Heaven's Gate is a beautiful film. Almost every frame perfectly captures the allure of the classical romantic West. Sadly, the rest of the film is essentially a disaster. If one looked up maniacal ego trip in the encyclopedia there would likely be a portrait of director Michael Cimino slapped on the page. The beauty of the film is hindered by a mess of a story, countless wasted minutes, horrib... read more
Description:A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino used the historical Johnson County WA notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino used the historical Johnson County War incident in Wyoming to create an impressionistic tapestry of Western conflict between poor immigrant settlers and rich cattle barons led by Canton (Sam Waterston) and his hired gun Nate Champion (Christopher Walken). Attempting to mediate is idealistic Harvard graduate and county marshal Averill (Kris Kristofferson), who is both Nate's friend and his romantic rival for the affections of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). However, war erupts, at great cost to all involved. Flush from his success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Cimino demanded creative control, and his insistence on shooting on location and building historically accurate sets and props multiplied the film's original budget to a then-astronomical $36 million. When United Artists premiered the original 219-minute version (sight unseen), they discovered that Cimino had produced an elliptical epic, compounding the box-office difficulties of making a Western without any major stars. Critics howled about Cimino's incomprehensible self-indulgence, and United Artists pulled the film after several days. Re-released five months later, 70 minutes shorter, Heaven's Gate bombed again, and MGM bought out the financially crippled United Artists. The ailing Western genre virtually vanished during the 1980s, Cimino's career never recovered, and Hollywood studios had had enough of bankrolling financially risky ventures by "auteur" directors. Heaven's Gate's reputation recovered somewhat after its video release, as it garnered praise from some viewers for such visually remarkable sequences as the Harvard dance and the final battle, as well as for David Mansfield's haunting score. Steven Bach's book Final Cut provides a full production history... (more)(less)
"Oscar Nominations
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Razzie Wins
Worst Director for Michael Cimino
Razzie Nominations
Worst Actor for Kris Kristofferson
Worst Musical Score
Worst Picture
Worst Screenplay"
"Cimino kept an armed security guard posted outside the editing room during postproduction to keep United Artists executives from interrupting him.
Over 1.5 million ft. of film was used. Over a million feet were processed in labs.
There really was a Johnson County War in Wyoming and James Averill, Nathan Champion and Ella Watson were actual historical figures. In the real war, however, the U.S. Army arrested the cattlemen for hiring the killers and did not threaten to arrest the homesteaders "
"Walken portrays the melancholic and mysterious Nathan D. Champion in the unfairly criticized and rejected Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. It's the second collaboration between the actor and the director.
"
"When a 219-minute version of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate was released to vitriolic reviews and terrible buzz, United Artists pulled the film from public viewing and had it re-edited down to 149 minutes.
The radically shortened version didn’t fare much better with critics or audiences, but the film’s reputation began to change for the positive when Z Channel began airing a 219-minute director’s cut that restores the film to its original grandeur and ambition.
Most importantly, th"
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