{"product_id":"the-deer-hunter-9781839025419","title":"The Deer Hunter","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichael Cimino's \u003ci\u003eThe Deer Hunter \u003c\/i\u003ewas met with both critical and commercial success upon its release in 1978. However, it was also highly controversial and came to be seen as a powerful statement on the human cost of America's longest war and as a colonialist glorification of anti-Asian violence. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Brad Prager's study of the film considers its significance as a war movie and contextualizes its critical reception. Drawing on an archive of contemporaneous materials, as well as an in-depth analysis of the film's lighting, mise-en-scène, multiple cameras and shifting depths of field, Prager examines how the film simultaneously presents itself as a work of cinematic realism, while problematically blurring the lines between fact and fiction. While Cimino felt he had no responsibility to historical truth, depicting a highly stylized version of his own fantasies about the Vietnam War, Prager argues that \u003ci\u003eThe Deer Hunter's\u003c\/i\u003e formal elements were used to bolster his troubling depictions of war and race. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFinally, comparing the film with later depictions of US-led intervention such as Albert and Allen Hughes's \u003ci\u003eDead Presidents \u003c\/i\u003e(1995) and Spike Lee's \u003ci\u003eDa Five Bloods\u003c\/i\u003e (2020), Prager illuminates \u003ci\u003eThe Deer Hunter's\u003c\/i\u003e major presumptions, blind spots and omissions, while also presenting a case for its classic status.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrad Prager\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of Film at the University of Missouri, USA. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Cinema of Werner Herzog: Aesthetic Ecstasy and Truth\u003c\/i\u003e (2007) and \u003ci\u003eAesthetic Vision and German Romanticism: Writing Images \u003c\/i\u003e(2007). He is also the coeditor of a volume on Visual Studies and the Holocaust entitled \u003ci\u003eVisualizing the Holocaust: Documents, Aesthetics, Memory\u003c\/i\u003e (2008), as well as of a recent volume on contemporary German cinema, and is the editor of the \u003ci\u003eCompanion to Werner Herzog\u003c\/i\u003e (2012).\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"British Film Institute","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50727188300050,"sku":"9781839025419","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a194b654-0b6c-4ae5-a115-a56d93d1dc47.jpg?v=1734895480","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-deer-hunter-9781839025419","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}