Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter was met with both critical and
commercial success upon its release in 1978. However, it was also highly
controversial and came to be seen as a powerful statement on the human
cost of America's longest war and as a colonialist glorification of
anti-Asian violence.
Brad Prager's study of the film considers its significance as a war
movie and contextualizes its critical reception. Drawing on an archive
of contemporaneous materials, as well as an in-depth analysis of the
film's lighting, mise-en-scène, multiple cameras and shifting depths of
field, Prager examines how the film simultaneously presents itself as a
work of cinematic realism, while problematically blurring the lines
between fact and fiction. While Cimino felt he had no responsibility to
historical truth, depicting a highly stylized version of his own
fantasies about the Vietnam War, Prager argues that The Deer Hunter's
formal elements were used to bolster his troubling depictions of war and
race.
Finally, comparing the film with later depictions of US-led intervention
such as Albert and Allen Hughes's Dead Presidents (1995) and Spike
Lee's Da Five Bloods (2020), Prager illuminates The Deer Hunter's
major presumptions, blind spots and omissions, while also presenting a
case for its classic status.
