Deer Hunter Symbolism

Michael Cimino’s film The Deer Hunter goes through the experiences of three friends, Michael, Steven, and Nick, before, during, and after the war. Michael arrives home safely, Steven comes home with physical injuries, and Nick ends up staying in Vietnam. The film depicts how the war impacted the perception that these men had of their lives before the war. This perception evolution is portrayed through the symbolism of the motif of the gun. In each third of the movie, the symbolism of the gun evolves in conjunction with the views of the characters. This evolving symbolism displays the effect that the war had on veterans when they returned.
In the first third of the movie, the “pre-war period”, guns were only viewed as a sport and for enjoyment.

This is particular observed during the extended Russian roulette scene in the Vietnamese POW camp. During this scene, Michael, Nick, and Stephen have been captured and sent to a prison camp where they are forced to play the game Russian roulette for their lives. This scene develops the change to the gun motif by its use of sounds rather than images. During the shots that focus on Nick and Michael, the sounds of the gun being shot can be heard and visibly affecting Nick. Instead of showing the pre-shot and death of the individual as in the previous hunting scene, this scene does not show any images of the gun or the person, the sound of the gun and the screaming of the victim is the only evidence of the “game” upstairs. Additionally, Nick is terrified whenever he hears the sound of the gun going off regardless of whether a bullet was fired. The decision to focus on the reactions of Michael and Nick rather than the gun and the game itself speaks to the new role that the gun plays. Instead of them being in control of the gun when they are hunting, the gun now is the cause of their deaths. Additionally, until Michael and Nick play Russian roulette, very little of the other prisoners playing are shown. This deemphasizes the role that the torturers play in the killings and instead emphasizes the role that the gun plays. First the gunshot is heard and then screaming happens. This correlates the gun with the death rather than the people in control as causing the deaths of the prisoners. This is a dramatic shift from the role that the gun played in the hunting scene. In the hunting scene, Michael was in control the gun and the deer was shown being shot, which emphasized the process of hunting rather than the gun itself. However, in this scene the torturers were in control of the gun and neither the person being killed or the person holding the gun was emphasized, only the gunshot itself.