Heaven's Gate (1980) - Much to admire in Cimino's incredible western epic disaster

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An incredibly dramatic sky and the three central stars set against a frayed Stars and Stripes make up most of this impressive poster for Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate

Two men fight over the same woman and a bloody plan to murder 125 immigrants in Wyoming's Johnson County in the 1890s.

 

Heaven's Gate is written and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Michael Cimino (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)).

Kris Kristofferson (Blade (1998)), Christopher Walken (Kiss Toledo Goodbye (1999)) and Isabelle Huppert (White Material (2009)) are the three actors who form the center of this possibly the - financially speaking - most spectacular flop in cinema history. Heaven's Gate is full of lavish and incredible images (cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance (1972))) and a production width and beauty of rare fabric. The problem is more with the narrative and the grotesquely prolonged, detached, abstract structure of it all, and with dialog scenes in which the dialog is nearly unaudible. 

 

Related post:

 

Michael Cimino: The Deer Hunter (1978) - Cimino's great, colossal Vietnam epic

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 44 mil. $

Box office: 3.4 mil. $ (North America only)

= Box office disaster (returned around 0.11 times its cost)

[Heaven's Gate premiered 18 November (New York) and runs 219 minutes. Though the plot has historical basis, several things are invented and changed for the film. Cimino had submitted the original Heaven's Gate script in 1971 but failed to find support for it until after the runaway success of Deer Hunter (1978). He was given an 11.6 mil. $ budget and carte blanche. Shooting took place from April 1979 - April 1980 in England, Montana, Idaho, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. At the 6th day of shooting, legend says, the shoot had already fallen 5 days behind on the schedule. An entire street was built and then taken down to be re-assembled, because Cimino thought it should be 6 feet wider. An irrigation system was devised and placed underground for a central battle scene so that the grass would be freshly green and contrast, as intended, with the red blood. Cimino demanded up to 50 takes of the same scene. John Hurt waited around so long on the shoot that he was able to fly away and star in The Elephant Man (1980) and come back to continue work on Heaven's Gate. Though United Artists considered firing Cimino many times, they ultimately never set the foot down. Nearly 220 hours of footage was shot, a new record. Cimino's first cut ran five hours and 25 minutes, 15 minutes longer than the final cut should, Cimino informed the baffled executives. Unsurprisingly, the studio executives refused to release the film at that length, and Cimino cut it down to 3 hours 39 minutes. This version was shortly released but then pulled back. Months later UA released a 149 minute cut, which played for a few weeks, before it was also pulled. It made 3.4 mil. $ in North America. Regrettably the gross numbers from foreign markets are not public, but the 0.11 time return above figures on a 5 mil. $ projected final world gross, - which is likely set too high. The film was nominated for the Best Set Decoration/Art Direction Oscar, lost to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was shown in competition in Cannes. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to 2 notched under this one. The film's flop was deciding in United Artists getting bought up by MGM and thereby losing autonomy and their status as a successful independent studio. It was also instrumental in the Hollywood power change away from young New Hollywood directors such as Cimino, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and others, and back to tighter controlled studio pictures and high concept 'package' arrangements. Finally the controversy concerning animal cruelty on the production of Heaven's Gate, - involving horses, cows and chicken killed for scenes, - gained the American Humane Society the momentum to become standard monitors of animal safety on all major American productions. Cimino in his own words was after Heaven's Gate never again able to make the films he wanted to make, - but he did continue making films. Though critically smashed at the time, the film has grown in esteem since and was hailed as a masterpiece at a 2012 Venice Film Festival restoration screening, much to Cimino's delight. Cimino returned with Year of the Dragon (1985). Kristofferson returned in Rollover (1981). Heaven's Gate is rotten at 59 % with a 6.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Heaven's Gate?

The Deer Hunter (1978) - Cimino's great, colossal Vietnam epic

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A praise-stressing, unusual and exciting poster for Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter

QUICK REVIEW:

Three American steelworkers and their trials before and after their service in the Vietnam War.

Deer Hunter is a great war drama epic. But its all-pervading director Michael Cimino (Year of the Dragon (1985)) is no Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West/C'era una Volta il West (1968)), meaning; he's no master of the epic, and Deer Hunter is ultimately too loosely edited (by Peter Zinner (The Godfather: Part II (1974)), who nevertheless won an Oscar for his job), which is no doubt Cimino's own fault, as he did everything in his power to keep it as long as possible. (It runs 183 minutes.) - Perhaps Deer Hunter is a precursor of his fatal eruption of megalomania on his following western epic, Heaven's Gate (1980), which, infamously, bankrupted its studio United Artists.
Robert De Niro (Casino (1995)) and Christopher Walken (A Late Quartet (2012)), who won his only Oscar to date for his supporting performance, are both eminent in this film, and Stanley Myers' (A Severed Head (1970)) somewhat under-appreciated score is beautiful.
Deer Hunter, written by Deric Washburne (Extreme Prejudice (1987)), tackles its taboo (at the time) topic of the US Vietnam War in an all-together different way from Francis Ford Coppola's soon following Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now (1979)): Deer Hunter is a more social-realistic portrait that also inhabits symbolism (like the controversial Russian roulette scenes that are a part of the film, because it is based on a script about Russian roulette in Las Vegas, not because Russian roulette war known to have been a widespread practice in the Vietnam War), whereas Apocalypse is a doomsday-themed journey into the dark pits of man's soul. Though I think Coppola's film is superior among the two, The Deer Hunter is certainly also a great film. - As well as a very controversial and disputed film, both from a production and a public standpoint, as you can read about in its lengthy, interesting Wikipedia page here.

Related review:

Apocalypse Now (1979) redux version - The horror of war 

Christopher Walken in a pivotal scene from Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter

An original trailer for the film that punches its greatness in your face again, again ... and again

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 48.9 mil. $ (US only)
= Box office success
[Deer Hunter was budgeted at 8.5 mil. $ and ran over budget less than halfway through its production, (already during the wedding scenes, which were filmed first.) The whole film was shot on locations in Ohio, Washington, West Virginia and in Thailand. The box office reports about Deer Hunter's performance are, as many things about the film's inception and making, mixed. Despite the film's success in the US, (after a very lengthy run, ending in the end of 1980), it seems to have been well-received in other countries as well, as in Spain, where 2.2 mil. people paid admission. The film won 5 Oscars, (also for Best Director, Picture and Sound) out of 9 nominations, but was also protested against by red block nations and liberals like Jane Fonda because of its somewhat one-sided portrayal of the Vietnamese.]

What do you think of The Deer Hunter?