High life
Hunter killers
Taki
New York It was a preview by invitation only. Captains of industry, Hollywood fat-cats, editors, star writers and critics. No hacks, no Studio 54 types, no dress designers. The setting was the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer building on 6th Avenue. I was invited by Clay Felker, editor of Esquire magazine, and one of the few men allowed to bring guests. After champagne and caviar, we sat back on comfortable armchairs ready to be entertained. Sledgehammered, rather. Because what appeared on the screen during the next three and a half hours can only be described as one of the most visually intense experiences ever. The film's name is The Deer Hunter. Its range and power achieve Tolstoyan heights, its exploration of man's outer reaches of pain and exhilaration overwhelm the emotions to breaking point.
Not being a public relations man, I am not using hyperbole. The director, Michael Cimino, does not achieve this effect through the usual camera tricks or excessive gore. He is simply an artist and this is cinema as an art form. The film traces a short period in the lives of three main characters. Yet it is a full-scale portrait of a segment of an American ethnic group, in a typical Pennsylvania steel town, a microscopic examination of the American blue-collar worker. It also shows, like no other film to date, the love of men for each other, their fiery camaraderie shown against the background of steel mills, macho pranks, boozy bar fights and the small town code of women staying on the sidelines while the men swagger.
A Russian Orthodox wedding serves as a narrative ploy — as in The Godfather — to explain ethnic customs and traditions. (A man sees his girl being pawed by someone, walks up to him, taps him on, the shoulder, and slaps the girl very hard). Despite some pretty outrageous goings-on, the director is never condescending or contemptuous. Hints of impending doom are subtle — a Green Beret veteran suddenly shows up at a bar and cryptically refuses to answer any questions about Vietnam.
The wedding is the longest sequence of the film. An incredible one hour. Nobody in the audience had even coughed until, towards the end of the scene, it is revealed that, after the wedding, three of the boys, including the bridegroom, are leaving as volunteers for Vietnam. A large sign wishes them well 'For God and Country.' That is when I heard.the first squirms. Some of the sophisticates were getting bored or, I would like to think, nervous. After all, God is dead and who fights for one's country nowadays? Suddenly, with a terrifying change of pace from polka music to B-52 thunder, we're in the Nam. Robert de Niro lies motionless caked with blood and red mud. A Vietcong soldier calmly throws a grenade inside a hut filled with cowering Vietnamese. It is, apparently, an American controlled village. The VC then coldbloodedly bayonets a woman and child trying to flee. At this point, de Niro comes to and incinerates the VC with a flamethrower. In the meantime, however, the audience is about to rebel. They are not about to accept that Vietnamese killed Vietnamese. I can hear the word My-Lai all around me.
But worse is yet to come. The three friends are captured by the Vietcong and forced to play Russian roulette. Gloria Emerson, the ex-New York Times reporter who covered the Vietnam war and called the American soldiers worse than Nazi murderers, suddenly jumps up and storms out in a huff. Anna Wintour, a pretty and rather nice girl, does not ha", the stomach to watch. She goes out an' vomits. Anna did, however, have tile, stomach to work for the pornograPh!' Bob Guccione. Yet there is very little vOi lence shown in this most extraordinarYf film sequences. The Vietcong slap We prisoners and yell at them. Once la a while someone loses the game of roulette.' The horrified audience, I suspect> ti5d aghast at the idea that an Asiatic CO torture an American. After all, vile know it was the Yanks who were the 'raj lains. The mental and sometimes phYs' torture depicted in the scene is the °ill disturbing I have ever watched. l not reveal more except that de Niro sat; vives, one of his friends returns almost in half, and the third buddy Pet,: round the bend and self-destructs ill closing days of the Saigon regime ° April 1975. Back home the old gang is not, the same. Yet de Niro, the strongest 01 ".6 lot, tries to inspire them to start afres'; He partly succeeds. In the most touellint: scene of the film, his group, sl.„°,w,',j; unembarrassedly, sing 'God 0'1"h America.' My neighbours start to 1011b.s out loud. A writer friend says that tlitlre crap. Anna Wintour thinks it's corny. "t all follow Clay Felker to a chic restauta; and order champagne. Clay thinks movie very, very powerful. An AUSti.iair princess says it is the worst, most bol'a; film ever. Alexander Cockburn, a le1.4 who has had three of the richest Nvolli's, on earth as his constant compalti°.114 declares that no one in his right 011" sings `God Bless America.' a The reason I am writing on stic-fig depressing theme at this time is that2-e, the past year many of my acquaint"' a have been angered and shockedat,is member of their set writing about l'he own kind. Tor you to write about t.td jet-set is tantamount to treason, s-sa Fred Hughes, Andy Warhol's busi,116,e manager, last week. For somestrai:ot reason most of my jet-set friends did Rot like The Deer Hunter. They could I/A figure out how people who are dePres;-rt can sing 'God Bless America' for collie when all you have to do is go the when and snort some goodst'o, coke. In fact, most of the beautiful Pebt pie thought the Vietnam war was f°11gor by a bunch of jack-booted Nazis worse. writ" So I have decided to refrain from oe ing about the rich from now on. 011,,ncia condition: they all go to PennsYli;e with Bianca at their head and visit solo of the folks depicted in the film, ot elite in the Rhodesian army and fight „oar rorists. Or at least read about and 11°,"„ncl the memory of Lord Richard Cecil 'of Captain Robert Nairac. If they do alto the above I will never write a'nes lavatories, sniffs, nightclubs and )3i8 ever again. Happy Christmas.
Previous page
