Streep wrote her own dialogue to remain close to her fiancée, John Cazale, who had been diagnosed with cancer. Pennsylvania IDs were fashioned for each of them. Cimino instructed the props department to mock up photographs depicting the main six actors together as children. The grass was browned with chemicals and leaves were pulled from the trees so that Vilmos Zsigmond – the late Hungarian cinematographer who also shot McCabe & Mrs Miller and Close Encounters of the Third Kind – could render Pittsburgh as steely and autumnal.Ĭavatina had been written for the 1970 film, The Walking Stick, by British composer Stanley Myers, but was popularised by The Deer Hunter: three different versions were top 20 hits in the UK in 1978. Nick remains in Saigon where he plays Russian roulette for money. Mike begins to question his fascination with deer hunting. The war and the psychological abuse takes a toll. In Vietnam, the friends are taken captive and tortured by the Vietcong, who force them to play Russian roulette.

Before they ship out Steve marries his girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep), even though she is pregnant by somebody else (before his death in 2016, Cimino confirmed that Nick was the father).