The First Hour Makes the Movie, Period.
I don't know why I'm surprised. Really, I should have my damned head examined.
It didn't occur to me that people would flock to this board to tell the world how utterly boring this movie is. In particular, that they were exasperated to near-insanity by the lengthy wedding sequence that opens the film.
Post after post after post after post. LOL The Weddng is SSOSSOOOOOOOOOOO long and SSSSOOOOO BORINGGGGGGG...put me to sleep and I never fall asleep in movies. OMFG! Nothing happens! The editor must've been aslepp 2 LMFAO I woke up when they got to Vietnam and De Niro fired up his flamethrower -- PWNED!!! I guess you had to see it in the sixties or whenever it was made, etc.
I suppose there are at least as many people defending the film (and its terrific first hour), but I must be experiencing some form of "temporary insanity", because I'm so blinded with uncomprehending rage that I scarcely notice them.
Why do people feel compelled to share their lack of cinematic taste or anything resembling a decent attention span with complete strangers? Are they not embarrassed? Has no one had a "stupidity intervention" with them? It must be hard enough on their own families. I mean, if it were me, I'd be hiding in a cave in East Jesus, hoping that no one ever asks my opinion about anything.
Differences of opinion are fine. Using IMDb as a virtual megaphone to shout odes dedicated to one's own ignorance is not. But most of us have learned to accept this, because we feel you can't have one without the other. Maybe not.
Anyway, others have said as much, but it bears repeating: The first hour is brilliant because it, at first glance, seems to be about nothing but "ordinary life". By the end of the film, the importance of these scenes has been revealed, and the viewer has (hopefully) come to understand that so-called "ordinary life" is what it's all about. The shattering experience of Vietnam would mean nothing -- nothing -- without the wonderfully textured representation of Steelmill, America and the characters who inhabit it. Their worlds have been all but destroyed, and we need to be able to see those worlds in order to appreciate this fact.
Furthermore, and Cimino's real trick here, it's actually filled with story. Every moment, every line, every gesture of that first hour adds to the impact of the whole. It makes me shudder to think that we were almost stuck with 20 minute "compromise" version of the first act.
I feel better now.