This celebratory scene slowly develops into a nostalgic one that fills the viewer with ennui. The sequence begins with the men driving into town from the hunting cabin. They celebrate the successful hunt by hanging out of the car window, yelling and singing, driving erratically, throwing empty beer cans and generally behaving like party animals.

• The next scene is of the men arriving at the bar. It begins with a crane shot above a dark street. A neon sign at the top of the screen hangs above the bar door stage right. The surrounding area contains a railroad track on the left side of the screen and the street in the center of the screen with the iron smelting plant rising up in the background. The train races toward the camera as the car approaches from around the corner. The train leaving and the Cadillac arriving is the directors way of reminding us that Mike, Nick and their friend Stephan are leaving for Vietnam the next day.
  

The car full of men pulls up parallel with the bar and parks right in front of the door, like it has come home. The camera descends down to eye level as the car comes to a stop and gives the impression that with the hunt over, we can come back down from the high of it. Nick jumps out of the passenger side of the car and playfully tosses the key to Mike who then unlocks the door and lets everyone into the bar. The men move left to right across the screen as they enter.

• The next shot is an eye level medium shot from inside the bar. The door is on the right hand side of the screen and the shot is from behind the bar as if from the bartender's point of view. This angle gives the impression that these local men are about to become strangers as the war approaches. It is completely dark as the men stumble in and continue singing "Dropkick Me Jesus Through the Goalpost of Life." The men enter and the camera pans left as Nick falls down, gets up and immediately approaches the bar to begin distributing beers.
  

He clasps his hands and rubs them to show how excited he is to get a cold one. Nick leans over the bar and grabs some beer cans and begins shaking them vigorously. As the lights turn on, Axel is now in the middle of the screen lying on his back on the pool table. From the left side of the screen, Stan gives Nick a head nod, so as to indicate that he'd like a beer. This knowing gesture shows how well the men know each other and gives the scene a very friendly nostalgic feel. As Nick tosses a beer to Stan, Mike opens his shook up beer and explodes it in Axel's general direction. All five men are now cracking open their beers and spraying each other with foam in a festive way.

• The camera then cuts to a corner of the room in a low angle medium shot of Axel (still on the pool table) on the left, Nick sitting at the bar in the background, and Stan sitting on a stool at the right side of the image. Axel is gently rocking back and forth in an attempt to keep beer spray out of his eyes. He flails about as Mike, Nick and Stan shower him with beer. The men finish singing and Axel stops his flailing as John begins playing Chopin's OCTURNE NR. 6 (OPUS 15-3) IN G MINOR on the piano. This is a signal that the good times have come to an end and it forces the men into a much calmer, more nostalgic mood.
  

The men are all seated now, and the camera cuts back behind the bar so all five men are in the picture. A medium shot of the room depicts Stan on the left, John at the piano in the background, Axel lying on his side, his back to the camera (presumably so that he can more easily sip his foamy beer), Mike against the wall on a stool behind Axel, and Nick closest to the camera on the right. As the piano music begins in earnest, the men all sip their beers, and take a collective sigh from the roughhousing and singing. There is a close up of John as he plays the melancholy song, and he glances back at the other men because he knows they are quiet and listening. This closeup shows us what John is thinking because even though he is not saying anything, the sad music says he already thinking of his friends leaving and how he is going to miss times like these.

• The next sequence contains close ups of Nick and Mike as they exchange glances. First, we cut to Nick smiling. His eyes quickly shoot towards Mike and then he drops his gaze slightly down and off camera before looking back over at Mike. Cut to Mike first looking at Nick and then off camera to the left in the direction of the music. Mike shifts his eyes back over to Nick who looks back in an eye-line matching shot. The men nod knowingly at each other as the camera cuts to an over the shoulder two shot of Nick and Mike.
  

Nick's head is turned toward Mike in this shot, and Mike again looks off camera to the left. As Mike breaks off his eye contact, Nick turns his head to face off camera left. This shot illustrates their realization that the good times are over, as they face deployment to Vietnam. The revealing thing about this whole scene so far is that none of the men have said anything to each other. The director's use of music and camera angle have revealed the inner thoughts of these men.

• A medium three shot follows; We cut to Axel turning over on his stomach on the pool table at the left, Nick is in the background and Stan to the right. Axel folds his hands over his beer can and rests his head there in a very contemplative gesture. All three men are watching John play now, and finally Mike enters the shot from the left by sitting on the edge of the pool table and leaning slightly into Axel's large frame. This shot points to how close these men are, and how the mood has shifted to a melancholic almost despondent one.

Close ups of each of the men follow. The camera cuts to the right side of the room and slowly pans left to show each man's face close up. None of them are drinking or smiling now, and they all seem deep in thought. That we don't know what they're thinking gives a quiet tension to this shot because the camera slowly pans over each face without stopping. By not letting the viewer focus on any one person for long, it adds to the confusion of what they might be thinking.

• A medium two shot follows in which we cut to John playing the piano on the right, with only Stan's face on the left side of the screen. His face is poorly lit and his head hangs ever so slightly. It is a good contrast to the well lit piano with John's plaintive tickling. Showing one person in the light and one in the dark underscores the uneasiness which has clearly set in to the room now.

John finishes playing and we cut to the other four men now sitting motionless in a half drunken stupor of nostalgia and ennui. Only Nick moves now, taking a pause before lifting his glass to drink down the rest of his drink. One more for the road as they say. He is looking off camera to the right now as the other men just blink in John's direction. Nick finishes his drink by throwing his head back as if drinking in the last memory he has of his old buddies. It is really the directors way of having Nick say goodbye. He finishes his drink, and in the background the sound of a helicopter reveals what all the men are thinking of; the war

• This five minute sequence contains many basic elements of classic Hollywood narrative style. The fact that there is no speaking, other than the singing, even goes back to the days of silent films when only the music spoke for the actors. By interweaving evocative music, precise cuts and close ups, the director paints an emotional image that is nostalgic and haunting.

The fighting scenes in The Deer Hunter are fairly short except for the Russian roulette scene. They are really only fighting for their lives. The themes were confusion, tragedy and coping with loss. The Deer Hunter was not produced during the war. American combat involvement in Vietnam ended in 1975. The combat scenes were very graphic. The Americans are tortured, the Vietnamese kill women and children and there is no shortage of blood and tears. There was no political message in the film. The combat units were not integrated in The Deer Hunter. The Enemy is depicted as sadistic and evil, forcing the American prisoners to play Russian roulette with a loaded revolver. They play until someone dies, and then the Vietnamese tormentors simply get another G.I. to play the winner.

• The message of The Deer Hunter was not as easy to determine as other films. The director purposefully makes the film confusing because that is what war does to anyone. It is referred to as the fog of war. The Deer Hunter offers no easy answers; as in life. Ultimately, it is an exploration of the modern coping mechanisms of small town Americans. Often, the characters say nothing because it is difficult for them to relay what they are feeling. They insist things are OK but on the inside they are coming apart. Denial is a large part of the message, but it is also about making the best of bad times. Whenever people deal with the untimely death of a young person, it is only natural for different people to express it in different ways.

Sources: Sikov, Ed. Study Guide for American Cinema 1994. Mc-Graw Hill
Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/
The Deer Hunter, Fox Motion Pictures
Encyclopedia Britannica