A pistol, six magazines, a bullet, a human life.
I don't know how such a cruel game was invented.
Participants take turns shooting at themselves in a turn-based format. The pistol has only one bullet and has a one-sixth chance of ending the game immediately.
The party that loses the game will lose its life at the same time.
The winner who survives may win money and honor, but the impact and distortion of this game is irreversible.
During the Vietnam War, three American soldiers were taken prisoner by the Vietnamese army.
They are forced to participate in this game known as "Russian roulette".
Playing may also have a way to live, not playing is to be beaten violently, or even directly shot to death.
Steven, who has a relatively poor psychological quality, has already had an emotional breakdown before it is his turn to be caught at the table.
Nick, who had been silent on the sidelines, also fell into a breakdown when he was forced to shoot himself in the head.
Because the bullets in the gun are no longer one, but three.
Half the chance that he would be accompanied by a gunshot and a life whimper.
Only the strong Michael has been thinking about how to fight back.
To do this, he must open up everything and show fearless manhood in the Russian roulette game.
So he put three bullets into the slot.
In this way, if he and Nick can survive, they can pick up the pistol and immediately resist, killing the opponent's leader directly with a three-quarters probability, and then firing two more bullets.
If there is only one bullet in the gun, the probability is only one in four. Even if you can kill the leader of the other side with one shot, it is difficult to retreat from the muzzle of other guns.
This was the first climactic part of the 1978 film The Deer Hunter.
The role of being forced into a dead end, the extraordinary performance of the actor, provides the audience with a truly "hold your breath" viewing experience.
Today, putting this suffocating part at the beginning and going back in time is a more ornamental option.
In the '70s, Hollywood filmmakers preferred to tell stories layer by layer.
So before the dreaded Russian roulette wheel, the audience needs to spend an hour getting to know the main characters and get into their lives before joining the army.
The day before joining the army.
Steven is getting married.
Despite his mother's objections, he insisted on marrying angela, a not-so-special girl, instead of waiting until after joining the army.
Michael and Nick and a group of other brothers work in the factory as usual, and then play in the bar to welcome Steven's wedding.
The nearly half-hour-long wedding scene is a bit of a model of "The Godfather".
Not only the personalities and relationships of the characters are clearly displayed, but also many hints at the subsequent plot.
Including the delicate relationship between Michael and Nick's girlfriend Linda.
When Steven and Angela had a drink, it couldn't be more obvious that they were "metaphors" for their future situation.
Soldiers returning from the Vietnamese battlefield with a sad face showed that the war was not optimistic. The prospects for Michael and others to join the military are bound to be difficult.
The atmosphere of the whole wedding was joyful, but it also gave people a feeling of "hiding the knife in the music".
The host forcibly interrupted the music and called on stage for the owner of the vehicle that was blocking traffic to move the car. The crowd did not stop playing, and the banquet entered a strange state of embarrassment.
Brothers stan's girlfriend was oiled by the host, stan can not stand, directly led to chaos, fortunately did not have a big impact on the whole wedding.
By the time Michael and the Vietnamese soldiers were fighting, the audience's uneasiness had been mobilized.
However, the plot does not detonate the laid bomb immediately, but continues with a hunting scene that echoes the title of the film, and then moves to the battlefield of the Vietnam War, starting the highlight of Russian roulette.
At the time of filming "The Deer Hunter," director Michael Simino was still unknown.
The amazing thing is that he can have a cast of Hollywood's top cast.
Robert De Niro, who plays Michael, although he did not win an Oscar at the time, won the best supporting actor for starring in "The Godfather 2", and his cooperation with Martin Scorsese gradually improved, and he was already a superstar in the late 70s.
It is estimated that many people watch "Deer Hunter" for his peak appearance.
Meryl Streep, now the most famous "Aunt May". At that time, because of his outstanding performance on Broadway, he became a super rookie who was optimistic about the industry. "Deer Hunter" became her work in Hollywood, and Linda did not become a vase role under her interpretation. In addition to the character's inner struggle and chaos, there are also some small actions to highlight the personality.
In the Oscars, I only got a supporting actress nomination and didn't win an award, probably only to blame the scene is not enough.
John Keizer, again, is a lead actor from the "Godfather" series.
It is with the first two "Godfather" movies that accurately interpret the cowardly brother Fredo, who is at least a golden supporting actor. In 1975, he collaborated again with Al Pacino on "Hot Afternoon", and his fame was further improved.
"Deer Hunter" features a fierce confrontation with another "godfather" Robert De Niro, while also appearing with his girlfriend Meryl Streep.
Yes, he was the ex-boyfriend who made Aunt May's heart ache.
By the time of the filming of The Deer Hunter, John Kaiser had been diagnosed with cancer. It is said that Aunt Mei strives to keep his role in the film, otherwise she will not act.
In the end, he completed all the scenes, and unfortunately, he died in a hurry before the movie was released.
Christopher Walken, the most brilliant actor in the film, deservedly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Nick is a very transformative character, and before joining the army, Christopher Walken used his inferior (young) Leonardo DiCaprio's "beauty" to tell the audience that Nick was a sunshine boy.
After the horrors of the Vietnam War, Nick, who has suffered psychological trauma, has a dark cloud of sunlight on his body, and Walken's portrayal of the character's heart is accurate and profound.
Michael Simino was able to get such a fairy lineup, thanks in large part to the fact that he was appreciated by "Eastwood" Clint Eastwood.
With the help of Toki, he made his debut film "Thunderbolt and Scud", which received good reviews overall.
"Deer Hunter" is his second feature film work, and he was fortunate to get such a group of good actors that he directly embarked on the peak of his life.
"Deer Hunter" won the Oscar for Best Picture, and he also won the Best Director, which is the absolute winner of the awards ceremony. Time has also verified that this film is indeed qualified to be ranked as a classic, and the Douban and IMDb ratings have exceeded the excellent line of 8 points.
After that, Michael Cimino became a great director.
However, in 1980, the huge investment of "Heaven's Gate" failed miserably at the box office, which directly led to the bankruptcy of United Arts Films. He fell straight from heaven to hell until his death in 2016, never to make a masterpiece that surpassed "The Deer Hunter".
He's a really talented director, and he's just lucky enough to be one of the most controversial issues in film history.
For "Deer Hunter", there is also controversy.
Some people say that there is no Russian roulette game in the Vietnam War in historical materials, and the plot of the movie is a bit fake.
Michael Simino responded, presumably, to the effect that he was just trying to make an analogy.
Participating in the war is like participating in Russian roulette.
So the film doesn't have direct war scenes, and in the middle of the Vietnam War section, it only focuses on the capture of the three Michael brothers and forced to play Russian roulette.
The synopsis is very simple, just about the ieversible impact of the Vietnam War on three young Americans.
Compared with other war films that use realistic war scenes to express the theme of "anti-war", "Deer Hunter" is a unique existence.
The cannon fire and blood and flesh can indeed make the audience of the cinema immersed in the scene and directly appreciate the horror of the beast of war, so as not to let the war happen in reality.
Deer Hunter compares war to Russian roulette, and while it doesn't have the visual impact of Saving Private Ryan, the mental impact is more direct and effective.
After entering the story of the characters, the audience will naturally pay attention to their fate.
When watching the pistol point at Michael's head, it's hard not to get nervous about the audience, who knows if the shot is actually shot and then the head is blasted open?
Even if they are the protagonists.
Life and death, only between a few centimeters of trigger.
The audience can feel with the characters, this ultimate death experience, one in six probability of being killed by a headshot.
Five out of six chances of surviving, but who wants to try?
This is not the case in war, as long as you are on the front line of the battlefield, you may lose your life at any time.
Even more frightening than Russian roulette is that you have no idea where the muzzle of the gun is facing you, and maybe before you can react, the bullet has already entered your body.
Don't think of "The Deer Hunter" too complicated, this is a movie designed for anti-war.
The cruelty of war, the impact on individual human beings, is more directly embodied in the Russian roulette wheel, and is a very artistic way.
The impact is physical, life-taking, or mental.
Michael and others walked out of the Russian roulette wheel in the war, but they could never go back to the good old days before joining the army.
Nick ends up indulging in Russian roulette, a metaphor for the permanent damage of war to soldiers who will never forget the experiences of the "war game."
It can also be understood from a realistic point of view that he suffers from PTSD like many soldiers in reality. Coupled with the director's foreshadowing of his love of gambling before joining the army, it is reasonable to fall madly in love with Russian roulette.
Michael seemed to be the winner of Russian roulette, and he won many honors in the war.
But the truth is that the war changed him completely.
Through the two hunting scenes before and after, "Deer Hunter" makes it very clear.
Deer are important, obvious imagery, alluding to life.
Before joining the army, Michael, a deer hunter, does not feel the presence of life, and he strives to kill his prey with one hit. After joining the army, the originally strong heart has actually become extremely fragile.
He cherished life more than before and hated killing. He wanted to go back in time, he wanted Steven and Nick to pull home, but the damage of the war was there, not coming and going.
Just as the real war has taken place, everything has become irreparable and irreversible.