The Deer Hunter: When Soldiers Return, Part 2

This is this," says a clear-headed Robert De Niro in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), a film that resists the urge of writers, directors, and even audience members to assign grand symbolic significance to human experience. Join Mike and Dan as they talk about the film's structure, controversial ending, and the ways in which a brand of non-Hollywood love can rescue a person from a world that seems filled with Russian Roulette. Listen to an interview on New Books in Film with Charles Elton, author of Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision. You can find Elton's book (highly recommended) here,