מִקֵּץ
There are occasions when a story so compelling meets with a portrayal so moving and produces an effect so profound that it leaves the audience forever changed. Such is the case with The Deer Hunter, the 1978 drama of three young men from Pennsylvania who go to war in Vietnam. Under the direction of Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter won several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and nominations for Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress. For me, though, the most deserved award was for Christopher Walken as Best Supporting Actor in his role as Nick. As the story unfolds, Nick and his two friends Michael (De Niro) and Steven (John Savage) are captured by the North Vietnamese. They manage to escape, but only Michael returns home relatively unscathed. Steven survives, but loses his legs and his sanity. Nick never returns and is presumed dead. Yet someone is sending money anonymously to Steven, and Michael suspects it is Nick. He returns to Vietnam looking for his friend, but when he finds him Nick is almost unrecognizable. He has become a star attraction in a Saigon establishment that features nightly contests of Russian Roulette. As “The American” with considerable good luck, Nick piles up gambling profits for his employers, who give him his fair share and keep him supplied with drugs and other “necessities” so he will remain in their care. The only way Michael can reach Nick is by engaging him in a game of Russian Roulette, hoping that as they face death across the table from one another he can help Nick remember his identity and persuade him to come home. As might be expected, the contest ends badly.
In some ways the story of Joseph and his exile to Egypt resembles Nick’s tragic exile in Vietnam. Both men suffer loss of identity and separation from their homeland, and both are forgotten by their family and friends. Happily, though, Joseph’s story comes to a much better ending.
THE BARKING FOX 