Uh-oh, backpedal time!
You and your wife have excellent taste in films! Please don't take my "brutal analysis" the wrong way - The Deer Hunter is still my favorite movie (though I've only seen it a few times myself.) Mainly, I'm just trying to express how a great film at precisely the wrong time (personally or historically) can be a miss. Which may or may not be relevant to JT's take on Jacknife.
Now I want to go watch both of them properly.
Oh Man, I don't mean to criticize your latest impression of it negatively! It's a deep experience to love a film like that, and it's a sign of growth and mental elasticity to be able to nuance and expand assessments of films over time!
But thanks for the kind words! When we lived in Manchester, NH for a few years, we would pretty much spend our free time in Boston (as much as our broke selves could afford), and we attended a public interview with Michael Cimino! I even got to ask him a question. They had two nights where they showed The Deer Hunter the first night, which we did not attend, then Year of The Dragon the second night, followed by the interview.
It was awesome to experience. He talked about how De Niro was way too "New York," i.e., gestuculative as fuck, in his mannerisms, so he had the head of wardrobe fashion clothing for him that was absolutely as tight as possible to restrict his movements. I had always thought he looked weird in his military uniform when he returns home!
No, please don't take my love for it as a criticism of your feelings about it at all. Film should totally be live and let live. My wife rags on me endlessly for loving earlier David Lynch, and we always respect each other's massively, even when we disagree violently.
She has this thing for tough guy noir of the 30's through the 50's, and I'm all over the place, including avant garde Bergman to modern French.
I've only seen Jackknife twice, and I don't remember it incredibly well, just that I loved and respected the hell out of Ed Harris each time.
