BY JEROME C. VARON
IN THE late ‘70s, “The Deer Hunter” hogged the limelight, the runaway favorite to win most of the Oscar awards for the nominations it got including, among others, best picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, and story.
Robert De Niro was edged out by another nominee for the Best Actor plum but the picture won most of the other awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken.
The story revolves around the lives of simple youngsters from a far-flung metal ore processing community whose lives are changed because of the Vietnam War. It subsequently focuses on the two characters, friends ever since. The first one is able to escape and the other one is left behind.
That situation presents an opportunity to the one who is able to return home – win the love of his friend’s girlfriend with whom he has a secret and suppressed feeling ever since.
But he is bothered by his conscience. He wants to be sure what happened to the other one left behind during their escape.
He goes back to Vietnam and finds what he is looking for. His friend becomes obsessed with Russian Roulette, not just as a bettor but as a participant in the game of death.
He tries to persuade his friend to leave the table as he will be buying him out but to no avail. Finally, he decides to play the game himself, facing off with his friend.
The next scene is tragic. His friend opts for his “last shot” which ends his life. The surviving friend keeps his promise to bring his friend back at all cost.
The story, poignant as it is, has been splendidly woven to highlight the value of friendship. A friend, according to the 1828 Noah Webster dictionary, is “one who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another’s sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, which leads him to desire his company and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity”.
This being the basis, a friend is one who finds contentment in seeing the other person in a good situation, and empathizes with the other one when the latter is in distress.
A friend is someone who would intently listen to our personal concerns, willing to do his best to lighten our burden, ready to stand up and ready to catch us when we are about to fall. And when the world seems to have abandoned you, a friend will be there by your side.
A true friend may be hard to find. In life, that is almost true if you keep on looking for them without making an earnest effort to be a good one yourself. Honesty plays a vital part in molding out a friendship which integrity survives the graveyards!
Perhaps we can find a gem out of the observation that “in prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends.”
By your experiences, you will be able to segregate “fair weather friends” from “friends through thick and thin”. But first of all, when you finally meet a true friend, consider him as something of a priceless gem of your life./PN
