Director Michael Cimino died Saturday. While he is remembered for both his studio-busting western epic Heaven’s Gate (1980) as he is for the 1978 Oscar winning “The Deer Hunter,” I shall cite the latter. Having seen “The Deer Hunter” 16 times I believe, it is my all-time favorite film, one that tells the 1968 (?) tale of three steel workers who go off – with all due bravado - to Vietnam, only to return in varying states of wreckage. The fallout reaches those who remained in their hometown as well, the fictional Clairton, PA. If you’ve never seen it – and I won’t plot spoil – it contains a nearly unbearable to watch mid-section highlighted by – in my opinion – the single greatest sustained portrayal of sheer terror ever committed to film. Aside from the film working on nearly every level, if there is a single abiding characteristic by which it can be praised it is its ending, one that reinforces the ever-justifiable notion that no matter how scarred these people are by war, they still love their country. Again, not to plot spoil, but I heard the director of photography, Vilmos Zsigmond, say that, while shooting the film’s ending almost four decades ago, he asked Cimino: “Are you going to get away with this?” Cimino responded: “Not only will I get away with it, but people will remember this ending for the rest of their life.” I know I do.
Rest in peace, Michael Cimino.
BILL
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