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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Dolby, Digital Audio, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, Spanish, French
Winner of 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and one of AFI's Top 100 Films Of All Time, The Deer Hunter follows a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers from their blue-collar lives, hunting in the woods of the Alleghenies, to the hells of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Academy Award winner Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken star in this unforgettable saga of friendship and courage. Experience the brutality of war and the depths of emotional strain on the human spirit in this all-new special edition.
"The most heart wrenching film yet made on the effect of the Vietnam War...A challenging, great film." Apollo Leisure Guide
"Stunning film...sensitive, painful, evocative work packs an emotional wallop." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"...a mesmerizing epic about shattered innocence and lost faith...absorbing..." MovieThing.com
Editor's Note
This epic look at the Vietnam War and its effects told through the lives of a tight knit group of friends from a Pennsylvania town was Michael Cimino's second film and established him in the pantheon of American directors. Complex and emotionally raw performances from Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep earned each an Academy Award nomination, and Christopher Walken's portrayal of Nick, who survives capture but is unable to escape its trauma, is a tour de force that earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. With a keen eye for nuance and a carefully structured script, Cimino interweaves the rituals great and small that make up the lives of his characters, creating a poignant sense of what remained constant and what was forever changed by their experience of the war.
Plot Summary
An epic three-hour tale of lives forever changed by the Vietnam War, THE DEER HUNTER follows the transformation of a tight group of friends from a working-class town, taking its place alongside such classics as ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT in telling a story of war and disillusionment. On the eve of going to war, Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage) gather for Steven's wedding. Leaving Steven to his wedding night, Mike, Nick, and pals Axel (Chuck Aspergren), Stan (John Cazale), and John (George Dzundza) depart for the mountains and one last hunting trip. The hunting trip is a funny, poignant scene that firmly establishes the characters as they set off for Vietnam immediately after the trip. The scenes in Vietnam, especially the Russian roulette game, are among the most brutal war scenes on film. The characters' eventual return to the States is emotional and gut-wrenching. Michael Cimino's award-winning film is a powerful look at friendship and love in the midst of war.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Plus | | Audio: Spanish Dolby Digital Stereo | | Dubbed: Spanish | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | This Is An HD-DVD Made For HD-DVD Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture And Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Universal |
| Release Date: 12/26/2006 |
| Running Time: 183 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1978 | | Catalog ID: 61031310 | | UPC: 00025193131027 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (1980) | | | British Academy Awards, Vilmos Zsigmond, Best Cinematography | | | British Academy Awards, Peter Zinner, Best Editing | |
Winner (1979) | | | Golden Globe, Michael Cimino, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Oscar, Barry Spikings, et. al., Best Picture | | | Oscar, Michael Cimino, Best Director | | | Oscar, Christopher Walken, Best Actor in a Supporting Role | | | Oscar, Peter Zinner, Best Film Editing | | | Oscar, Richard Portman, et. al., Best Sound |
| Memorable Quotes| "One shot is what it's all about; a deer has to be taken with one shot."----Michael (Robert De Niro) |
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| | Professional Reviews | Variety
"...The film remains intense, powerful and fascinating for more than three hours....The acting, throughout, is outstanding. Walken's performance is a marvel..." 11/29/1978New York Times
"...A big, awkward, crazily ambitious, sometimes breathtaking motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since THE GODFATHER....[Streep] gives a smashing film performance..." 12/15/1978 p.C5 New York Times
Included in the New York Times's "10 BEST FILMS OF 1978" 12/31/1978 p.II:1 Total Film
"Hell is war in Michael Cimino's decade-defining classic..." 12/01/2003 p.116 Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n unforgettable study of friendship, pre-, during and post Vietnam." 12/01/2006 p.209 Uncut
5 stars out of 5 -- "Cimino's is a political film that makes its points through the trials of its characters..." 01/01/2007 p.147 Sight and Sound
"Cimino's sprawling Vietnam drama is an intimate epic, favouring the personal over the political....This is an ensemble cast par excellence." 02/01/2007 p.81 DVD Times 10 of 10
Epic in both scope and intensity, The Deer Hunter burst onto the scene in 1978 and beat Coming Home and Midnight Express to the Best Picture Oscar. Famous for its middle act sequences that involve the torturous game of Russian Roulette, the film has often been hailed as the definitive Vietnam War movie and is forever regarded as a classic...A powerfully intense and deeply moving study of friendship tested during war, The Deer Hunter has lost none of its classic status twenty four years after it was released. - Raphael Pour-Hashemi
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" is a three-hour movie in three major movements. It is a progression from a wedding to a funeral. It is the story of a group of friends. It is the record of how the war in Vietnam entered several lives and altered them terribly forever. It is not an anti-war film. It is not a pro-war film. It is one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made..."The Deer Hunter" is said to be about many subjects: About male bonding, about mindless patriotism, about the dehumanizing effects of war, about Nixon's "silent majority." It is about any of those things that you choose, if you choose, but more than anything else, it is a heartbreakingly effective fictional machine that evokes the agony of the Vietnam time. - Roger Ebert
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