Scene Description Spotlight: “The Deer Hunter”

During the Vietnam War, two American prisoners are forced to play Russian roulette.

I can still remember seeing The Deer Hunter for the first time. I was living in Aspen, Colorado. Had a rare night off from playing music. Stumbled out of the theater gutted by the movie — and in particular the two Russian roulette scenes. Michael (Robert DeNiro), Steven (John Savage), and Nick (Christopher Walken) are three long-time buddies and factory workers from Pennsylvania. They enlist in the Army and find themselves fighting in Vietnam. Captured by the Viet Cong, they have been abused and beaten. Steven is in bad shape. Michael has to convince Nick to do something seemingly insane, as you will see as the scene unfolds.

Notice how the sequence begins in crisis, describing Steven’s deteriorating condition:

This description drives home the reality to Nick — that in order to have any 
chance to save Steven and themselves, they have to act now: First step is to get the captors to allow Nick and Michael to face each other, not an American and Vietnamese prisoner as before. Crazy move, but necessary for what Michael has in store.

With both Americans participating, the odds of one of them dying increase 
exponentially. But then the second part of Michael’s plan: Coax their captors to put three bullets in the pistol, thereby almost ensuring somebody’s death in the first go-round.

Then amazingly, two rounds of roulette — no gunshot. Which means that it’s virtually certain there’s a live round loaded and ready to go — and it’s Michael’s turn. Then this description:

Michael’s performance “captivated” the men, an ironic choice of words because these are the captors. Then the pay-off:

What a scene. What an ending. And its own denouement: “…BODIES lie in a bloody, tangled mess under a pathetic paper lantern.”

It’s almost as if in this incredible twist pulled off by Michael and Nick — including somehow willing away two bullets which by all rights should have been loaded to go — they have taken this profane moment and transformed it into a sacred event through the blood sacrifice they make by slaughtering their captors.

This is a terrific example of using scene description to help build the tension in a scene to a powerful climax.

Here is the movie version of the scene:

Comment Archive

For more Scene Description Spotlight posts, go here.