These scenes are from Deer Hunter.

In this scene, Michael (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken) are forced to play Russian roulette by Vietnamese soldiers. Michael is firm, but Nick is timid and depressed.

Nick’s face is almost always shot against the light and some shades are on it. The contrast on his face is enhanced. On the contrary, Michel’s face is shot bright enough. And the distance between Nick and the soldiers are closer than that between Michael and them. A soldier and a rifle are always in cuts of his face. Michel is sometimes shot with Nick’s back in the foreground, but Nick is never shot with Michael.

When Michael grabs the pistol and starts shooting the Vietnamese soldiers, very short cuts of Michael’s movement are inserted. That makes the scene speedy and put the sense that the Vietnamese soldiers do not understand what suddenly has happened.

In another scene, where Nick is insane after the war and he plays Russian roulette by his intention, his face is irradiated by enough light.

When Michael, who tries to rescue Nick, and Nick appears is in the same cut, their positions in the picture are symmetry. Almost the same amount of time seems to be spent for shooting each character.

In the last scene, Nick’s friends gather to mourn.

They sing “God Bless America” in the fixed frame. One guy wearing a white shirt walks in the frame from left and stops in the upper right. Nick’s wife Linda (Meryl Streep) is illuminated a slightly brighter than others.Only Michael (De Niro) wears military uniform. These three forms a triangle to make this long cut stable. The very last cut, which follows two cuts of Michael and Linda after “God Bless America” seems to illuminate them equally. They toasts in Nick’s honor there.