Final Cut: The Making & Unmaking of Heaven's Gate [HD]
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2017
- Excellent documentary on the highly troubled production of Cimino's Heaven's Gate, which ultimately ended an era of director-driven productions in Hollywood.
- Фільми й анімація
The great thing about Dafoe narrating this is the fact that he was an extra on Heaven's Gate and was fired on set by Cimino 😂
I watched this doco once.
It's great but the whole time I was just waiting for Willem to bring up that he got fired on his first day lol
I guess the director fired the Devil (Dafoe) and the Devil has come back to bite the ass (telling the truth in other words)
That is amazing!
@@jimmymeridian5174Despite being fired from the movie, Dafoe still appears in one scene in the film. The scene in the bar with the cock fight.
Very oddly-Michael Cimino tried to hire Dafoe for roles in his other projects, yet Wilhem Dafoe always gave Michael Cimino the cold shoulder.
Director of Photography Vilmos Zsigmond was a friggin' genius. RIP.
Agreed.
@Lebo leigh Leigh Sometimes it takes talent to make a shitty movie.
@@TT-mx5ll I was replying to Coy Leigh's comment. I've seen worse films, but this one was pretty bad.
@deadvoguestar I haven't gotten around to seeing Staying Alive. It's probably not as bad as Battlefield Earth.
With regards to The Deer Hunter, I can understand why the wedding sequence takes a while, because it introduces and builds the characters and their relationships and how they'll be affected by the upcoming sequences.
Heaven's Gate, though? If someone, ANYONE higher-up had told Cimino to keep the movie focused, the movie might have done well, IMO, because it has good cinematography and solid acting (they should have found some way to cast Meryl Streep instead of Isabelle Huppert, IMO)...
I wonder how a Clint Eastwood-directed movie on the Johnson County War would have turned out (the Eastwood of the 1980s and 1990s, of course)...
Streep or Fonda. Fonda refused to be in it. She hated Cimino and didn't want to play second fiddle to Kristofferson.
Whatever you think of Cimino, it's hard not to feel sad. He was a newcomer who elevated himself to the top but let it all get to his head and it all came tumbling down. Such a damn shame and especially for me cause The Deer Hunter is one of my favorite films of all time. It's a 10/10 masterpiece.
ZombiePowder And what didn't you like in The Heaven's Gate ?
Sam Er...terrible dialogue? Paper-thin characters? Clunking pace?
First world problems. Boo hoo.
Yes, I enjoyed the deer hunter, as well.
@@SamManzanita I changed my name to Burning Exeter just so you know. I don't hate Heaven's Gate, I've grown to like it more over the years. The stuff that works in it has outweighed the flaws for me.
One can say what they will about the story not being engaging and the pacing being glacial, but nobody can deny that the film looks incredible. The cinematography is just extraordinary.
"The cinematography is just extraordinary." The original theatrical release makes everything look muddy and sepia-tinted. Are you referring to Cimino's 2012 Criterion edition where he added color? I would agree that the _new_ version is gorgeous to look at, but not the original.
@@WG55Yup, and that ugly sepia tint was commonly cited by reviewers and audiences as something they disliked.
@@WG55 I liked the original release as a film, but hated the soft focus. Sepia was ok. Haven't seen 2012 Criterion edition, did they remove the soft focus too?
"Heaven'S Gate is bigger than lunch" - marketing should have used that as the tagline...
@deadvoguestar That's when I would of snuck away and ordered 100 boxes of large pizza for everybody, when the delivery guy arrives, I point my finger to director and say, "That's the son of a bitch who's going to pay for it!"
@balorama. Another Mike, Michael Curtiz who directed "Casablanca" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" in a similar fashion when asked about lunch by a crew member would hand them an aspirin
Trio was a great channel with great shows like this one. It drew me in with reruns of the original Late Night with David Letterman episodes, kept me with shows like Final Cut, and exposed me to GEMS like Fishing with John and almost everything under the banner of "Brilliant but Cancelled." Cable hasn't been as good since Trio's demise in 2006.
As a director, I admire the perfectionism and scale of what Cimino attempted.
As a 1st AD and Producer I'd have died from shock.
I'm glad it happened as a wonderful cautionary tale but both the producers and director went slightly insane.
Cimino tinkered with the film AGAIN when he oversaw the transfer for the Criterion Blu-ray. The movie definitely doesn’t have this brown/sepia toned look of an old photo anymore...it’s a pretty radical change from the original cinematography.
The cocaine finally wore off
It looks a whole lot better know.
The ironic thing is, $36 million dollars, adjusted for inflation in 2020, is $128 million dollars today...the AVERAGE cost of a film today. Dolittle had a budget of $175 million and Birds of Prey had a budget of $95 million...and yet, no one's career will be drastically destroyed by these failures. It is funny how perspectives change with time.
The big movie conglomerates of today can just absorb the losses like Jupiter absorb comets.
$128 million for a small studio used to making small pictures is a lot of money.
@@knife-wieldingspidergod5059 yes I'm surprised either one of the wachowskis got a chance to return to direct the next matrix instalment.
Actually, Birds and Dolittle made over 100 million each
Because today the studio can break even on what a bad film makes in China. That market did not exist in 1981.
43 years later, tons of emotions, books, bad publicity, what have you and I just saw the 219 minute version of the film on Amazon Prime and boy, it's very impressive filmmaking.
Willem Dafoe had a small part in the film, but got fired for talking out of turn during a crowd scene. Yet here he is, the star, narrating how the film bombed. He must have felt a sense of schadenfreude when he did this job...
Jonathan Melia is that really true? If so, great to hear and thanks for posting.
@Flying Hellfish Exactly. Now Year Of the Dragon had all the potential but it died in its terrible handling of "sentimental" scenes and rushed/incomprehensible ending.
That's a brilliant piece of trivia, Fascinating
The Funny part is that Dafoe is still in the final cut
@@tylsimys67 it was a much better film than this!
The best documentary about it since I read about it in "The Book of Heroic Failures".
Kathleen Carrol at the 1:05:00 and that excuse of a review. This is why people don’t respect film criticism because they have to put their full anger into something that they don’t like. I could tell you 5 things I liked about Heaven’s Gate even though I don’t think it’s a very good film. Cinematography was gorgeous, set design was absolutely immaculate, the three leads are all very good, Cimino’s directing shines in moments, and it is a great depiction of the American West in the late 19th century.
Why don’t you think it’s a very good film?
This was an amazing documentary. Glad I watched it.
I dont care what anyone says, "Heaven's Gate" is a masterpiece.
for $40 million, I'd hope so.
Corey Thomas; Right. And I don't care what anyone says. The Atlantic ocean is not wet.
@@bessied.5694 It's certainly not as wet as oceanographers say it is.
I’ve read the book The Final Cut, and this documentary is much better than the book.
Yes...the book is too long. The first 70 pages is just on the history of United Artists. I remember thinking that it was a good book for a PHD student writing his dissertation, but for everyone else...the documentary is much better.
Agreed.
@@christinacascadilla4473 well put. The book is about UA; the doc is about Heaven’s Gate, which is what I was interested in.
I've seen this documentary about four times.
That's great! Didn't you understand it the first time?
This documentary is much better than Cimino's film.
You must watch it 87 times, on location.
What do you want? An award?
@@thebunkreport No. I'm just saying that I enjoyed it so much that I watched it four times. Is that hard to understand?
On a side note, I am captivated by how much Cimino looked like Jon Lovitz.
How about Mark Ruffalo?
Ray Romano
That editor they interviewed, Penolope Shaw, is Robert “Quint” Shaw’s daughter.
Brad Dourif is hilarious. His disdain for Cimino is palpable.
Can’t say I blame him….
For many, many years, I stayed away from this movie because of all the negative things I've heard about. Earlier today, I watched a 3 hour uncut version online. And man, not only is it not bad, it's pretty damn good. Sure a couple of the musical scenes run longer than they should, but at least they were shot to look good. And I don't think that their length ruined the movie at all.
I’m assuming you were stoned while watching it?
Absolutely agree. I think it’s a masterpiece.
Unfortunately if it wasn't Heaven's Gate it would've been something else. Only Kubrick and a handful of other directors were able to survive this period and continue making THEIR movies. Guys like William Friedkin, John Landis, Mike Cimino, John Carpenter, etc. were talented directors who made high concept AND profitable movies. One or at most two flops completely changed the trajectory of their careers and never fully recovered. Spielberg wasn't ended by 1941 because he was one of the few that adapted to the new order and was able to leverage it to work for him.
@Acererak An incredibly astute observation and counterpoint, well done. I think you definitely nailed it. Jaws and Close Encounters were the type of films in Spielberg's wheelhouse. As you said, escapist thrillers. Great films that were also incredibly popular cash cows. 1941, on the other hand, was a "everything but the kitchen sink" action / comedy. Big budget, big everything. And you're right, it wasn't a flop. But commercially it left much to be desired. And to his credit Spielberg owned most the reasons why 1941 came up short. His very next film just happened to be Raiders of the Lost Ark. He went right back to playing to his strengths and the results speak for themselves. Some great directors lost their momentum in that late 70's-early/mid 80's period. I'd say one of the biggest reasons is that they weren't making films like Raiders or ET. Spielberg's brand was the future of mainstream filmmaking.
@@BULL.173 which is why I believe the film industry is what it is today... and that's not a good thing.
Kubrick was well insulated because he was Warner's prestige director. Barry Lyndon bombed theatrically and The Shining was a big disappointment.
He was also more budget conscious than Cimino and worked with small crews.
@@lamentate07I think every director is more budget conscious than Cimino, with the possible exceptions of Griffith and Von Stroheim.
@@lamentate07No to mention that Kubrick made his films in England. He didn’t have deal with the Hollywood hoopla.
Sometimes failure is more interesting than success. I think HG is a good movie, with some serious flaws, but it looks amazing and I love David Mansfield’s score.
I've seen this documentary several times, but I've never actually watched Heaven's Gate.
You should it's great
Same!
@@2ts706I’m an animal lover, and I’m disgusted how they treated the horses during the battle scene.
Despite how good it looks,‘there’s barely any story. This thing needed a better script
The documentary is a billion times better than that POS movie.
This documentary was a treat and the excited of most of those interviewed was amazing. With the amount of money blown and wasted on de aging and all the superhero failures and the lord of the rings and all the avatar movies
I love hearing the Green Goblin narrate in my face.
Willem is in the film!
Me too
The response to this movie was an excuse to stop artist driven movies for "blockbusters" like Jaws and Star Wars.
I know, and thank fuck for that.
There were still Star Wars movies released after 1980
@Acererak no
What is wrong with blockbusters
It's humorous that Dafoe would narrating this documentary, since it was the first film he appeared in ( as an extra) and Cimino fired him,
I looooooved Heaven’s Gate! I felt like I was in 1890 in America! It’s a beautiful film!
What's funny was the Heaven's Gate movie popped up for me was because I just watched an episode of Pawn Stars where a lady tried to sell an autograph hockey/safety helmet for roller skate, signed by most cast and crew.
This documentary makes me kind of depressed. I always wonder if we will ever have a decade like the 70s where popular mainstream film is actually made up of director driven, original pieces of work with something to say. I can’t really imagine how those reviewers saw the same film I saw and thought that there was nothing. Obviously there are some flaws, I’ll be the first to say that - but c’mon! You cannot see Heaven’s Gate and not admire, let alone not recognise at all, the sheer amount of love and dedication put into it. I think maybe the reconsideration over the past few years is in part due to the migrant crisis - the film sort of has a new importance with this in mind that perhaps wasn’t clear in the early 80s. All in all, it is really tragic that this era of filmmaking came to and end in such a way. For what its worth, I think Heaven’s Gate is pretty swell :)
The Criterion Blu-ray is a *must own*
🙌🏻📀📀
I watched Heaven’s Gates about four times. Recently saw the two hour cut on Showtime a couple days ago. Thought the cinematography looked absolutely stunning. I really want to see a movie about the making of this movie. Sort of like The Disaster Artist meets Tropic Thunder in a way.
i just saw the truncated version and it's ok but i prefer the long version. notably in its 2012 restoration version which is gorgeous.
thevoid99 I also saw The Deer Hunter as well.
Nicolas Cage as Cimino
@Texas Chainsaw Jesus : the rolller skating scene is one of the most profound and memorable scenes in the film.
@@davidsavage519 How about Mark Ruffalo??
Damn, the end clip of Bridges was so cool. Awesome doc
The movie, "Heaven's Gate", is epic not only w.r.t. its film length but as to its highly opinionated but convoluted genius, director Michael Cimino, its impact on Hollywood's premier directorial production company, United Artists, and its huge backlash on box-office takings and above all the epic and iconic history of the Johnson County War or the epic conflict between cattle barons used to open range and farmer settlers from all over Europe and British Isles. Barring Kris Kristofferson and Jeff Bridges, practically all other characters in the movie are played by new faces in their common maiden film. The movie languidly moves in multiple movie sections seemingly without any relationn between each other that move fast and abruptly only between one section and the next. The storyline meanders between the collegiate life of its principal protagonist in Harvard to his taking up work as sheriff in distant northwestern settlement of European migrant farmers in the midst of the open range of cattle barons exploding into a major conflagration leaving both the farmers and the open range in shambles forever. Similar theme has been the basis for many epic Westerns like the Virginian, Shane and the Magnificent Seven. The love interest provided by the principal protagonist, a bordello madam and her protectors is a love quadrangle not much relevant to the main story at all. How the American Govt run as a crony network of influential VIPs has aided and abetted the regional VIPs like cattle barons and how it was transformed into a democratic institution by the determined struggle by the East European emigrants is indeed the edifying epic theme which is repeated in today's Europe by Russia's bullying of its smaller earstwhile republics and other long-time neighbours. The most edifying elements of the movie are its East European-sounding mellow music and the splendid photography of the scenic American North West. That the movie resulted not only in the bankruptcy of the famous first directorial film corporate, United Artists, formed by the movie pioneers D W Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin forcing its takeover by MGM but in the removal of authority over film-making away from directors forever. Lovers of Westerns have been denied the enjoyment of the most romantic part of American history through films due to the troubles created and faced by films like Heaven's Gate pushing production of films into the hands of foreign film companies of Spain, Italy, France and Eastern Europe and even Russia. This has taken away the basic attraction of America's unsubstitutable beauty and uniqueness and colourfulness of its land, native people, lifestyles of mountainmen, cowboys and the American Indians finally ending the longest and most popular of Hollywood's genres, the Westerns. Alas, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater with all the loss and angst to loyal Western lovers like me.
Had it been made in today’s day and age, I think Heaven’s Gate would have been absolutely great as a series on Netflix or another streaming service. What about the success of Yellowstone and 1921 today?
POSITIVE THINGS ABOUT HEAVEN'S GATE-1. Theres not a boring part at over four hours. 2. Great historical set detail.
3. Beautiful soundtrack
@@knife-wieldingspidergod5059 4. AMAZING Christopher Walken
30:06 The thing about _Cleopatra_ is it cost SO much, it didn't make its money back EVEN as 1963's top-grossing film 🤑
Bottom line, unless you can afford to fund and distribute your own movie, you have to do what the investors/studios say. There is no other way around it
Michael Cimino never recovered after this...
sad but true yet the next 2 films he did in "year of the dragon" and the extended european cut of "the sicilian" are amazing films.
@@thevoid99 Year of the Dragon was dope
He did work until 2007, however. Ypur comment is misleading.
Literally every film he did after this was great, with the possible exception of Desperate Hours, which I have not seen.
Nothing Really It’s not that good you know. Year of the Dragon is excellent though.
Clint Eastwood always figured out the business and the way to keep power cos he made sure he never went over budget and if he could came in under budget and that thats how you stay in control and he has. No one has realised how you win in the business better than he has.
Edit: Cimino only came in on time working for Clint 😂 I didn't realise that before writing this but I guess I was on the right track.
What a simply superb documentary. Thank you for making this available.
*Michael Cimino:* "WILLEM!!! STEP OUT!"
Cimino actually said that to Willem Dafoe when Cimino fired him from this film.
I loved it. I saw it with my dad on DVD many years ago, and thought it a great work of art. If you hand a blank check to a dreamer, the dreamer can fill in a lot of zeroes.
Problem I have with Cimino’s first three films is that they are beautiful aesthetically, but they suffer from slow pacing. I’ve seen four hour movies that felt better paced than The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate, and thanks to the latter UA became easy prey for Leo the f**king, greedy, hungry Lion. But in defence of Cimino, the new executives at UA should have known better just by looking at his films and realise this is a director who takes his time in creating a film.
The pace of his films certainly test the viewer. Good points by you.
Year of the Dragon a very good fast paced film. He learned
@@theflorgeormix he certainly did
"Ego" & "narcissistic" I don't think are even the correct labels for him. How does one really describe M. C.? I mean my gosh! He didn't even see 5 hours as being long. Unless he just wanted them to believe he had overlooked it because he was a "genius and brilliant director?"
I kind of want to see the movie but I'm also terrified to do so.
Thanks for sharing this.
Someone could make a great movie about the making of Heaven's Gate and everything before and after it.
It should have kept in a vault for better and more narrative times like ours when seriality is the king of our home screens yet theatres deserve such a high level of narrative mastery
Its a shame that the myth overshadows the actual finished product. Heaven's Gate is a beautifully filmed movie, it looks absolutely stunning! The cinematography is incredible, and worth checking out if you're a film student.
And if you can see through all the negative stories about it, the actual movie itself is well worth watching. And Steven Bach's book (on which the documentary you're watching is based) is an absolutely fascinating read, and unmissable.
Killing animals for movie is ok??
Can you point out for my benefit, and that of those reading on, where I said that?
Don't you SJWs have anything better to do than go around picking fights constantly? What a sad existence you must lead.
@@EddieG1888 Well, you didn't say except for killing the animals, so there!
I've never seen the theatrical release of "Heaven's Gate" but I do know the version I saw was a cure for insomnia. It's a beautiful looking film that doesn't work. It's not all that different from "The Deer Hunter" but at least that film had DeNiro, Walken, Streep, John Cazale, etc. Which I feel saved that movie.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
There should be a sequel of The Disaster Artist, explaining of only Cimino himself on his film masterpiece which eventually led to failure.
Victor Uribe who should play Cimino, Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken? If they were going to make a movie about the making of this film.
Chris Londo
Mark Ruffalo as Cimino
Michael Shannon as Kristofferson
Sylvia Hoeks as Huppert
&
James McAvoy as Walken
The Room is a bad movie. Heaven's Gate was a bomb. Big difference. A bomb can still be a masterpiece, so it'd be weird to characterize it in a humorous manner.
If it had a better script, it would’ve been worth it. In an alternate universe, Heaven’s Gate would be the enduring masterpiece and Apocalypse Now would’ve been the death knell
I watch this last night. I thought it was great.
We probably have Vincent Canby to thank for helping studios to take away control and influence from the actual "artists" and back in the studio system's business suits hands. Thank you Mr Canby for contributing to the ever-dwindling dumbed-down, intellectually empty wallpaper "cinematic entertainment" we have now for the most part
That's a simple minded take. Even if HEAVENS GATE hadn't been made toxic by reviews and bombed, Hollywood was already moving away from "auteur cinema" and into the blockbuster mentality. It just sped up the process.
I think the film is much better than the critics said. As for the real life Heaven's Gate story: 1. The real life war got started in 1889. 2. Jim Averill and Ela Watson were both killed together at the start of the conflict. 3. Ela Watson was probably not really a virago-that was probably just spout put out by the Association. 4. Ella was actually a heavyset woman. 5. Neither the real Jim or Ella ever probably knew Nate Champion. 6. Frank Canton was not killed in battle but lived to a ripe old age. 7. In the movie Ella mentions her father having been killed but in reality Ella Watson's father outlived her and pushed for an investigation into Ella's death. 8. As for details that are right-Kris Kristofferson was very well cast as Averill being that the real life Averill really did look alot like Kristofferson and even had a hobby as a song writer!!!( mabey Kristofferson is his Reincarnation?)
Kris comes off as a positive nice guy. Must've been great for Cimino to work with him.
49:40 something about Brad's impression of a car on a dirt road is just so spot on and hilarious
dude looks like john lovitz
You are SO right! I was just about to post that.
@@tnecklover If they make a movie based on this fiasco then they would definitely have Jon Lovitz as Michael Cimino
@@homerogarzajr1787 Exactly!!
*WHO IS JOHN LOVITZ???*
@@apexxxx10 Jon Lovitz is an actor/comedian who was on Saturday Night Live a number of years ago. There should be countless pictures of him on the Net.
The dumbest thing about "Heaven's Gate" is NOT that Cimino blew a lot of money, or that the movie was bad. It's that Gene Shallit "movie critic", asking Cimino that inane question about "how many starving kids" could have been fed from the money spent.
I do not think this is a bad film, at all, but let's also not forget Les Gepay 😠
under the circumstances, it's not an inane question. it's actually a really good one. if any film was going to justify it, it's this one. how frivolous do you want to be, and how frivolous are you going to get?
Excellent documentary. Reading the comments below, I'm apparently one of the few people who both saw and thoroughly enjoyed the absolute artistry and beautiful attention to descriptive detail that carried consistently through the film's "enchanting" 1st cut scene-by-scene. And IMHO, it wasn't Cimino's work that failed at the box office. It was the malicious Press, whose puppeted negative 'bandwagon' reviews buried the film the start, and most of it irrelevantly spiteful.
And the closing comments of this 'docu' are demonstrably, hence indisputably correct = Removing creative control over a film from the hands of the artist into the hands of (aesthetically ignorant) corporate _"bean counters"_ has certainly evidenced the undeniable results in its now 30 year aftermath = Essentially a continually deteriorating, endless series of largely worthless sh*t films.....!!
*A D I O S* to the truly rewarding and often deeply meaningful "Golden Era Of Hollywood", where competing for artistic relevance today within an audience largely raised on computer games is ever-so-increasingly A Lost Competition from the gitgo....
Interesting analysis. Lots of films have suffered because of this. That's why I prefer indie films to big budget films. The attitude of a Hollywood film exec is 'There's more letters in Business than there is in Show.
The press may have been spiteful, but unfortunately Cimino was spiteful to the press. Cameron was the same way with Titanic; the difference was the public loved Titanic.
A hell of a masterpiece..truly and forever..
The difference between Cimino and Dick Donner is that when Donner did Superman he was making 2 movies with visual effects that were new and took time. He was breaking lots of new ground. That's why he needed a blank check and schedule to ultimately get 1.5 movies done. Maybe he could have tightened things here and there, but he knew that Superman was not going to be simple for it to be great and he right. Also Superman was in essence an independent production that Warner Bros. only had a hand in financing. They did not give all of their money over to the production of Superman. Heaven's Gate was just another big scale western that was routine in many ways that could have been shot faster and cheaper.
There was nothing routine about this movie. And it was far, far more ambitious than a superhero movie, even an above average one.
why are you comparing them?
UA should have sent Clint Eastwood in
That's a good point
I remember reading the book about the troubled production.
*Merci infiniment for his outstanding documentary. i am watching it just after I watched M. Cimino's masterpiece Heaven's Gate. Thank you. Bangkok-Johnnie straight from THAILAND*
Not to put myself in the spotlight, but recently I made a film that’s not really as ambitious, but I was anticipating on its release for a LONG time… and to prepare for it, I watched this documentary several times! Unlike Cimino, in my case this was my FIRST publicized film that I’m talking about…
All I can say, is that I can relate to Cimino, at least at the very end of the documentary…
It’s an amazingly immersive, subversive existential epic. Love ever second of it. How I would love to see that five and a half hour original cut. Brilliant 😁
I can just imagine what it was like for the two actors doing the fistfight scene in the cabin, over the French girl. Cimino:"Ok guys. Lets try thirty more takes of that punchout. Kris, try to get Chris in the nose a few times in the next take."
I think that the issue with this picture Is that it focused so much on detail that it lost the bigger picture (pun intended). As a result, leading performances seemed somewhat muted, which explains why the acting lacks certain bite here.
Interesting documentary
Basically UA chose the "Superman" option: Sending a studio executive as a constant presence to the set to keep the director in line and on schedule/budget and protect the studio's interests.
The Salkinds did that with Superman director Richard Donner, when they send Pierre Spengler to micromanage Donner.
1:13:00 Not really. James Cameron made expensive movies like Abyss, and Titanic, where he wasn't reigned in.
Yea, but those movies made money. This one lost its ass. Thats why its remembered. Had it turned a huge profit like Cameron's movies, no one would have cared
Stephen Bach had beautiful hands.
Watching Heavens Gate right now. Highly disappointed but Cimino worked his ass off for this movie. This might be the best documentary ever
The movie was a piece of scheiße though, just looking at it makes one feel depressed.
If the original cut was 5 and a half hours long, could they not have cut the movie in the middle and released it as two movies: Heaven's Gate Part 1 and Heaven's Gate part 2? You can even add an extra half hour and release it as a trilogy. Just wondering if this was ever considered.
chris swann the 3rd act battle sequence alone was more than an hour and a half in the first cut. Just splitting the movie into 2 parts wasn’t going to help.
Good question !
As far as I know, the idea of a "trilogy" did not exist yet. Neither did the idea of splitting a film into 2 parts until Quentin Tarantino did it with Kill Bill. Hell, by 1979, the idea of a "summer blockbuster" had only existed for 3-4 years at that point. I do not think they had that type of mindset yet.
chris swann It would’ve been possible if it had been turned into a TV series, but a movie trilogy...
@@bobcobb3654 I wish I could see that 5 hour cut just to see that battle. It had to be amazing
I watched the long cut today and I don’t know what he was trying to say with the film. I was very confused by the scene where the town was arguing over what to do about the Cattle Association army. The scene was several European languages and the director did not seem to care if I understood what was going on. Seemed to be two or three factions in the town, but I was not given a chance to know what their desires or arguments were. Then the lack of character development left me not caring about the main characters or even sympathetic to them. Besides the film itself, which is fun and pretty in many ways, I want to know WHY Cimino wanted to make this movie. I also wonder if this was a director addicted to any drugs while filming, such as cocaine.
Michael Cimino bought 156 acres of land near Glacier National Park, Montana.
John Deagle For his personal use, or for Heaven’s Gate?
@@darwincity According to Steven Bach, Cimino bought 156 acres of prime Montana ranch land which he attempted to charge back to United Artists.
$25-$50-million to shoot a western???
That's my entire perspective on everything here. I would expect that kind of budget for a sci-fi picture, but this is insane. I don't care how authentic Cimino was trying to be.
Ridiculous.
The Only Version Of 1980's Heaven's Gate That I Prefer Is The Original Legendary Uncut Version (219 Mins).
Michael Cimino was and still is one of the greatest filmmakers ever in the history of cinema.
Heaven's Gate was marred by accusations of animal rights abuse during production. One assertion was that live horses were bled from the neck without giving them pain-killers so that their blood could be collected and smeared upon the actors in a scene. The American Humane Association (AHA) asserted that four horses were killed and many more injured during a battle scene. One of the horses who was claimed to have been killed, and its rider (Ronnie Hawkins, who survived), were claimed to have been blown up by dynamite, the footage of which appears in the final cut.
FYI: Cimino himself set the Christmas release
CIMINO, Starring Matthew Rhys. Let's make this happen!
Gonna watch this movie for the first time next week. I'm so excited to see it. I love the deer hunter and I feel like this movie has a bad rap and I gotta just know for myself
He wasn't afraid of anybody? Sounds like he was scared of what everybody would think. I'm sure if he could've just had the movie to himself and only watch it in his own home theatre he would get off to it
A lot of what Bach says about the relationships during production is very misleading, both here and in his book. As Charles Elton makes clear in his 2022 Cimino biography, Bach enabled Cimino’s bad tendencies and had multiple opportunities to curb the budget but never took them. In fact, Joann Carelli (Cimino’s artistic confidant) was trying to rein in the insecure Cimino herself during production but Bach didn’t back her up. Bach paints her in the book as an enabler and this film follows suit. Elton makes clear that David Field left UA over how Bach handled the situation.
Honestly the way Brad Dourif describes it, Cimino's directing style sounds pretty wasteful and unfocused. If he's doing 50 takes to get the exact perfect delivery a la Kubrick or Fincher, that's one thing. But if he's doing 50 completely different takes to get options in the edit, that speaks to a lack of vision that's also bad for the budget and bad for the schedule.
Idiot.
Kubrick also gave himself the luxury to experiment with lots of takes by making sure no one was on set who didn't need to be for the scene. I'm pretty sure none of his movies after 2001 went significantly over budget.
@@NostalgiNorden he's not an idiot, he's right.
Don't even compare Fincher to Kubrick or Cimino. Fincher has no vision. He is just a clinical technician. He can't compete with either Cimino or Kubrick for compositional flair or creativity.
Even Kubrick admired Cimino's talent.
Does anyone know the song used at 52:51???
Michael Cimino made an epic, beautiful, touching, realistic film. He put his heart into it, obviously. Fuck sequels, remakes, franchise comic book no soul films. Originality. Grit. Truth. Whether it took an incredible studio down or not, this film is terrific
Maybe he did. But he was a self important, reckless, selfish egomaniac. He knew the damage he was doing going crazily over budget and past schedule. But he simply didn't care. Many jobs, careers and reputations were destroyed because of him. The fact anyone even let him near a film set again, is utterly beyond me.
not impressed.
He wanted everything authentic, and yet the main characters in the story aren't historically accurate. Ella was a heavy woman and was ultimately hung along with James Averell, who sails off on his yacht in the film. The homesteaders had the backing of the federal government in the end.
I like the film, but all the attention to detail was lost when apparently the cuts left you with hundreds of people disappearing from a room with only one door and the action was all taking place at that door.
I think that was intentional.
The whole film has a surreal quality.
The film has a great film within it, but it is horribly edited.
A 160 minute film without the prologue and epilogue?
It's a masterpiece.
@@Dean-em7jb I have a friend, now deceased, who was in that scene (and others). I wish he were still around to ask about it.
Terry on the Fourth of July a couple years back. A guy at my step moms parents house. He was a cameraman formally worked in television and said he know a friend who worked on this film.
@@terr777 Ah! That would have been so cool to be able to check in with your friend about this. I'm sorry for your loss.
@Julia Mimi I think someone capable of The Deer Hunter and the controversial Heaven's Gate can arguably be considered more than just a director of commercials... C'mon now!!!
(Side note: Gus Van Sant - another brilliant director with epic vision - also got his start making commercials.)
For the last time, Spielberg's 1941 was NOT a flop. It made money!
It's said there's a final contract review
1941 was a flop by studio standards for Steven Spielberg. For a lack of a better word, the studio was greedy. It didn't make Jaws or Close Encounters money which were in the 300-400m range, but it broke even and then some, there was no loss in any way. But the studio expected a high gross-to-budget ratio
But 1941 was still terrible.
Compared to the performance of Jaws and Close Encounters, it was a flop, especially compared to its inflated budget ($35 Million).
We will never know the results of 1941. However, when Universal did its reconstruction for DVD, they had to buy the rights back off Columbia. Columbia wrote off $34 million. Universal wrote off losses on 1941 in 1979. My math equals both losing money on first release.
At the end of the documentary where he said if I had one regret in my working life is that I left UA. To tell you truth guys I would not regret it, because Bach said he knew he was going to be fired. If that was the case I would just save them the trouble of firing me.
The movie looked great and the soundtrack was good. Cimino was wrong pushing his vision to the exclusion of the harm he was doing. Movies are unique art because they are at their core a business. Most artists hurt only themselves with excesses, but if you ignore the business necessities of movie making you will do damage to many people. Wrecking United Artists was bad but the worse thing, he single handedly ruined the industry wide option of allowing directors control of their movie, the very thing that United Artists was founded to create. The damage he did will bedevil directors far into the future and continually eliminate great movies that might have been,.
This film and another called One From the Heart directed by Francis ford Coppola that ended the age of the big Hollywood directors.
Has anyone seen the actual uncut version ? One reviewer I respect - Nathan Rabin of the AV Club - says that the movie in its unedited three and a half hour version - is actually pretty close to the classic Cimino thought he'd made. Being risk and time wasting averse I haven't chanced it. But if it really is that good I'll try it.
Five hours and twenty five minutes long ? I withdraw my question. No way in hell am I watching that.
As far as I'm aware the 5 hour and 20 minute version is not available to watch anywhere. The current definitive version is Criterion's release, which is about 3 1/2 hours long. Personally I enjoyed the film much more than I was expecting, but it definitely can be a slow-burner.
Not sure what you're referring to. Large portions of the original negative were apparently destroyed. The best version available is the 216 minute Director's Cut supervised by Cimino, available from Criterion. It's a near-masterpiece. It has significant flaws, but much of the film's reputation over the decades stemmed from bad press before the movie was even seen by audiences, industry turmoil, and bad cuts of the film.
@@stampeaceful That is exactly what I'm talking about. Like I imagine most people I thought Heaven's Gate was an unmitigated disaster until I read a review of the four and a half hour directors cut is supposedly a classic Western which everyone should take another look at especially if they're looking at a long stretch of free time. I'd love to see it as it was intended.
Shockingly Joann Carreli only did more movie after Heaven's Gate.
What do they mean when they said that Andy Albeck placed his face in numbers and made sense of the business through spreadsheets? Did that mean that if they have the money to cover it then there is no reason to not do it?
apparently.
Lets ask a “what if”. If Michael Cimino didn’t win the Oscar for The Deer Hunter, do you think he would have went on the power trip thst he did on the set of Heaven’s Gate or would he have been more grounded and focused as to what he wanted out of the movie?
great doc ! ive seen the movie and i dont think its good but not the worst.