It Was Never Supposed to Be Realistic
Even though The Deer Hunter is essentially a movie about the Vietnam War, it was never supposed to be realistic. At least, that’s what director Michael Cimino said when critics began sounding the BS alarm. “If you attack the film on its facts, then you’re fighting a phantom because literal accuracy was never intended,” Cimino said in one interview.
American actor Robert De Niro with director and screenwriter Michael Cimino on the set of his movie The Deer Hunter. Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
The film was released (in 1978) just a few years after the end of the war (1975), and the response from many who had actually experienced the war was harsh, to say the least. “The Deer Hunter and its apologists insult the memory of every American who died in Vietnam,” Vietnam War correspondent John Pilger wrote.
That’s not good publicity …