The Deer Hunter

I stayed up late last night watching The Deer Hunter on television. I first saw this film when I was eighteen. It affected me more than any other film and has stayed with me. (Amongst others, but this one had a huge influence.)As an english girl, knowing nothing of the Vietnam war, or Pittsburgh, where a great deal of the film is set, it opened my eyes. The war is hardly shown. We're not battered by gun fire and bombings and burnings. We watch a close group of friends unravel. Three of the friends. One ends up in a wheelchair, one blows out his brains and one, Robert de Niro tries to make things right by saving his close friends. He brings Jonathan Savage back; it is too late for Christopher Walken.
I fell in love with Christopher Walken in this film. Watching it again brings back memories of a time when the world opened up.
And what films are out now that could match these by changing something in the mind set of an eighteen year old girl?
Robert de Niro's silhouette on the hill top? Christopher Walken's flicker of recognition at the end before raising the gun to his temple? The harsh shouts of the man who makes the prisoners play Russian Roulette against each other? Jonathan Savage afraid to go home to his wife who lies in bed, writing notes rather than speaking? And the grim steel works and smoke and Meryl Streep stamping the price on tins in the supermarket where she works. It's dirty and a million miles away from Sex and the City or Shopaholic or whatever SJP and Hugh Grant are called in the latest.
Thank you for The Deer Hunter and the lack of gloss. Thank you for irony. Thank you for being released into our cinemas when I was eighteen.

And tonight? Elvis Presley's mesmerising performance on his comeback tour when he wore leather trousers and sang with a passion that fires your soul. A brief moment of happiness in between Hollywood and Vegas.