Heaven's Gate

[Lzcutter]

This film may be the best shot biggest mess of a film ever produced. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is just incredible. Every scene, it seems, is filled with breath-taking shots whether its interiors or exteriors.

Even the score is quite good as well as Chris Walken as Nate and Jeff Bridges as JB.

Everything else, however, is an unholy mess. I had opening night tickets for its Los Angeles debut back in the day but the film screened first for New York critics. The influential NY Critic back then, Vincent Canby, wrote a scathing review. Likened the film to a forced four hour walking tour of one's living room as I recall. Some reviews just stay with you.

According to Steven Bach's great story, Final Cut , of the scandal that was the making of the film and the demise of United Artists, at intermission the audience was quite subdued. Cimino asked why they weren't drinking champagne and celebrating. "Because they hate the film, Michael" he was told. And, boy, did they.

The film was pulled within hours of the reviews being published and was sent back to the editing room. I had the good fortune to see the same cut that Canby did a few weeks after the film was pulled. The buzz around the film before Canby's review had been good, centering around Michael Cimino's involvement. We were all looking forward to seeing it at the old Plitt Theaters in Century City. We were even miffed that UA had pulled the film before the LA opening.

After we saw the film, we were speechless. It seemed as if Cimino was going for a western Godfather approach in the story of immigrants but the entire script was so jumbled, why he thought Kristofferson (who can be good when playing essentially himself, see Songwriter ), would be a good lead still makes no sense to this day and the added addition of Cimino going for "natural sound" all but made the majority of dialog tracks incomprehensible.

The first twenty minutes at Harvard (filmed at Cambridge and Oxford because Harvard didn't look old enough, as I recall) could have been cut as well as the weird ending with Kristofferson and his original love on the yacht off Newport.

Which is basically what they did when they re-edited the film and finally released it. It wasn't much better than the original cut but it was shorter. It didn't help. The natural sound still was one of the biggest obstacles to understanding the dialog and without understanding what people are saying, your movie is in trouble.

I saw the film years later on the old, still beloved but long gone, Z channel here in the City of Angels, and the excoriating train scene with Richard Masur and Kristofferson that had been unhearable in the theaters was now subtitled. It still didn't help the movie.

I watched it again tonight and while I know that it had a better reception in Europe than it did here, it still remains an incredible mess of a film saved only by Zsigmund's wonderful cinematography. Cimino's original director's cut clocked in over five hours, I can only imagine how awful an experience that must have been to sit through.

The film is loud and noisy to the extreme and the quiet moments are too few and far between. It gets to the point where you just start begging them to shut the freak up. Which is not what you what you want your audience to be doing.

But it remains a testament to one man's ego if nothing else. He drove himself and a venerable movie studio out of business in the process. It would take five years before he directed another film and he fell into obscurity faster than you can say Erich Von Stroheim. UA found itself near bankruptcy and an offer from MGM was the only way out.

It also helped seal the coffin on director driven films which had been a hallmark of the 1970s and the studios, in the wake of the disaster, asserted their control over films. It put the proverbial nail in the coffin of westerns for a few years. Despite limited success with Silverado, it wouldn't be until Dances with Wolves that the western started making a comeback

I think Joe Queenan hit the nail on the head when he said: "This is a movie that destroyed the director's career. This is a movie that lost so much money it literally drove a major American studio out of business. This is a movie about Harvard-educated gunslingers who face off against eastern European sodbusters in an epic struggle for the soul of America.

This is a movie that stars Isabelle Huppert as a shotgun-toting cowgirl. This is a movie in which Jeff Bridges pukes while mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that has five minutes of uninterrupted fiddle-playing by a fiddler who is also mounted on roller skates.

This is a movie that defies belief."

Almost thirty years later, it still does.

[movieman1957]

I sure agree with most of what you said. As a matter of history, so to speak, I watched a few months ago when it was on TCM. A "mess," "overlong" doesn't begin to describe it.

My first thought was it was a stretch for TCM to include it in a Joseph Cotten day. At that the whole Harvard section could have been left off. A huge amount of money must have been spent there and I don't think it told us a lot about the characters. That would have saved about 40 minutes. There were whole sections that were long that I didn't move the story although the basic story is interesting enough.

I thought the siege at the ranch was interesting, especially the way the suicide was handled but it was too long coming. The end, though odd, I thought at least summed up Kristofferson's frustration well. I think they hardly said anything and I wanted to smack the woman because she was so lazy she couldn't be bothered to lean forward enough to let him light her cigarette. You can see him start to fume but he doesn't say a word.

I have to disagree about the cinematography. Maybe I am talking about a different aspect but I agree with Roger Ebert when he said the everything was brown. It was. Almost unbearably brown. Even a few scenes near the end where you could see some sky didn't brighten it up any.
I didn't think any of it looked that good. But that is just me.

As far as Kristofferson goes I would agree that while he is not a bad actor this was way too big a film for him to carry. Short of his career as a country singer/songwriter and a stint in Streisand's "A Star Is Born" I'm not sure what else he had. I'm also not sure who else would have been better suited. He did carry a weary look well though.

Someday I'll set through it again. I'll most likely skip the first part completely, watch it with the subtitles and then wonder why I sat through it again. Maybe for all the reasons you mention movie fans should see at least once just so they know what can happen to a movie.

The Westerns channel has been showing it lately but in full screen.

[ChiO]

As far as Kristofferson goes I would agree that while he is not a bad actor this was way too big a film for him to carry. Short of his career as a country singer/songwriter and a stint in Streisand's "A Star Is Born" I'm not sure what else he had.

Lest we forget, we was wonderful in a couple of outstanding Peckinpah movies: PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. Though I am less fond of his performance in ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, having a Scorsese film as a credit isn't bad.

[movieman1957]

And I did forget.