esrosedotblog

HALF

Today's movie was the first half of the three hour Deer Hunter (1978).

I saw it when it came out. It was devastating. I went again and took two friends. We came out of the theater crying and had to sit together on the lawn behind the theater to get composed.

The thing about this film was the time and place of it; three years after the end of the Viet Nam War. The collective experience of the audiences ramped the emotions up even further. We knew people whose lives had been drawn into the maw and affected forever. We were all, in a funny way, victims of post traumatic stress.

Today, with distance, I can say that it is just as harrowing to watch. On the other hand, the collective angst of the Viet Nam dilemma is not immediately at hand. The emotional screen is different.

If you read the Ebert review linked above, you will see that he does not view this as an anti or pro war movie. I sort of agree. It does not, as other films of the period, Apocolypse Now and Platoon for example, have a point of view about the events themselves. It focuses on these particular people in their times.

I am splitting the film in half because three hours is just too goddam long to sit and watch a film. I suppose that I am also loathe to fall into the emotional wallow that the first viewings precipitated. Now that I am past some of the toughest stuff, I guess I needn't have worried. The smaller screen, a different time, the absence of a peer group who is having the same shit come down about the war, all buffer the experience over 25 years later.