Deer+Hunter+(1978)

= The Deer Hunter (1978) = = =


 * Movie**

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**Deer Hunter Movie Trailer**
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**Introduction**
"Deer Hunter" is a film that depicts the trauma returning veterans of the Vietnam War suffered from. Three best friends–Michael, Steven, Nick–live happily in the town of Pennsylvania until they're recruited into the army. As the war progresses, the three friends are held as prisoners of war, are forced to play Russian roulette, and go through horrendous mental torture. The three manage to escape and head their own ways, but suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

**The Illness** Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder one would suffer from after experiencing a psychologically traumatizing event. People suffering from PTSD can experience a myriad of symptoms: a craving to re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoidance of reminders of the traumatic experience, numbing of emotions (due to seclusion and the feeling of hopelessness), or distress from reminders of the trauma. Throughout the movie, these symptoms were depicted through the three veterans of the Vietnam War. Michael, an adroit deer hunter before entering the war, returned to find that he no longer had the capability and will to deer-hunt. Also, a part of his trauma involved being forced to play Russian roulette, but as his friends made jokes with him that made him recall his trauma, his distress caused him to pull a pistol on his friend and try to reenact a game of Russian roulette. As for Nick, he found a craving to relive the traumatic experience and played Russian roulette games in Vietnam; his emotions were also nulled and he entered a state of hopelessness. Michael attempted to bring Nick back home, but Nick wasn't able to recognize Michael at first due to his PTSD. Although Michael later succeeds in getting Nick to recognize him, Nick, nevertheless, kills himself in a game of Russian roulette. As for Steven, he became a paraplegic due to the war and was admitted into a Veteran's Hospital, where he was determined to stay for the rest of his life. He felt like he couldn't fit back in with society and was anxious to meet his wife again.

**Treatment**
Post-traumatic stress disorder is currently treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Of cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy yields many positive results and involves patients to re-experience traumatic reminders; this kinds of therapy enables patients to identify bad thoughts and replace them with better ones. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a process involving patients rotating their eyes left to right continuously whilst pondering upon the trauma or "issue" they are suffering from. Many doubt the effectiveness of EMDR, but this method of treatment, too, has yielded positive results. In the movie "Deer Hunter", the treatments are not known of and the characters are left to deal with their anxiety disorders on their own. Michael makes the most progress as he redevelops social relationships at the end of the movie along with Steven, but on the other hand, Nick's anxiety disorder gets him killed.

**Reason for choosing this film** We decided to choose this film because after looking over other movies' trailers, we were attracted by how this film deals with psychological disorder that occurs in war veterans. We thought that it would be interesting to see the effects of PTSD because in class, we only learned about PTSD but didn't really get to see the demonstration of how people with PTSD act like. We wanted to observe how war could cause horrendous effects on people to get the idea of why people would get PTSD and how they will act like. As we expected, "Deer Hunter" was a very interesting movie to watch because not only that we were attracted by the topic of war, we were also astonished by how PTSD could cause horrifying intense moments.

**Learned from Movie**
After watching "Deer Hunter", we've learned the atrocious consequences that war brings and of the trauma veterans suffer from. We've also learned how people lacked knowledge of PTSD in the past, and how many veterans suffered for most of their lives due to the absence of treatment; nobody would understand the pain veterans and soldiers experience but themselves. Nobody offered empathy for those who were scarred, because nobody knew how severely damaged veterans were and the scars kept veterans more secluded from society.

**Grading**
//Use of class time /5 Reason for grade:// 5, We used the entire class time to pick a movie and watch that movie. We discussed in class about what disorders are shown in our movie. We also used the class time to start on making our wikispaces.

//Depth of work done /15 Reason for grade:// 15, Before we even got started, we first looked through the movies to see which movie attract us and finally came up with the conclusion to watch "Deer Hunter". We throughly described the symptoms of PTSD and how it was demonstrated in the movie. We analyzed the cause of PTSD relating it to the movie. We also specified the treatment of PTSD which included EMDR that we learned in class.

//What I learned /5 Reason for grade:// 5, After watching our movie "Deer Hunter" we learned the consequences of PTSD and how it occurs. We specifically learned the symptoms of PTSD as we were watching what happened to Nick and Steven. We understood the method for treating this psychological disorder.

//Wikispace's attractiveness /5 Reason for grade:// 5, Our wikispace looks very neat and organized. We included trailer that we can watch directly in our wikispace for others to watch. We clearly showed how we divided up the sections by bolding our title so that it is easy for others to read.

Total: 30/30

Pictures Cited
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__[|http://www.corpsman.com/2010/12/ptsd-helpful-information-thanks-doc-pardue/]__

__[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_Hunter]__