If it is true that the devil is in the details, in the case of Michael Cimino's Hunter it is in the irritating and impassive face of the Vietnamese boss who runs Russian roulette and, above all, in his repeated slaps combined with syncopated threats addressed to the victims of this infernal game which at a certain point pits Mike (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken).
Because in the end this is the sequence that rightfully enters the imagination of the spectator of this film released forty-five years ago and which now returns to theaters in a restored version in 4k on January 22, 23 and 24 thanks to Lucky Red.
A scene on which rivers of words have been written for the strength and violence of the images shown, never seen before so crude, and for the political value, desired or involuntary, on the part of the director.
The Deer Hunter (this is the original title) has thus been defined, from time to time, as a racist film (against the Viet Cong), a hymn to war and at the same time an anti-war film.
According to Cimino there was only the great desire to tell a story of friendship among the American working class, but in fact this work, released in 1978, three years after the end of the lost war with Vietnam, was affected by the climate of a 'America that had yet to metabolize the defeat.
In fact, in this film, divided into three parts, everything begins with three Russian-American friends, Mike, Nick and Steven (John Savage), who work in a steel mill in Clayton, Pennsylvania, and go deer hunting in their free time. .
Steven's wedding will become an opportunity for these boys, called up for the war in Vietnam, to say goodbye to relatives and friends.
If in the first part there is all the slowness of the American province, in the second there is the horror of war and, in the end, the return home of people who are no longer the same.
Returning to the war, despite what François Truffaut said, namely that there really is no anti-war film because any portrayal of it will inevitably end up glorifying it instead of criticizing it, Michael Cimino actually does not tell it directly, but only through its tragic effects.
Except that The Hunter had a significant problem: the Russian roulette practices among the Vietcong prisoners have no historical basis, so when the film arrived at the Berlinale in '79 many delegations from socialist countries, including the Russian and Chinese ones, they withdrew their films in protest because they considered it fascist and racist.
And again on the film's climactic scene, it seems that Cimino had entrusted the role of the evil Viet Cong boss to a non-professional Thai actor (the film was shot in Thailand) chosen for his hatred for Americans, and had also recommended the actor to give real slaps to make everything more realistic.
This unknown actor does not look out of place next to three giants like De Niro,
Walken (for this role he won the Oscar for best supporting actor) and Savage.
And if De Niro said that Mike was the toughest role of his career, Walken recalled in an interview how easy it is to act when you really get slapped.
Inserted in 53rd place in the ranking of the best American films of all time by the American Film Institute, winner of many awards, including five Oscar awards (Film, Director, Sound, Editing, Supporting Actor), The Deer Hunter boasts a stellar cast: in addition to De Niro, Walken and Savage, there are John Cazale (in his last role) and Meryl Streep, who begins her long and rich path of Oscar nominations with this film.
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