The Deer Hunter is famous (or notorious) for its brutally affecting Russian roulette scenes. They are riveting scenes that I will not talk about. Instead I want to think about the idea that “This movie couldn’t be made today,” that is often thrown about as an insult to modern sensibilities. Usually “movies that couldn’t be made today” couldn’t be made for good reasons, mainly racist or sexist jokes and acts that as a culture we have finally realized are inappropriate. The Deer Hunter couldn’t be made today. Not for the famous Russian roulette scenes. No, it couldn’t be made today because of how normal it treats drinking and driving.
A quick hit of history. The Deer Hunter was released two years Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was formed in 1980 and the film is set even further back in 1968. I am sure there were other organizations fighting drunk driving before MADD, but MADD seems to be the biggest and have the largest cultural cachet. This is important because my generation now in our mid to late 30s grew up when MADD had political success campaigning against drinking and driving. MADD also may have sent representatives to schools to educate us on the dangers of drinking and driving. Even if I am misremembering that exact point the message wasn’t lost. Drinking and driving is rarely seen on TV or movies anymore. If it is portrayed, it is shown as a character flaw or used as shorthand to tell the audience to dislike a villain.
But in the 1970’s drinking and driving must not have nearly as shameful. I base that on two sources, The Deer Hunter itself and the Wikipedia entry for the film. Starting with the Wikipedia entry, there is a whole section about the controversy surrounding the Russian roulette scenes. According to researchers there hasn’t been a single documented case of Vietnamese captors forcing prisoners to play Russian roulette. There are also small mentions how the film upset the Soviet delegation to a film festival in Berlin and some contemporary critics disliked it for negative portrayals of Vietnamese people. But not a single line about the titular deer hunter Mike (played by Robert De Niro) driving a car full of his buddies through the mountains after an entire day of liquor and beer.
Even though the movie is most known for the Vietnam war and the Russian roulette scenes, the characters do not get to Vietnam for an entire hour, a full third of the way through the film. The first hour sets up the three friends and revolves around a wedding. A quick rundown of the film’s first hour: the group of friends finishes a night shift at the steel foundry, they stop by a bar for a post-shift morning beers before heading home to change into wedding clothes, they go to the wedding and proceed to intemperately drink all day long, and finally they pile into Mike’s car and drive up to a cabin for their hunting trip. By rough estimation, Mike has been awake for close to twenty straight hours. In those twenty hours he worked a full shift of tough manual labor and then drank like a fish all day. Mike is so drunk at the wedding he almost gets into a fight with a Green Beret who refused to talk about his experience in Vietnam. There is not a single moment, not a single word where anyone asks if after all the he is okay to drive.
And I believe that Mike is drunk while he is driving even though he’s not falling down drunk like his friends in the car. First, when the guys get to their hunting spot they change out of their wedding clothes into hunting garb. There was no large gap of time between the boozy wedding and this trip. Also, a friend of Mike’s who is falling down drunk is shown drinking beer in the back of the car the entire trip. Mike is shown as a no-nonsense kind of hunter, a guy who would reasonably ask his pals to not get trashed on his last hunting trip before being shipped out to Vietnam. They stop for a pee break and Mike plays the classic driving trick, let a buddy get close to the car and reach for the handle before speeding off. Again this little prank goes against Mike’s characterization. Finally, what I think most shows Mike’s inebriation is his argument with his friend Stanley (played by John Cazale).
The argument starts because Stanley is very drunk and asks to borrow Mike’s extra pair of hunting boots. Mike gets more upset with Stanley than someone in his situation might. Mike loves hunting, there are multiple scenes prior to this where he talks about hunting. He’s recognized by his friends as one of, if not the, best hunters in town. This is his last hunting trip before leaving. One would think he’d want to leave on a good note, not get into arguments with his best friends. I think the argument happens because Mike is still drunk.
One thing that makes alcohol so fun and so dangerous is that it amplifies mood. Alcohol makes good vibes great and bad vibes terrible. Mike is understandably stressed before heading to Vietnam. There is a bit of love-triangle jealousy that is shown during the wedding scenes involving him and another of his friend. Most importantly during the wedding scene (it’s a long scene and a lot happens) Stanley punches his date in her face right on the dance floor because she was getting felt up by some random dude who was dancing with her. Mike and his friends get angry and quickly break it up but then move on. Nobody seems to be upset enough to throw Stanley out of the wedding or make a big scene about it there on the spot; violence against women would be another thing might excised or handled differently if movie was made today. Back to Mike’s portrayal in the film. He seems like a guy who would not appreciate hitting a woman. Not so much that he’ll make a huge scene that might humiliate his friend, but enough that he would respect his friend less.
All these negative feelings are churning around Mike and the long day of drinking catches up with him when he finally snaps at Stanley for asking for a small favor. That’s why I think Mike is still quite drunk after driving his friends all the way out of town to the hunting cabin.
So that’s it. The way The Deer Hunter portrays drinking and driving as something that just happened. Nobody thinks it is strange or unbecoming. They wanted to celebrate a wedding with a bunch of alcohol and then go hunting in the evening. It is treated with the same importance as getting drunk and then ordering a pizza at 10:30. At least in the Clairton, Pennsylvania of The Deer Hunter, driving after drinking is unremarkable enough it does not warrant a single comment.
The Keasy Depot 