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Though The Deer Hunter is set in Clairton, Pennsylvania, what was filmed for the movie is a hodge-podge of many different cities in the general area, including many locales in Ohio. Chief...
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American epic war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Slavic-American steelworkers whose lives are upended after fighting in the Vietnam War.
Film locations for Michael Cimino's Oscar-winning 1978 film The Deer Hunter, with Robert de Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep; around Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington State and Thailand; including Cleveland; Pittsburgh; Clairton; Mingo Junction; and Bangkok
- 5300 Riverside Drive, Cleveland, OH 44135
Sep 16, 2023 · The Deer Hunter, which starred Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, follows three Russian-American men from Pennsylvania preparing for and striving to recover from the Vietnam War. This required various filming locations to pull off, with real-world churches, businesses, and factories used as sets.
- Senior Staff Writer
- Overview
- Production notes and credits
- Cast
- Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)
The Deer Hunter, American dramatic film, released in 1978, that focused on the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the young American men sent to fight in it. The emotionally shattering movie, cowritten and directed by Michael Cimino, won five Academy Awards, including those for best picture and best editor.
(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)
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Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia
The film opens at the end of a shift in a steel mill in Clairton, Pennsylvania. A group of workers—Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage)—join with their friends Stan (John Cazale) and Axel (Chuck Aspegren) and go to the bar owned by John (George Dzundza). Steven is about to marry his pregnant girlfriend, Angela (Rutanya Alda), and Michael, Nick, and Steven are then going to ship out to Vietnam. Nick’s girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep), one of the bridesmaids, takes breakfast to her drunken father before leaving for the wedding, and he knocks her down. She later secures permission to stay in the home that Michael and Nick share during their deployment. The wedding takes place in a Russian Orthodox church, and the reception is held in an American Legion hall. Linda catches the bridal bouquet, and Nick proposes to her but seems surprised when she accepts the proposal. Early the next morning, all the men except Steven go on a deer-hunting trip organized by Michael and Nick. Michael, who follows his own strict code of honour regarding hunting, kills a buck with a single shot, and the men return to John’s bar with their trophy.
The movie’s next act begins in the midst of a brutal battle in a small village in Vietnam. Michael is among the small group of Americans defending the village from North Vietnamese attackers. American helicopters arrive with reinforcements, which include Nick and Steven. The Americans are outnumbered, however, and all three are taken prisoner. The prisoners of war (POWs) are held in bamboo cages partially submerged in rat-infested waters, and their captors pull them up to force them to play Russian roulette. When Steven is made to play, he nervously shifts the angle of the gun as he pulls the trigger, and the bullet that is fired only grazes his scalp. He is placed in a cage. Michael, who has thought of a way to escape, insists that he and Nick play against each other, but with three bullets rather than the standard single one in the chamber. After Michael and Nick survive three rounds, Michael turns the gun on the game’s ringleader, and he and Nick seize the weapons of their other captors and kill them. Michael and Nick free Steven from the cage and escape into the river, holding on to a floating log. An American helicopter attempts to rescue them, but only Nick is able to climb into the chopper. Steven falls back into the river, and Michael drops back down to save him. Steven’s legs are shattered in the fall, and Michael carries him on his back. Sometime later, the psychologically damaged Nick is released from a military hospital in Saigon and walks through the city, searching for Michael. Outside a gambling den, Nick meets Julien Grinda (Pierre Segui), a Frenchman who insists that Nick enter the building, in which young Vietnamese men are playing Russian roulette for money. Michael is in the crowd, though Nick does not notice him. Nick grabs a gun from one of the contestants and places it against his own head, drawing an empty chamber. He leaves with Grinda, and Michael is unable to catch up with him.
•Studios: EMI Films and Universal Pictures
•Director: Michael Cimino
•Music: Stanley Myers
•Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond
•Robert De Niro (Michael)
•Christopher Walken (Nick)
•John Savage (Steven)
•George Dzundza (John)
•Chuck Aspegren (Axel)
•Meryl Streep (Linda)
•Picture*
•Lead actor (Robert De Niro)
•Supporting actor* (Christopher Walken)
•Supporting actress (Meryl Streep)
•Cinematography
•Direction*
- Pat Bauer
The Deer Hunter locations were authentic, it was all filmed on location, and they didn’t use sound stages at all. The town of Clairton, Pennsylvania was actually filmed in four different states – Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Washington.
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Aug 21, 2023 · Michael Cimino ’s war epic ‘The Deer Hunter’ centers around three steel factory workers, Michael ( Robert De Niro ), Steven (John Savage), and Nick ( Christopher Walken ), whose lives come crashing as one day they are drafted from a small working-class town, Clairton, Pennsylvania, to Saigon.
