The Deer Hunter : Angela's baby

Angela's baby

Just listened to the directors commentary on the DVD, and the director says that Nick (Chris Walken) was the father of Angela's baby. I've only seen the film twice, are we supposed to guess this? I knew it wasn't Steve's because he tells someone that he never did it with Angela, and i remember a drunken Stan trying to start a fight with Nick, but what was it obvious that it was Nick's baby??

Re: Angela's baby

It might have been a little clearer in the full uncut version which I understand was a full 4 hours. It also might be that Nick was a cousin of Angela and this is what all the fighting was about. Steve was not free to marry Angela but Stan was.

This is of course if Martin Scorsese was telling the truth, that this movie Deer Hunter was just a story about a few friends.

You have to know your history to follow the story from The Gangs of New York to Heavens Gate then to Deer Hunter. It's not much different then the George Lucas story of Star Wars when the middle was shown first.

Re: Angela's baby

Wow, that's complicated. Do you think anyone guessed though when they saw the film??
I think there are many subtexts to this film. Have you ever seen a good analysis of this film online?

Martin Scorsese

I believe this story is tied to Martin Scorsese and Martin Scorese sure has a lot to say about Deer Hunter. It all comes down to if Martin Scorsese realized that Daniel Day Lewis comment on the Pope's Pointy Hat, the Archbishop and Tammany Hall told the whole story of this family from the War of 1812 to Hell's Gate NY to the Johnson County War at Heaven's Gate to a War in South East Asia in 1972.

gh2000

if you're interested in a serious discussion about this film, ignore photo. he visits other film boards and posts the same loony crap that eventually gets back to his family and their 'relationship' to world history

was nick's fatherhood obvious? not completely. and your viewing left you with a couple mistakes. here's what happened - stevie confessed to nick that he, stevie, hadn't had sex with angela. and by the look on his face and nick's reaction, it can be deduced that nick is the father. the 'fight' that happened was between mike and stan, bec stan was starting to blabber-mouth about the pregnancy not being due to stevie. did stan know it was nick? who knows. and to further the nick idea, he was sending the money back to stevie as 'child support'

Martin Scorsese

As if Martin Scorsese is loony. It's not hard to do research on what Martin Scorsese has to say about the movie Deer Hunter. Everything fits to the Pointy Hat Pope and his Archbishop friend to St Mary's Russian Orthodix Catholic Church in McKeesport.

It is three part series with Gangs of NY first to Heavens Gate to Deer Hunter. Just ask Pvt Edward Pigford. Pvt Pigford was the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn and he is buried across the river at Drovosburg. He is buried with the Merritt family. General Wes Merritt was the General in charge of the Battle.

Re: Martin Scorsese

Thank god for the Ignore button - goodbye photo66666!!!

Martin Scorsese and Bryan Selznick HUGO

Ignore the Selznicks of Pittsburgh is a good thing!!!! It shows how smart you really are.

Re: Angela's baby

What a bunch of bull packy.

Re: Angela's baby

Well the line is very clear in Gangs of New York. Daniel Day Lewis states "That Pointy Hat Pope and his Archbishop friend". Only one Pointy Hat Pope during the Civil War and that Pope belongs to Charlie Sheen's family of the Vatican Assassians.

That is if Charlie Sheen belongs to the family of Bishop Fulton J Sheen and Jessie James the outlaw.

Re: Angela's baby

What's wrong with you?

Re: Angela's baby

Colossal amounts of free time is my guess.

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Re: Angela's baby

Only if the story of General Lew Wallace, Lawrence Murphy, William McCloskey and Billy the Kidd is cuckoo. That is how Charlie Sheen comes into the picture.

Mr. Potato Head

he knows you are completely cuckoo.

yes, he is. and babbling his loonacy on this site and others for years. click on his name and read his posts on the 'gone with the wind' board

Re: Mr. Potato Head

I'm afraid that if I did, I'd end up reading pages of nonsense about how Gone With The Wind was actually set in Pittsburgh, apparently the center of that sad little troll's universe, and how Scarlett was John Kerry's grandmother and Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress.

Life's too short to waste my time on someone who'll just throw it away.

Re: Angela's baby

winning!

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bunch of bull packy?

more like barrels of bull packy.
ignore him. he posts the same crap on a few sites

It's real simple

It's real simple. It's the pointy hat Pope and his Archbishop friend that Daniel Day Lewis loves so much in Gangs of New York. Only one Pope and only one Archbishop friend during the Civil War who was related to Pittsburgh Lawyer Edwin M Stanton and his friend William H Seward.

Re: It's real simple

At least give us the web address where you break this all down.

the web site

mark, you're talking to a crazy person, and the web site exists only in his mind, therefore, he can't post it. click on his name and see where else he posts, the go there and read his posts - they contain the same loony, ocd-like posts

Brian Selznick and Martin Scorsese

The Pointy Hat Pope comment in Gangs of NY was said when the Union Forces were giving out citizenship papers in exchange for enlistment papers to new Irish immigrants right at the ship docs. Daniel Day Lewis' line states that this free citizenship is all the making of that Pointy Hat Pope and his Archbishop friend who were in love with and stuffing the ballot box with Catholic votes. Only one Pointy Hat Pope during the Civil War. Only one Archibishop friend.

So look up Pope Pius IX and his friend Archibishop John McCloskey. This leads directly to the Pittsburgh Selznick family of Brian Selznick and Martin Scorsese and the movie Hugo and Gangs of NY.

Re: Angela's baby

Somehow I figured out that it was Nick's baby. Can't remember the line, but it becomes clear.

Can't remember the line, but it becomes clear.

stevie's line(never had sex with angela) to nick at the caddy after the reception?

Re: Angela's baby

I've seen this film many times and always assumed the baby was Steve's. He said they never "did it" so I assumed she got pregnant on their wedding night.

Re: Angela's baby

stevie's mother spills that can of beans to the priest in the very beginning of the movie. and shortly after, angela is in her gown and looking sideways at herself in the mirror and touching her belly pooch

Re: Angela's baby

I don't think the father's identity is made clear at all. We know Steve tells Nick that he never did it with Angela prior to the wedding. We know that Angela is already pregnant, so presumably it's someone else's child.

But Nick being the father? I suppose it's possible, but his reaction to Stevie's disclosure -- the wonderfully awkward, "That's great" -- could be interpreted as that of a friend who's worried that Steve is getting married to a woman carrying someone else's baby.

Re: Angela's baby

I wonder if the same thing was going on with Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken. Natalie Wood was said to be Russian.

Re: Angela's baby

ask Kirk Douglas

ha ha ha

wonderfully awkward

is the admission, while 'glaring' over at stan harassing mike about 'something' that's attached to stevie and nick's conversation. and, stevie knows it's nick's, which is why he chose to tell nick. to let nick know that he, stevie, knows it's nick's
cimino also said so

Re: wonderfully awkward

It's interesting that Cimino chose to disclose this, because I think the film is richer when the viewer doesn't know.

It's a bit like the whole "Ridley Scott says Deckard is a replicant" thing. I'm more interested in the questions being raised -- the answer is a bit clunky.

I mean, if Cimino hadn't come forward with this tidbit, what would the viewer conclude? He'd conclude that Stevie isn't the father, and therefore someone else in town is.

I think the scene works better if Nick is trying to protect Stevie from the truth, rather than trying to protect his relationship with Stevie. In other words, if Nick is acting out of self-interest, it would seem to undermine the decency of his character. I also think Stevie's decision to reveal the truth at that moment is more heart-breaking if Nick is just an impartial observer, as opposed to being up to his neck in the situation. It's as though Stevie needs to tell somebody the truth, and he'll never work up the courage to do so again.

To be honest, I always thought it was Stan or Michael. Or maybe Mr. Weak Knees.

very good points on fatherhood

and what's in the movie is what counts, vs the script. i have a copy, and there's an unused conversation between axel and stan in the back of the caddy after the wedding on their way to the cabin - through half-drunk conversation, they discover that the both of them have had sex with angela. a little more definitive, but that would certainly work in your scenario of 'someone else in town is.' but if that dialog/scene was in there, it could just as easily been seen as two half-drunk, lying/boasting jagoffs
undermining the decency of nick's character - i don't see nick as a stalwart of decency, so, as is, the scene works for me. but i do see the sense of your take on it

Re: very good points on fatherhood

I actually had the same thought. I have watched Deer Hunter a couple of times and never thought about who the father is.

Everyone says it is Nick, and yet I can't find anything that states he is the father. How can these people know that Nick is the father? Is it the money?

We don't know who the father is. it can be anyone of the guys, or someone completely random. What evidence do we have that Nick is the father?

some people understand

that nick is the father from 'evidence' in the movie. but the real evidence is cimino, in interview, saying that nick's the father

Re: very good points on fatherhood

Nike sending money to Steve for raising child is a valid point. The director himself says it too.

Re: very good points on fatherhood

My take on the Angela thing is that she slept around, without protection, and how many men in town had she had sex with?

Nick's reaction "That's great." when Stevie tells him that Steve never had sex with Angela I think gets that sarcastic reaction because up until then Nick thought that Stevie not only had previously had sex with Angela, but somehow knew it was his, meaning Stevie's, baby. So, on hearing Steve say in effect it could not be Steve's baby, Nick immediately has to wonder whose baby it is.

So, in fact did Angela not sleep with anyone else other than Nick? I think in a small town like that, people would tend to know who she would have been having sex with, at least her friends would. Yet it doesn't seem like anyone else puts two and two together. Certainly Linda doesn't. Nor Michael.

Aside from Cimino's interview, the fact Nick sends money to Stevie tends to indicate that it is intended as a form of child support. But... I tend to the pov that not being clear about who the father is is better than saying it was Nick for sure.

Re: very good points on fatherhood


I tend to the pov that not being clear about who the father is is better than saying it was Nick for sure.


That's my take on the whole thing too.

If we do believe that Nick is the father of Angela's child, that completely changes our dynamic of Nick. Until that was thrown in the mix, Nick is an utterly sympathetic character. In fact, he has no faults that we know of and we completely relate to and empathize with him.

Now if we throw into the mix the supposition that he is the father of Angela's son, what kind of man does that make Nick? A man who cheats on his long-time girlfriend, a man who abandons the mother of his unborn child, a man who lets another man marry the mother of his child, a man who has no contact with his child. Not a very sympathetic character then, is he. At this point, would viewers care whether or not he returned in one piece from Vietnam? I think not.

Re: very good points on fatherhood

Certainly Nick being the father of Angela's baby adds a flawed dimension to his character, but it doesn't make me care about him less ~ it simply adds a note of reality. After all, who is perfect? I don't think that unfortunate act would make Mike love him any less...again, a touch of reality, a shade of gray...he doesn't have to be a saint to be sympathetic, IMO.

"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."

Re: very good points on fatherhood

It makes him a "bros before hoes" kinda guy.


At the wedding, when Mike takes Linda for a beer, the camera angles away to show Nick dancing with a girl, watching the two of them going away together.
He stares for a moment or two, then nods approvingly and sort of points.
As if saying "I'm OK with that. If I'm to lose a girl to someone, I don't mind it that someone is Mike. Mike's a good guy. You go Mikey."



Primary social connection of the movie is the sense of brotherhood between the men.
Who work together, drink together, hunt together, go to war together...
Women are for fun. Something men do. Like hunting.
They are that kind of guys. The Men. The Hunters.

Except for Mike. How many times was he fixed up with girls by Stan?
But then again, even hunting is not just hunting for Mike.

Re: very good points on fatherhood


Women are for fun.


So that's what we're here for.

Re: very good points on fatherhood


So that's what we're here for.

Well, if you happen to live in "The Deer Hunter" universe - yes.



Except for Mike. Mikey's different. He's got different ideas about the world. Which includes women.
But then again he only has eyes for Linda so...

Re: very good points on fatherhood

<<Except for Mike. How many times was he fixed up with girls by Stan?>>

"A million times!"

Michael also could had it knocked with the new red-headed waitress at the Bowl-A-Drome.

Re: very good points on fatherhood


Nike sending money to Steve for raising child is a valid point. The director himself says it too.


Nike? Did Steve have a very early endorsement deal for socks?

Re: Angela's baby

I watched The Deer Hunter for the fourth time today (saw it first in 2001) and this was the first viewing where I was paying close enough attention to the Steve drama that I started to wonder who the father of the baby was. I always assumed before that she just slept around and it was probably some ladies man in town's kid.

I also thought that Nick sending Steve money was due to guilt over Steve's permanent injuries. I know that Nick probably didn't know that Steve was crippled, as Mike surely didn't when he visited him in the VA Hospital. But Nick was there when Steve was effed up by the Viet Cong, and that Mike surely wouldn't need his financial help, Mike is the Rock of the Group (although sometimes he's a Rolling Rock) and Nick knows he can take care of himself.

Now with the question of the paternity of Angela's baby makes me think not that Nick is the father but that he knows he could be since everybody boned Angela. Steve seems like the kind of guy who would marry the girl who is the casual lover of his circle of friends, in some twisted effort to assert his manhood to his friends that although she slept with all of them, she wants to spend the rest of her life with HIM (although the friends always feel the exact opposite of this, feeling sorry for their friend and what he's doing)

Re: Angela's baby

I don't own the Deer Hunter Dvd yet, but I will buy it one day and watch the commentary....I don't know why Cimino say Nick is father of Angela baby, but okay. It makes no sense to me at all, not saying Nick was perfect, but his he is just too comfortable being the best man. It would just be to iffy, plus Nick would not have been able to hide that from Michael the observant and strong and Quick of Speed and fast moves...no way. I feel like the character of Nick would not abandon his own child anyway he seem to be the calmest of them all too at the beginning of the film, he is giving and likes the way the trees are, darn that One shot I wish Nick not remember. Anyway remember Michaels boots its Nick who gives Stan Michael's boots..Whats the matter with you Nick ask Michael...The first time I see the film was in movie theater with my mom and dad. As soon as the green beret sits at the bar my dads says I think that guys the father....hmmmmmmmm........

Re: Angela's baby

Three giveaways:

1) Stevie's admission & Nick's reaction
2) The way Michael looks at the kid--a very blond kid
3) Angela, holding the kid, waiting/lingering at Nick's graveside

Re: Angela's baby

There are many clues nick is the father. The baby is blonde. Angela lingers behind at the gravesite with child at the burial. Stevie tells Mike the money is being sent to ANGELA. Nick doesn't know what happened to stevie. Angela gives steve the money cause it's coming from Saigon and figures it must be for him. Mike puts 2+2 together. Nick can't commit to anything. Couldn't marry Angela, couldn't call Linda from Vietnam couldn't go back to PA. Very flawed character. Surprised he could send money for child support but couldn't remember mike.

Re: Angela's baby

There are many clues nick is the father. The baby is blonde. Angela lingers behind at the gravesite with child at the burial. Stevie tells Mike the money is being sent to ANGELA. Nick doesn't know what happened to stevie. Angela gives steve the money cause it's coming from Saigon and figures it must be for him. Mike puts 2+2 together. Nick can't commit to anything. Couldn't marry Angela, couldn't call Linda from Vietnam,couldn't go back to PA. Very flawed character. Surprised he could send money for child support but couldn't remember mike.

Re: Angela's baby

There are some good clues in this thread which I hadn't thought of before. What made me think it was Nick's kid (I've never heard the director's commentary) was the fact that the kid was blonde. There's maybe four male characters in the whole movie that are blonde and Nick is one of them; the rest are not main players in the story.
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