Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro
“The Dear Hunter”
In honor of Veterans Day. Let’s try harder.
Everytime I see The Deer Hunter I notice how beautiful the film is, as well as how intentionally or unintentionally the film captures the evolution of that time. The backdrop to this love story is writer director Michael Cimino portrait of young men with the bawdy habits of their fathers with regard to women, drinking and their belief in the idealism of “Greatest Generation” until actually experiencing the horrific and often meaningless game of war.
When Micheal’s (Robert DeNiro) returns home from Vietnam in a taxi driven by a black man signals the beginning of the change for me. One legacy of the Vietnam “police” action was that soldiers came home by themselves, alone without a victory celebration or “thank you for your service”. Some of these men were shunned and giving little opportunity to regain the jobs they lost by going to war.
Another message in “The Deer Hunter” is my understanding of the “One Shot” and that to take more than one shot is greedy and eventually destructive.
When first reading about World War I, and that it was sometimes referred to as “The War to End All Wars” I wondered why this promise was never kept. What is it about us that we are so entranced by destruction. We know what war does and the impact it has on our lives. We seem to lack the courage to say no to war.
Today’s soldiers return and we clap and say thanks for keeping us safe (unintentionally but insincere in a way), before ordering that five dollar cup of coffee sweetness we feel we are entitled to each morning. No one wants to work in a steel mill today and only those with extreme idealism want to go to war (which is different in my mind to wanting to serve your country).
History and Evolution teaches us an important lesson. The past was never as glorious as others have made it out to be and if it were ever that good, we still are not able to go backwards. We really only have one shot, and that’s always going forward.
