[EveningStar]

Wikipedia

IMDb

Although Heaven's Gate has recently earned new respect in some quarters, it was originally trashed unmercifully.

From Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide: Writer-director Cimino's now-notorious spectacle is missing just one thing: a story.

From Vincent Canby in The New York Times: "Heaven's Gate," ... fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of "The Deer Hunter," and the Devil has just come around to collect... Mr. Cimino's approach to his subject is so predictable that watching the film is like a forced, four-hour walking tour of one's own living room.

[EveningStar]

ping

[LS]

There is a tremendous book called “Final Cut” by Steven Bach, the executive producer on “Heaven’s Gate” whose job it was to keep Cimino within the budget. Bach noted that Cimino, while already shooting in beautiful Wyoming valleys, insisted the grass wasn’t green enough and installed a massive underground irrigation system. He constantly was over budget.

My favorite part of the book is where Bach goes to Paris to meet Cimino to discuss the leading lady. Cimino says he wants Isabelle Huppert. Bach says “Isabelle Huppert has a face like a potato” and the other executive director kicked him under the table, because obviously Cimino and Hupper had a “thing.”

It’s a fantastic read. Cimino individually drove United Artists-—the company founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin-—into bankruptcy with that movie.

[LS]

See my post above. I should add that Cimino’s interim film-—between “Deer Hunter” and “Heaven’s Gate”-—was “Year of the Dragon,” a darn good movie about cops and Chinese criminals featuring Mickey Roarke before plastic surgery.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[Migraine]

Deer Hunter was hard for me to watch when it first came out; but I’m more settled with it now. What a cast!

[fella]

I thought “Heaven’s Gate” was a pretty good film.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The original true story would have done so much better. I don't understand why they thought they had to tinker with it.

[zeestephen]

I recently watched “Heaven's Gate” again, after seeing it 35 years ago in a theater.

I had completely forgotten that John Hurt and Sam Waterston are in it. Apparently, Mickey Rourke is in it, too, which I missed on my second viewing.

I thought the movie was OK, but I'll probably wait another 35 years to watch it again.

Speaking of Sam Waterston, I saw “Three” (1969) just a couple days after I watched “Heaven's Gate” again.

“Three” was an indie classic in college film classes in the early 1970s, and I had no recollection of Waterston being in that, either.

[PGalt]

Condolences to family and friends of Michael Cimino.

[Chainmail]

The Deer Hunter sucked. I watched in the theater when it first came out and got mostly through the thing before I walked out of the theater. Nothing in that movie remotely resembled anything I experienced in Vietnam. It was a Lefty - antiwar director's cartoon about the war with no attempt at all at accuracy.

It was just part of that period's campaign to distort the record of those of us who were there, like Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Hope Cimino is someplace where the temperature setting is "deep fat fry".

[C19fan]

I was 12 when Heaven’s Gate came out. I never saw the movie but remember how mercilessly the critics pilloried it. James Cameron freaked out over small details while filming “Titanic”. Cameron has nothing on Cimino during the filming of “Heaven’s Gate”, aided by copious amounts of cocaine. For example, Cimino insisted upon custom made non-ball bearing roller skates for one scene. He ordered whole street sets to be redone because the street width was off by a few inches. Cmino is blamed for ending the “New Hollywood” period where studios gave directors carte blanche.