You cannot sell Michael Cimino short…….he had United Artist by the …. and squeezed hard……

Michael Cimino-Talented Director of Heaven’s Gate

Some filmmakers have great talent and produce many money-making films in their lifetime.  Michael Cimino  directed just a few movies, which have received mixed reviews, yet I consider him one of the best directors of his short time in the business.  Winning the Best Director Oscar for The Deer Hunter in 1978, a great movie of the seventies, Cimino knows how to bring violence and emotion to the big screen.  Add Magnum Force’s screenplay with John Milius, throw in his other two wonderfully directed flicks, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and The Year of Living Dangerously, and you pretty much named his successful movies. But you cannot forget Heaven’s Gate, the cost-override movie that put United Artists out of business. Directing the $44,000,000 movie in 1990, Cimino killed his career as a director. But don’t give up on this flawed “masterpiece.”   Heaven’s Gate is a film everyone must see.  It’s not a good movie, but that is not the whole story.   A film that has scenes that you will never forget, no, don’t give up on it. Don’t see it in one setting either.  If you do, make sure you have at least one six pack per person.  It is long and it “dusty.” Forget the pecan sandies. You won’t need them. 

Want to know what Wyoming was like during the Johnson County War in 1892 or what it was like to graduate from Harvard in the 1870’s?  Beautifully shot film, but dusty through a haze covered lense, unlike the crisp cinematography of the Deer Hunter. This movie features Christopher Walken and a great cast.  Kristofferson, Hurt, and Huppert are there, choking up the dirt. Even Jeff Bridges, did I mention?  And Sam Waterston, his Rancho Delux co-star.  That, by itself, makes it a must-see, with such talent.  

Again, violence, the director’s main event card stopper,  is extreme.  The sex is hard, and then it gets harder. Huppert can and does.  This movie is tough to chew. Hell, it is downright torture to sit through in one setting.  It’s not a good movie, as I repeat myself. But god damn it, Heaven’s Gate is an unforgettable movie. Not forgettable.  No, no, no, no, no.  F’n unforgetable What you see, what you get, you won’t forget it, and you won’t be able to take it back, block it out, that’s for sure. It is one of my favorite movies, yes.  Did I say that many today call it a masterpiece of filmmaking?  They do, but some do so under their breath. I am in that group. It is, and it’s still not a good flick.

” On the basis of his track record, Cimino was given free rein by United Artists for his next film, Heaven’s Gate (1980). The film came in several times over budget. After its release, it proved to be a financial disaster that nearly bankrupted the studio. Heaven’s Gate became the lightning rod for the industry perception of the loosely controlled situation in Hollywood at that time. The film’s failure marked the end of the New Hollywood era. Transamerica Corporation, the owner of United Artists, lost confidence in the company and its management and sold the company.[20]
Heaven’s Gate was such a devastating box office and critical bomb that public perception of Cimino’s work was tainted in its wake; the majority of his subsequent films achieved neither popular nor critical success.[21] Many critics who had originally praised The Deer Hunter became far more reserved about the picture and about Cimino after Heaven’s Gate. The story of the making of the movie, and UA’s subsequent downfall, was documented in Steven Bach‘s book Final Cut. Cimino’s film was somewhat rehabilitated by an unlikely source: the Z Channel, a cable pay TV channel that at its peak in the mid-1980s served 100,000 of Los Angeles’s most influential film professionals. After the unsuccessful release of the re-edited and shortened Heaven’s Gate, Jerry Harvey, the channel’s programmer, decided to play Cimino’s original 219 minute cut on Christmas Eve 1982. The re-assembled movie received admiring reviews.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cimino