The first few minutes introduce these friends. They are regular folk. As it’s mainly a ‘man’s film, a film about male bonding and friendship, I want to stick with that theme, at least for the time being, and how the playing out of this story resonated with my 16-year-old self. These men spend a lot of time at the bar. They drink, they dance to music on the jukebox, they play pool, they decompress. They forget about the inferno; they just want to chill out. They talk about hunting, and we also get the first talk about going to Vietnam to fight. There’s a wonderful scene where they sing and dance when  Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take my eyes off you’ plays on the jukebox, and even to this day, every time I  hear it, it takes me back to the film and reminds me of my recently departed mother who loved the song, and the scene.

After a scene where the group of friends head into the mountains to hunt deer and the group dynamics are cemented; De Niro’s Michael is presented as the alpha male, the clear leader. He takes the lead, makes the decisions, sets out the rules… ‘A deer must be taken in one shot’, a reference which takes on even more resonance as the story unfolds. Michael’s best friend is Nick. He is close to Michael. Sensitive and deep, and played beautifully by the Oscar-winning Christopher Walken, his relationship with Michael is the heartbeat of the film. The cast are exemplary and arguably the best ensemble to appear on screen together ever; THE best in my humble opinion. John Savage plays Steve. We find out that Steve is to be married to his childhood sweetheart, and it is the last thing the group will do before Michael, Nick, and Steve head off to fight.

John Cazale plays Stanley, and his presence in the film is both powerful and poignant. John was in the final stages of terminal lung cancer, and his scenes were shot first as the producers really didn’t know if he was going to survive the shoot. As ever, John plays a character with more flaws and imperfections than most; in many ways, a companion piece to his performance as Fredo in ‘The Godfather’. No actor played ‘inhibited’ and ‘lost’ better than John Cazale. Stanley is weak and almost peripheral amongst the macho figures in the group, and most of the time he is ridiculed and shouted down by more dominant figures but he is pivotal to the film in that he brings sensitivity and calm, his quiet delivery and soft demeanour a contrast to the macho posturing often on show. George Dzundza plays John, the owner of the bar, and Chuck Aspegren plays Axel, a huge bear of a man who takes it upon himself to keep the group in line. It’s worth noting that Aspegren wasn’t an actor but a steelworker. De Niro was so impressed with him when Asepgren showed the cast around the steelworks prior to shooting that he implored the director, Michael Cimino, to give him a role. It was a decision that paid off.

The main cast is rounded out by Meryl Streep, who played the role of Linda, the only significant female role in the film. Meryl took the role to be close to John Cazale, with whom she was living at the time. In fact, the role was so underwritten that she was urged to create the character herself and write her own dialogue and ad lib during her scenes.

So, Dad and I are watching this film. The scene has been set. The group of friends are hard drinking, hard working, hard playing, wisecracking, everymen. I remember as a 16-year-old loving the scene where the car is driving into the mountains and they stop for a call of nature. When John, played by Dzundza, is the last to head back to the car, the car drives off, much to his chagrin. The car eventually reverses and stops to pick up Dzundza, but just as he is about to get into the car, it speeds off again. The sort of thing that appeals to a teenager! Another scene where they berate Stanley for forgetting to bring his boots, and he ends up being showered with discarded food. This group of friends are immature in the main.

The wedding scene is pivotal, but I remember watching it and found myself drifting. It’s a long scene, over forty minutes, and some will say it’s too long, certainly many critics did. Back then, I would have agreed with them. I remember Dad looking over at me and asking, ‘What’s this film about?’ and at that point, that was a really good question. It was starting to look as though it was just another character piece about people in a small town and how they go about their lives in pretty unspectacular ways in all its minutiae. We were both starting to fade and contemplating switching off and watching something else. But we stuck with it and am I glad we did?! As I say, the scene is pivotal. It shows us, in minute detail, the lives of this group of people and it’s deliberate. The director wants to immerse the viewers into every aspect of life in this small town so we feel like we are part of that community, so we know exactly what it’s like to live that life, and subsequently what it’s like for the trio who head off to a land to fight and face a trauma they will never recover from, mentally, physically or emotionally. By seeing the interaction of the group in mundane, rigid, torpid lives, we understand fully the impact that is to come.

But yes, up to that point it was a gruelling watch. My teenage mind was looking for action and visceral drama, not dancing, furtive looks between characters, conversations about marriage and children and mortgages. My mind told me this was a war film, and I was looking for something to make me sit up. It was coming!

After the wedding scene, there were still a few scenes of setting up the characters, and there is one important aspect to touch upon. Michael and Nick have a moment of deep, quiet contemplation. They have both had a heavy night of drinking, and they sit and look at each other; it’s the first glimpse of love we see between them. It’s a tender scene. They’re both clearly thinking ahead, and Nick says to Michael, ‘Whatever happens over there, don’t leave me, you gotta promise me that.’ Michael promises him. It’s a very touching scene, and even back then, I was touched. There was definitely a lump in my throat.

The jump forward is as dramatic as they come. In the middle of a scene at the bar where John Welsh plays piano, we dramatically cut to a helicopter in shot. We’re there. We’re in Vietnam. Dad and I sit up, and for the rest of the film, we barely even look at each other. We’re locked in, and it’s the start of a helluva ride.

All these years later, too many to count, I can see myself back then, crouching forward on the edge of the sofa. I knew something memorable was coming. To cut some of the flesh away, Nick and Steve stumble upon a bewildered Michael after a brief firefight in a village. Moments later, it’s clear all three have been captured by the Vietcong and are ‘housed’ in brutal, cramped conditions in a tiny building on a river. We quickly get to see what’s going on, and it’s pretty much all through Michael’s eyes. De Niro is so good at telling us what he’s thinking. He acts with his eyes, and when you see his eyes flicker and darken, we know they’re in trouble. Above them, through a hatch, inside a tiny space, a group of enemy soldiers are playing Russian Roulette and judging by the glee with which they announce another bullet in the head, they’re like kids at Christmas. It’s in these moments where Michael’s character comes to the fore, and we see the man who took charge of the group on the hunting trips back home. Whilst Nick crumples before our eyes and Christopher Walken delivers it with such a haunted look, we know he can’t be relied on. He’s a good guy, a bright guy, but he’s not a fighter, and he doesn’t have the mental strength to get through. He looks lost, gaunt, ethereal. He breathes heavy, his eyes dart back and forth. He sees no way out. Michael knows he has to step up. Steve is badly injured and locked in a separate hut, and through his brief conversations with Nick, Michael knows he’s going to have to guide him through it.

It transpires that Michael and Nick are going to have to play against each other. My heart is in my mouth. I look at my Dad, and it looks as though he’s feeling the same. Michael tells Nick ‘I’m gonna will us out of here’ and it’s a powerful moment. We believe him. If I was lost in the jungle, in the middle of a war zone, I know I’d want him next to me. He takes charge fully. He looks, seems and acts strongly. If he has any fears or concerns, we don’t see them. His focus is absolute. He’s going to get them out of there. There is no other option. The tension is incredible. If I’d had a cushion with me, I’d have bitten into it!

The next few minutes play out like nothing I’d ever seen before. Michael and Nick sit opposite each other. Nick sits, deflated, terrified, telling the captors he won’t play. The lead captor, played extraordinarily well by a local Thai actor, was told to slap the actors as hard as he could for the scene to be as authentic as possible, and legend has it that he apologised every time he had to slap De Niro or Walken. Michael tells Nick he must do it, put another empty chamber in the gun. It’s an extraordinary piece of acting as a glassy-eyed De Niro guides his friend through it. I found this mesmerising. I was there, with them, in that hut. I was so fully immersed in the story. Michael persuades the captors to play with three bullets in the gun. It’s a hell of a risky strategy, but Michael knew he had to at least attempt it. There was no way he was going to go out meekly, no matter what. The tension is incredible. The bullets are put into the gun, and the chamber rolls. Michael puts the gun to his head, and time stops. I remember my heart thumping in my chest, and my mouth was dry. Click. He tells Nick, he has to do it, that he’s going to get them out of there. Nick is struggling; he can’t bring himself to do it. He doesn’t have the iron will that Michael has. He’s defeated in that moment, but he manages to put another empty chamber in the gun.

They spin the gun again, and it points at Michael. He looks at the captors in bewilderment, and then he begins to laugh at the absurdity of his predicament. They laugh with him and at him. He’s voted to get more bullets in the gun, and now he has to go again. Their laughter and mocking is loud. Michael keeps going with it for a few moments, then, in almost a blur, he rises, roars out a primal scream and puts a bullet in the lead captor’s forehead. It’s incredible. It’s visceral. It’s stunning. Michael and Nick manage to kill the others in a brief fire fight. It’s an electric moment. It’s full of bravado and macho posturing. It’s violent, intense, gut-wrenching. It moves so quickly. It’s a surprise. It’s pretty unlikely that both of them would manage to kill the others without so much as a scratch on them, but it doesn’t matter. I was like a fan at a football match. I wanted to cheer, punch the air. I was like Michael, willing them out of that rat-infested cage and back home to drink their beer and hunt their deer where they’re safe and they’re loved. It was an incredible moment to watch this scene for the first time. To be honest, it still gets me all these years and dozens of viewings later. It touched that part of a male teenager that yearns for that sort of thrill and intensity, that thing about being with your best friend and being able to protect that friend and ultimately save his life. It wasn’t just a scene in a film. It was a defining moment for me. I don’t think I’d watched a film up to that point where I was so involved in the story and felt such deep, raw emotion.

One of those soldiers had had enough. Nick wasn’t a weak man, but he just didn’t have the capacity and fortitude to get out of the situation. He needed Michael, and Michael was there for him. Michael saved him, and I found that deeply profound and emotional. That’s what we all want, and that’s what we want from our best friend. It got me thinking about my friends at school and who would be the Michael and who would be the Nick. Who would I be? I’m watching this film and watching this story play out, and it’s not just a film any more. I’m part of it. I’m making choices, asking questions, and putting myself up there with them. It really was a pivotal point in terms of film viewing as something other than simply watching; the realisation that films really can move you and change your life in so many respects. I could now see that. That is such a powerful statement. These types of films really do affect you and reflect your personality. It’s a scene I often think about, and every time I watch the film, I can’t wait to get there. It never fails to move me, and even though I know what happens next, I’m still that 16-year-old schoolboy at the edge of my seat with my heart in my mouth. I talk about this scene with friends and colleagues inside and outside the film business. We all take different things from it and dissect each frame like a surgeon. It’s so intense and therefore brings out intense reactions.

There has been lots of controversy over the years about the treatment of the Vietnamese in this film, and accusations of racism abound. Scholars and historians tell us that Russian Roulette was never played in prison camps, which negates the film. Personally, I don’t agree. On watching this then, and now, I don’t take from this the view that the Vietnamese are any more savage or brutal than any other people in the film. My take is that war makes man act in ways he would not normally act in, and this is simply a look at what happens when the horrors of war make people act out of character. I could delve further into this, but I don’t want to divert too much from the point of this piece, which is, as I repeat over and over, the effect that the first viewing of this film had on me. And over subsequent viewings.

When the three manage to escape, the film settles a little, and we’re able to decompress. The story moves quickly. Nick and Steve recuperate in a Saigon hospital, and Michael returns home. The following scene, Michael’s arrival home, also had a huge impact on me then, and I remember struggling to understand it. At home, preparations are in place for the return of the heroes. The townsfolk are busying themselves readying to party. Bunting and streamers are hung outside Michael’s home. A taxi drives by and we see Michael in the back seat. He sees the decorations outside and tells the taxi driver to keep on driving. He didn’t want to party. I couldn’t understand this. My young mind was screaming, ‘Why the hell wouldn’t you want a party? Why wouldn’t you want to celebrate?’ ‘Come on, man, you’re a hero… you get your friends to fawn over you, and you can have a good time.’ I just couldn’t get it. It was preposterous. That’s living, right? Parties, drink, music, friends, getting together, having fun. That’s a massive deal for a teenager. I was telling Michael to get a grip, to stop being a party pooper, get in there and be with your friends. Even the taxi driver seems exasperated. Michael simply crumples out of sight in the back seat, and the taxi driver drops him off at a motel where he silently, painfully comes to terms with what’s happened. It’s a fantastic piece of acting by De Niro. As the theme tune kicks in, Michael takes off his cap and his jacket and sits on the edge of the bed. He rises, moves around, lost, not sure exactly what he wants to do or where he wants to go, where he wants to be. He seems uncomfortable, in pain almost. He fidgets, he walks back and forth in the room, crouching down against the wall, putting his hands to his eyes. He is articulating pain through a series of actions, and it’s incredible. He is lost, broken, exhausted, spent. He doesn’t want to party. There’s nothing to celebrate. He’s seen too much death and sorrow. It took me quite some time to understand.

When I matured and watched it again, and when I finally got it, I found myself shedding a tear. It was so obvious. It didn’t need spelling out. I almost felt ashamed I had thought differently when I first saw it. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, how immature. I guess that’s what happens when you see a piece of art with different eyes. Maybe if I’d seen the ‘Mona Lisa’ in the Louvre or stood in front of the Taj Mahal as a moody teenager, I wouldn’t have seen the things I see now. I guess it’s about perspective and the different things we spot when we look with more mature eyes. I feel a bit as I did when I first watched ‘The Godfather’ and was unfazed by Robert Duvall’s performance. He wasn’t flashy or showy. He didn’t shout or rant or rave. He didn’t overact. He was calm, assured, resolute, the antidote to Sonny’s rage. Again, it took fresh eyes over the years to see this and appreciate what a superb performance he delivered.

There are many pieces in this great film that I’ve watched over the years and seen different things in each viewing. There is a similar scene when Michael goes hunting on his return. Of course, Nick is still missing in action, Steve is recuperating in a nursing home, so the group is depleted. Michael goes it alone, and we follow him as he tracks a deer and follows it. Eventually, after some fantastic scenic shots and great music, he has the deer in his sights. He focuses, aims, and there is a close-up shot of the deer; beautiful, magisterial, almost. It looks at him, and we cut back to Michael, who shoots and deliberately misses the target. As a young viewer, I took this as a sign of weakness, that Michael had lost his touch, lost his edge, Samson had been shorn of his locks. He was face to face with this creature, perhaps even the enemy if you want to look at in the context of the overall film, and he failed. Even as an animal lover, and at that tender age and wincing at some of the earlier scenes in the film, it just didn’t seem authentic to me. Michael was a warrior; he’d saved his friends in Vietnam with an act of rage and gut-wrenching violence, and judging by the medals on his jacket, he’d won acclaim and moved up the ranks. He should have kept his edge, should have done what he set out to do. I felt let down. Again, watching it with more mature eyes, it’s a wonderful scene, a beautiful one. It tells us that Michael has been affected so much, so traumatised that he’s unable to take a life, even that of an animal. It’s such a symbolic moment. There is Michael, ‘The Deer Hunter’, a man respected amongst his peers, a man with few equals in terms of both physical and mental strength, and he takes the decision to let the deer live. It’s a scene that shows and tells us so much, how Michael’s journey has changed. He is a completely different person now. Again, age and maturity taught me the difference, and I was able to recognise what the scene was telling me.

The film progresses, and Michael finds out that Nick is still in Vietnam, and remembering his promise to Nick, he sets out to find him and bring him back. There is an incredible scene where Michael tracks Nick down to a seedy part of town and finds him playing Russian Roulette in the basement of a bar. Nick is lost. His eyes are hollow, and he is clearly now a sick man. He doesn’t seem to recognise Michael, and as their dialogue progresses, Michael becomes almost desperate. Nick acts as though he doesn’t know Michael. It’s an incredibly tense scene, almost too painful to watch. It almost feels like we’re intruding on such a profound meeting. We feel Michael’s despair as he tries to talk his friend round, to convince him to return home with him, as Michael had promised. I won’t touch on what happens next, just in case there is anyone reading this who may not have seen the film. And, incidentally, if you haven’t seen it, why haven’t you, and go stream it tonight! The film plays out, the screen fades, and we’re left to dwell on what we’d just seen. I’ve been dwelling for over forty years and will probably dwell more each time I watch it.

I wrote at the beginning of this piece about the film being like an old friend, and I stick by that. Like an old friend, it will always be with me and has given me some amazing memories; it’s taught me some valuable lessons, mainly about love and loss. It moves me, questions me, makes me feel deeply and never disappoints me. It’s more than a film for me. It’s a moment in time. It’s about capturing something that makes an everlasting impression on a young, inquisitive mind. And for that, I have huge gratitude to director Michael Cimino and the wonderful cast and crew. I hope that one day in the future, I can find that same moment again, that moment when the video recorder whirred away on that hot night in 1981 and took me to Clairton, Pennsylvania in 1968…