Colton Heaton
Film as History
Dr. Arpaia
The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter directed by Michael Cimino was filmed in 1977 and released in 1978. the film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, and Meryl Streep. The films story and atmosphere are established together through the use of wide shots and character development. The violence also enhances the reality of the picture. The music in the film gives it a melancholy tone which helps the audience feel and relate to the characters as they go through the hardships and losses they face brought about because of the Vietnam war.
The film takes quite a long time in developing the characters. Rober De Niro plays the role of Mike. He is quickly established as the leader of the group. He makes daring moves that make the rest of the group respect him. The scene in the beginning of the film where the men have just got off work and leave to go to the bar would be a perfect example. They are all riding in the car together trying to pass a truck. The character of Nick played by
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Christopher Walken bets Mike he cant pass the truck on the inside. Mike accepts the challenge and speeds up and quickly swerves in front of the truck and parks at the bar. This act of courage is one of many that came from the character of mike. He later on comes up with a plan that ends up saving all three major characters. The character of Nick played by Christopher Walken is portrayed as a shy, timid man.
Nick has a hard time coping with the idea of leaving for Vietnam. He has such a hard time that he can not get his mind off it even when they guys are all about to go hunting. The character is one that can closely relate to the audience. When Nicks character is forced to play Russian roulette it scars him psychologically. It messes with his head so much that once he thinks that his friends died, he loses all connection to his past life. He meets a man and ends up entering a Russian roulette ring in Vietnam. At first the audience see it is just for money. At the end of the film when Nick is found by Mike, it is shown through track marks on his arms that Nick has lost himself through drugs. Nick does not even recognize mike and spits in his face. It comes as a bit of a shock when Nicks character plays against Mikes and ends up actually shooting
himself. One theme that could be taken away from the film is the idea of the “one shot”. Throughout the film there are numerous references to the idea of one shot. It is Mikes philosophy that a deer can be killed with one shot and only one shot. The idea could also elude to the use of Russian roulette used in the film. As Mike believes a deer should only be killed with one shot, it also only takes one shot in Russian roulette to lose. The Russian roulette scenes were very violent and suspenseful. Not knowing if the bullet was in the next chamber or not had a real tenseness to it. Those scenes were also very emotional. The camera really focused on the faces in those scenes. The audience could tell that these men were playing a game for their lives and that at any moment they could die. The situation was very comes off very disturbing in that it was making each character put a gun to their head and forcing them to pull the trigger until one of them died. The film had an overall neutral, realistic coloring to it. There were no points that seemed to have a heightened or distorted sense of color. This makes the film feel very realistic and believable. There are many wide shots of the landscapes to show the audience what kind of town these characters are coming from. The town is a very industrial town that is then counter balanced by wide shots of foggy mountain tops. The deer hunting scenes has a splash of what sounds like holy music playing in the background. This music was played in both hunting scenes before and after Mike, Nick and Steve go to Vietnam. It gives the scenes a bigger meaning to them as opposed to just hunting. The music helps illustrate that this is a way for the characters to relax and clear their heads. In the second hunting scene after Mike has come back from the war, he cant even kill the deer because is so conflicted with losing both Nick and Steve. The film came out during an era referred to as “New Hollywood”. It was a time when directors pushed the boundaries and often included controversial material in their films. They relied on character development and tone. The father of Meryl Streep's characters is a drunk and beats his daughter. Also, the character of Stan played by John Cazale hits his wife during the wedding sequence. The film had a real grittiness to it which helped capture the reality of the story.
As much as generous and honest Nick Carraway is, he still needs a few important improvements in himself. Nick went to Yale, fought in world war one and moved to East of New York to work in finance. After moving to New York, Nick faces tough dilemmas throughout the story such as revealing secrets, and witnessing betrayal. His innocence and malevolence toward others was beyond his control. He did not have the ability or knowledge to know what he should have done in the spots he was set in. He seemed lost and having no control of what went on- almost trapped- but indeed, he had more control than he could have ever known. Because of the situations he has experienced and the people he has met, such as Gatsby, Tom, Jordan and Daisy, his point of view on the world changed dramatically which is very depressing. Trusting the others and caring for them greatly has put him in a disheartening gloomy position.
Nick is the narrator and observer of the story. The only information about him is that he is Mels best friend, Laura...
...ting in the war is not a tragedy, a victory, a win, nor a loss but that it is no better then the real world. It is discriminatory, dishonest, and inefficient. He then notices that war is in some way unethical and irrational and that dying and living is just pure luck. Ultimately, Richie understands that there is no distinction between bad or good in the heat of battle, which caused him to realize that war taught him to him to reevaluate the understanding between life and war on his way back home from Vietnam.
Although many people defend the Old West saying that it was not very violent, the Old West was indeed very dangerous. The Old West was not as violent as Egypt is today but it still was drastically hostile to both the Americans and the Native Americans. How might you depict the Old West?
During his journey, his desire for solitude is explicit: “Nick did not like to fish with other men on the river. Unless they were of your party, they spoiled it.” In his emotionally fragile state, Nick is ill-prepared to handle the “unpredictable variable” posed by fishing companions. Consequently, he chooses to travel alone into the wilderness, interacting only with characters from the natural world such as grasshoppers and trout. Through his decision to embark on a solo journey, he is able to place more control over the external environment which is a crucial element of his rehabilitation.
4). Nick’s assessment and criticism toward Jordan, Tom, and Daisy also show his skeptical and logical outlook on others around him. This tone shows Nick’s struggle between being like the emotionless and careless people around him (like Tom) or to be his own hopeful and romantic man (following
He gets on his feet just because of his father's money. These people are not equal, when it comes to society, they may have the same rights, but when it comes to what they can and can not do, there is a line drawn. Yes, you can't put all your value on money but, the lack of money can create a stopper in society. So yes, Nick was taught not to judge, that not all people have the things you do but, as he goes through the story he sees a change that he wants everyone to be in uniform because he can't stand the empowerment of money anymore. Nick states, “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart”(Fitzgerald 178).
... a magnificently wealthy young man for years only to be shocked that he is a fraud. Furthermore, Nick is tricked into thinking that the East is some magical place where everybody’s dreams come true. He is disturbed when he uncovers that the East is the complete opposite. If you judge something solely on looks, in will be in for a rude awakening in the end
The book overall is a very hard book to understand because of the way it was written and the time frame in which the book was taking place in and the complexity of the characters the book has. Nick Caraway is particularly difficult because he is not only a major character to keen into he is also telling the story a year later and reflecting his thoughts on how he behaved. Nick holds the qualities of slow judgement on people he meets but he only does this because it was infused in him at a young age by his father and he is very practical with what to do and how to do it also he has some integrity to him and knows how to handle himself as a man. Nick must be understood because he is not only the man caught in the cross fire
I rushed out to the truck as the horn blared. I threw my things into the truck and we went off towards the woods. I had to talk to Kevin about where the deer come from when i am sitting in the stand. He told me everything I needed to know about the place less than 10 minutes in the hot and humid truck. Well let's go back to see what led to this.
The maturation of Nick begins with his description of his time leading to his arrival in West Egg, “I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War” (Fitzgerald, 3). The protagonist comes into the story having not lived much of his life in the normal world that he desires to successfully conquer. He goes directly from schooling into the war, where he found heroic satisfaction. Yet, somehow, Nick is able to keep part of himself innocent and pure despite being in the horrors of war. It is not long after attending his first party at Gatsby’s that Nick confesses that “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known’ (Fitzgerald, 59). The level of Nick’s idealism and virtuousness begins at such an innocent pl...
When families sit down to watch television, they expect to watch family type of shows. Family type shows meaning rated PG or PG13, sitcoms and movies that do not include weapons, killing, foul language, and non-socially accepted actions. When children killing, they start to believe that it is accepted. Do children think that killing and hurting others and themselves have little meaning to the real life, children can become traumatized. Most killers or violators of the law blame their behavior on the media, and the way that television portrays violators. Longitudinal studies tracking viewing habits and behavior patterns of a single individual found that 8-year-old boys, who viewed the most violent programs growing up, were the most likely to engage in aggressive and delinquent behavior by age 18 and serious criminal behavior by age 30 (Eron, 1). Most types of violence that occur today links to what people see on television, act out in video games or cyberspace games, or hear in music. Media adds to the violence that exists today and in the past few decades. It will continue in the future if it is not recognized as a possible threat to our society. When kids go to a movie, watch television, play video games or even surf the web, they become part of what they see and hear. Soaking violence in their heads long enough becomes a part of the way they think, acts, and live. The line between pretend and reality gets blurred.
I think he learn the beauty of life and its beginning. Nick also learns that death is certain I think he tries to deny the fact by saying he isn 't going to die.
It is 5:30am on opening morning of deer hunting season and my alarm explodes into a racket that would wake an army. I roll out of bed and rub the sleep from my eyes. I only slept six hours last night because my family and I were preparing for the hunt, getting the guns ready, laying out a clothes-man, everything. As I throw some pants on, the smell of fresh pancakes wakes me up. It is at this time I realize the season is upon us. Since January I have been waiting for this day to come, today begins the annual nine day season that brings our family together each November.
In the beginning of the story, Nick is presented as a widower with a little son. With this being said, it is very clear that Nick is going through a lot emotionally, raising his son alone without the help of his wife or any immediate family. “The hardest part of being a single parent wasn’t the logistics or even the exhaustion, but just the solitude of having no one to share his son’s life with (183).”