Script To Screen: “The Deer Hunter”

The end scene in the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter.

Setup: Fellow soldiers and friends gather to commemorate the death of one of their own Nick.

INT. V.F.W. POST - MAIN HALL - DAYThe meal is over. The WOMEN are drinking coffee, the MEN are
smoking and putting down the beer. There is muted laughter
and conversation.NICK sits at the head of one of the tables, flanked by LINDA
and SAL. He looks stunned. His food is untouched, there are
tears in his eyes and he hardly seems to know where he is. LINDA
Eat something, Nick. Eat a piece of
toast.NICK nods, picks up a piece of toast and then, forgetting all
about it, lays it absently on his plate.VINCE comes up behind NICK, looking somewhat officious in a
new blue suit. VINCE
You want to say a few words, Nick?
I think you should. Like that would
wind things up.NICK nods. VINCE raps on a glass. VINCE (CONT'D)
Quiet!... Quiet!!!... Awright,
everybody, Nick has a few words. NICK
(very shaky)
I just... would like to say a few
words... about Merle. I guess Merle
always wanted something... I don't
know... better. That fucking guy,
he saved my Life. He saved Sal's...
What Merle liked, he liked things
right... But then there wasn't any
place for that... that he could
find.Tears are streaming down NICK's face and he sits down,
looking miserable. VINCE
(hisses)
John! Play something!JOHN goes to the piano, hurried along by VINCE. He sits down,
casts a quick glance to the ceiling and begins playing
"America The Beautiful".A FEW VOICES being SINGING. OTHERS join in. ALBERT stands up.
Then EVERYONE stands up. THE END

Here is the scene from the movie [Nick was Merle in the script]:

In contrast to the script, there is only one side of dialogue before the singing of “God Bless America”, a line from Steven’s wife Angela. She says, “It’s been such a gray day.” It’s an awkward line, both a mundane comment compared to the serious matter of burying Nick and a description of the group’s somber mood. All of the dialogue from the script? Gone. Instead, the focus is on — first — humming the song, then the group joining together singing it in unison. It’s a bittersweet and ironic moment considering how America’s involvement in the Vietnam War has impacted this small community of people.

The movie ends with a toast to Nick and the raising of glasses, so in effect what the movie does is invert the scripted scene, drop most of the dialogue and allow the actors to play the scene primarily through the looks they exchange or avoid catching.

Sometimes in movies, less is more, and I find this is especially true about dialogue. There’s nothing more than need be said, indeed, can be said about the tragedy of Nick’s death. His descent into madness and eventual suicide by Russian roulette is incomprehensible to the point of being unspeakable.

I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this terrific scene from The Deer Hunter.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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