The Deer Hunter

[Peter Presland]

I've taken the liberty of moving discussion of The Deer Hunter to this dedicated thread.

No problem Jan. I know I am inclined to go off at tangents that have nothing to do with the threads headline subjects. tupido2:

You're next post makes some extremely good and telling points too. In particular, I agree the portrayal and atmospherics of the working class immigrant steel town with their protracted, determined struggles to belong, are quite exceptional. Much the same applies to the rest of the post too

I guess these days my first question about almost anything that comes out of Hollywood is 'What will be its net effect on non-US audiences?' the answer to which is likely to be dramatically influenced by a whole raft of unspoken assumptions about its context. Despite some masterful stuff, along the lines you describe with 'Full Metal Jacket', 'Platoon' and 'Apocalypse now', my feeling is that, on the mass audiences they are aimed at, their effects are largely negative in that they cement - and even glamorise - a pretty orthodox US-centric world view.