4:55 "Cimino's _true vision"_ No, the the initial theatrical cut was his "true vision" - with the soft focus, smeared lens, sepia filter, and dragged out, prolonged scenes. The altered edition release you're referencing here was an attempt to try and salvage the movie (and his own career and reputation) by *removing* his "true vision" so the audience could somewhat stand to watch it. It's not like a studio boss came in and demanded Cimino put on that filter and use a smudged lens, and so he felt to remove all that to present his "true vision" - as you call it, afterwards. No, he had free reign, and chose all those negative qualities himself. *He* wanted all that in his movie. The remake is therefore not - and cannot be - his "true vision".
I have been a movie buff for over 60 years, and I first saw "Heaven's Gate" when the edited-down, 149-minute version was released to theaters in the spring of 1981. What I most remember is how the unvarying sepia tone of the cinematography, along with all the dust, made it look so dull and drab. This visual style was deliberate, and was supposed to match the overall melancholy of the story it was telling, but it made the film seem that much longer and depressing. So it may be worth mentioning that the restored 2012 version was not so much 'cleaned up and brightened', but more accurately digitally "colorized" -- with the brighter colors actually replacing the original's somber yellows and browns. I agree that it looks (and feels) much better this way; and I would only add that using this new version to claim it is an overlooked and underappreciated masterpiece does a disservice to those audience members and critics who were exposed to a completely different look when it was first shown. That said, I much enjoyed the videos from New Perspective.
What Criterion did really made the movie far more watchable, even in its bloated form (the problem is too many scenes go on too long). It looks so beautiful now compared to before. And that is why we champion Film Restoration with the 3rd party labels.
I agree, that the sepia tone does imbue a heavy feeling of melancholy, but it is almost oppressively so. It is just not pleasant to look at, even if that was the initial intent of the art's intended expression. However, with the restored version, with the colourisation being overseen by Cimino himself, I feel as though that somber tone is achieved more accurately through the use of dust, in scenes like when Champion confronts Averill in the bar, and with the absence of saturation, devastatingly depicted at the end of the battle. When the once green field is turned to a muted and muddy yellow mess, with bodes strewn all about, it really nails the effect of what it was going for in spades. This is all, of course, my opinion, and I believe every opinion to be valid.
Nah. Critics are invariably conversative and middlebrow, especially in the US. They got it wrong, just as they have got many other films wrong over the years.
@@lamentate07 Most film critics are not conservative. That’s simply false. To use the moniker in reference to them marks you as either disingenuous or an ignoramus.
Right? I know Cimino wanted to show how innocent their lives were before Vietnam, but after a while I thought, "Do we really need to sit through a whole-ass Polish wedding and reception?"
i gotta agree. the deer hunter was my first all time fave movie but the film loving friends i convinced to watch it, liked or loved the movie but all of them said, damn the wedding part was ridiculously way too long.
@@tmamone83 Polish here. What an extremely dumb ignoramus one has to be to consider this Ukrainian wedding ceremony to be ‘Polish’. With all due highly respect to Ukrainian people and their customs themselves.
“While watching HEAVEN’S GATE, it was easy to see what to cut. But then I thought about what to keep, and my mind went blank.” - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker. “An epic vision isn’t worth much if you can’t tell a story.” - Village Voice.
I take offense to that last quote in particular. Some of my favorite movies have no spoken narrative whatsoever like Samsara, or were created with visual sequences in mind first, and then forced a story to work around them second like some of Nicolas Refn's films. These still play to the strengths of the visual medium. I would rather watch an epic vision, than watch a person sitting in a chair reading an epic story.
Kael’s comment is an utterance from someone who’s point of view is shaped by films that had become the archetypal language and bonded to the popular culture. Cimino wasn’t not only an auteur but a singular voice...an original. In fact, being misunderstood is often a sign that something truly honest and extraordinary is being expressed. Welles easily fits into that category since he suffered the same type of dejection and boycott from the industry after the debacle of the now celebrated ‘Citizen Kane’.
@@connshawnery6489 Kane wasn't a debacle, it was Ambersons that finished him, alas. Also, after the success of The Deer Hunter, his hubris and arrogance whilst making this film made Strohiem seem reasonable, One of the reasons the '80s was poor was that there was no UA to back creative independents. One would also have to take in the fact that such a beautiful film was covered by such an ugly sepia.
@@bobbyjosson4663 Kane almost suffered a blocked release and backlash from William Randolph Hearst after details about the subject matter became known. By the time he made Ambersons, the studio did not afford him the same freedom and autonomy. The studio also recut the film without Welles involvement. Heavens Gate, although beautiful to look at and a massive effort, was fraught with problems. The fact that he didn’t do ADR ever and if dialogue became inaudible, he just left it this way. The movie got away from him and suffered as a result.
Vincent Canby was definitely a bitter film critic, but you have to admit that his line about comparing Heaven’s Gate to a “forced four-hour walking tour of one’s own living room” is a funny as hell line. But there are films more deserving of that line than Heaven’s Gate. Especially considering the film has some AMAZING sequences.
I'm sure anyone with half a brain, and honesty, could create a massive list of films that were both expensive, overblown, and far, far, far worse than Heaven's Gate, whether they were box office flops, or hits. Just as an example. The Phantom Menace (Star Wars, Chapter 1) made 1.1 billion dollars at the box office. I'd rather be locked in a room for a year with nothing else to watch but Heaven's Gate, than to sit through Phantom Menace again.
Cimino was such a talent. I only wish he had continued his style of film making on a grand scale. The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate- even the scenes that go on and on are in a way beautiful because the performances feel so real.
Such grandeur but the topics of both probably only a paragraph or page in a history book Think about how many hundreds of small friendship groups went through what the boys in deer hunter went through or how many conflicts like that happened in the west
I don’t feel like any of the performances feel real. It’s strange that a film that was shooting for such a high degree of verisimilitude never really feels like anything but forced. Sam Waterston’s character is one of the most cartoonish bad guys I’ve ever seen in a movie. I mean Camino gives him absolutely no degree of complexity. It’s like you’re watching Dick dastardly from some Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It’s such a one note character and performance. As if people are that one-sided. I think it’s amazing that filmmakers could get away with making the good guys out to be these men of depth and feeling, while the bad guy is just this intractably psychotic, murderous goon who seems to have no ability to feel a shred of human remorse. Of all the bad things in this movie I think his character is the one that really makes it impossible to enjoy or take seriously.
@@MaximusWolfeto me, he almost felt like a one-dimensional 80's action movie villian, not too much depth, not really iconic, just there to be the bad guy He almost felt like he didnt belong in the movie
“Unqualified disaster” doesn’t mean the movie is unqualified, it means he’s saying his use of the word disaster does not need any qualifiers, reservations or limitations, i.e. “It was a disaster, considering the expense.”
Am enjoying this reevaluation of "Heaven's Gate". I want to make that clear. I am 61 years old as of this writing, which means I was the ripe old age of 20 when this film was, uh, released - at least in New York anyways. And 41 years later I can still remember vividly all the controversy surrounding this movie. I was one of the 12 or so people who saw the cut version on opening day - and to my dismay found it to be just as awful as the critics said it was. It was 2 hours and 20 minutes - and it's THAT version that felt like 5 hours. It would be a few years later on cable that I would see the original version - and only liked it slightly better, but not much. Through the 41 years I would see the uncut version - get ready for this - eight times. The last time was in 2007 when the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, showed a restored 35mm print of the original version - and it would be the first time I would see that version projected on a big screen with the Dolby sound, the way it was intended to be seen. I don't know which blogger said it as it's been a long time since I read what he had to say, but he said it perfectly for me. I can't remember at what point in the movie, but there was this feeling you get that somewhere in all that footage was a good movie lurking in there. On the big screen some of those shots were absolutely breathtaking. But did it change my opinion? Nope. I STILL think this is one long boring pretentious movie. From the first shot, it seems like Cimino is off camera shouting "THIS IS A MASTERPIECE DAMMIT!!!!" The actors all say their lines as though they are about to say the most important dialogue in the history of the world. And how else is this movie a misfire? My late friend - who died in 2012 (he was older than me by the way), watched it at my house in 1985 or so. It's the scene where we are in Casper, Wyoming - you know, it starts out with the train, and it moves over to show the crowded sidewalks with a ton of pedestrians, and heavily congested roads stuffed with horses and buggies and such. My friend started laughing. I said "What did I miss?" He said, "You got to be kidding. There aren't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW." Okay, obviously I do not agree with your opinion of this movie. But am I glad you made this video? You're damn right. I'm actually glad this movie has it's admirers and there are defenders of this film. I'm also very glad that Michael Cimino was still with us when the restored version played at Cannes and he got that 12 minute standing ovation. I am comforted that he knew this movie which caused him so much hurt did in fact have a ton of admirers too. And here it is 41 years later - and here we are discussing it. Tells you something.
I would much appreciate a simple summary of the life of cimino after all this... .went mad bankrupt had sex change drug addict lost family friends .gained new friends was an ok person was narcissistic celeb who couldn't take failure ..took on too big a job and lost the plot ?
I hated this movie. I don’t think any really objective person likes this movie. This is pure film, geek reimagining for the sake of edginess. Heaven’s Gate was, and will forever be a complete disaster. It’s almost a master class on how not to develop sympathy, or any sense of involvement in a given character. The scene where they stand around arguing, whether or not to fight against the hired assassins is one of the most overacted and annoying segments in the history of big budget movie making. It feels so fake and so jumped up and there’s only one man you can really blame for that climate. Obviously I’m referring to Michael Cimino.
My girlfriend and I went to see this movie when it was first released. It was dreadful, but I told her to wait about twenty years and the self-styled intellectual liberal churls would start claiming that it was an unappreciated masterpiece. I was right.
@@MaximusWolfe Oh my. I just saw this comment. Sorry for the delay here. But are you referring to the - for lack of better way of labeling the scene - the "list reading" sequence? THAT is the segment of the movie that leaves me wanting to pull what's left of my hair out. You honestly think for that couple of seconds that Kristofferson is going to read all 125 names. Ugh.
@@nataliep.9047 And guess what? There were those arguing that very same argument when the movie came out - of course I wasn't one of them. But it was enough to lead me to believe that Cimino was wrong to pull the movie. He should have just let it play and let everybody argue about it. Maybe his career would not have been ruined if he had done that, but oh well. By all accounts, Cimino was his own worst enemy.
Great videos! I'm really enjoying your take on this. One quibble, though: when someone refers to something as an "unqualified disaster" they actually mean "a disaster without any qualifying (i.e., mitigating) factors." In other words, Vincent Canby didn't think that any aspect of the film could be considered as positive. (Similarly, if someone refers to something as an "unqualified success," it means the subject was a complete success with no elements which can be gainsaid.) Not defending what Canby wrote, just clearing up the language discrepancy.
Canby’s review was correct. This is still a terrible movie no matter how many TH-cam film dorks try to flip it around to make it out to be some kind of underappreciated magnum opus.
*Disclaimer* I hold no bitter resentment to film critics or to anyone who happens to not enjoy the films I do. I only reacted harshly towards Canby and Ebert in this video since that is the same treatment they gave Heaven's Gate. Everyone's opinion is, of course, valid. These just happen to be mine :^) Thank you all for watching. I've been working on this almost every day since Part 1. With this video I'm trying something a little different from part 1. This video is more of an opinion piece rather than an objective retelling of facts. I hope its entertaining and you all like it, and can understand why I make the claims i do in the video. But like I said, these are my opinions on Heaven's Gate so take that as you will. I'm starting work on Part 3 already, and have also started production on a short film of my own. I have no clue when either will be done but we'll just say sometime in 2021 lol. Thank you all again for watching, and make sure to subscribe!!
I'm giving you two thumbs up for your two videos about Heaven's Gate. Really well done. I think people should use critics' opinions to compare them against their own, instead of just blindly believing that the critic's opinion is the 'correct' one.
Very well done, well narrated, and interesting documentary. I believe that critics in the late 70s were a bit spoiled. They had a decade of great films and could not foresee how bad the movie industry would get. Heaven's Gate is not the Deer Hunter but it is not nearly as bad as the critics rated it at the time.
@@terr777 I’m working on it, I promise 🙇🏻♂️. The last two years have been increasingly rough on me, which is why I haven’t posted in so long. Part 3 is in the works, but the first vid I should have done is about the movie “The Mist” (2007). It’s gonna be a long one. Sorry for being MIA for so long 😓
I think what the critic meant by "unqualified disaster" was that it was a disaster without qualifiers, or rather a "total disaster." Not that it was disqualified from anything (at 11:58). Great video, though. Loved part one enough to come back for more!
There's one factor that doesn't get mentioned much when it came to Heaven's Gate flopping at first. This film, in its uncut version, premiered just two weeks after Reagan was elected. Nobody was in the mood for anything dark about America's sins anymore. Had Heaven's Gate somehow made it to the original 1979 Christmas release it was aiming for, perhaps it would have been better received then. The climate in 2012, with people more willing to confront our checkered past, was far more suitable for the movie. And certainly now.
I couldn't agree more. The theme of the film was political and the reaction to the film was an unqualified political hack job. The movie has found a more sympathetic audience in our time.
Spot on! The country was not in the mood for an anti-Western, and Canby was making a living off of panning films. That was an impossible combination. I'm not sure I'd agree with calling the film a "Masterpiece," and it's true that Heaven's Gate contributed to the swing towards money-makers, but that's a problem that comes up in all art forms and the survival of the artists that make them. The restored version is gorgeous to look at (minus that awful sepia filter), but it doesn't rank with other masterpieces that were made around the same time (Shining, for example), at least in my book.
@@pinksealproductions4360 In it's final form, I would not say it's a masterpiece either. But it seems to get better each time I watch it. I do need to revisit the 1981 shorter version.
yes I think thats a good point! Heaven's Gate and Legend of the Lone Ranger-two really good westerns-both came out at the wrong time. 1. First of of all westerns weren't as popular as they had been decades earlier. 2. Nobody wanted to see westerns that showed dark sides of american history-antiwesterns. Both films suffered from just not being the kind of westerns that western fans wanted top see.
I have a theory that Ebert was a studio plant. He would sometimes give these super suspicious reviews that would have a ripple effect (given that he and Siskel were for DECADES the voice of film criticism for the general populous) that would severely damage and sometimes destroy the careers of people who the studios were already unhappy with. It is so so obvious that the studios wanted to make Cimino a scapegoat and wanted to switch to the producer-run blockbuster system we have today.
@@hendo337 agreed. Just look at how they slaughtered Vincent Gallo's career. If Gallo was European he'd be a celebrated director, but because he talked about the traumas of poverty and called Copola a predator (not an unfounded accusation, given his support of disgusting rapist Victor Salva), Ebert specifically made Gallo a warning to anyone willing to shake the Hollywood boat.
Heaven's Gate is not a great film but has great artistry in it. I don't think that the critics didn't understand it but were put off by its length, it's murky looking original print and the under-developed characters. It is a film any film lover should definitely see, however.
Agree. However, it comes down to the writing-the characters, the story. Everybody’s mumbling like some mumblecore drama. Things that should be in the movie aren’t in there (Jim and Nate are friends? How so?) and there are things that look great (roller skating sequence), but how do they help tell the story? Also, we didn’t get to know any of the immigrants. Are some of them actually thieves and anarchists? Are there good immigrants and bad immigrants? Complexity of character and an ensemble cast can certainly be conveyed over 3 and a half hours, and might make for a richer story. It looks pretty, but so can an art installation.
The critics were out to get Cimino from the start of production on HG. I know, I was there. The attitude was Cimino shouldn’t have beat out the obviously anti-war COMING HOME, with the muddled politics of DEER HUNTER. The LA Times sent a ringer to spy on HG Prod problems and violations from the first shot. And it went like that until it was finished. The film is not quite a masterpiece but I love it dearly, and I told Cimino that when I ran into him shortly before he passed.
@@littlekingtrashmouth9219 I think Cimino was going for a "let's not spoon feed the audience approach" but even at that the film needs some story explanations such as how did Jim and Ella meet and begin their romance? Or why is Billy working for Canton? Or who exactly is the lady in the photo? Also Cimino wants us to be sympathetic with the immigrants but how can we do that when the only immigrant character we get to know is Ella? The rest of them all through the film behave like drunken hoons and we're never given any info on them. The big problem with the film is that Cimino takes it for granted that everybody knows all about the Johnson County War. The film definitely could have used a narrative of some kind explaining the Johnson County conflict.
@@nicholasjanke3476 Billy didn't work for Canton. They were both wealthy members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Billy didn't agree with Canton's plan to kill 125 people, but he didn't want to jeopardize his position in society by going against the Association. When Jim asked, "What'll you do, Billy?", Billy responded, "I'm a victim of our class, James." Billy accompanied the Association's invasion of Johnson County, but he didn't participate in the fighting. He ended up being killed in the crossfire anyway. The lady in the photo is the woman Jim danced with during the Harvard graduation celebrations. She's also the woman on the boat at the end of the movie. It's left ambiguous in the movie, but my interpretation is that Jim kept the photo of him and the woman as a reminder of his youth, and he was reluctant to ask Ella to marry him because he was still attached to the woman in the photo. After Ella is killed, Jim gives up on being a lawman and he goes back east to resume a life of wealth and privilege. He's reunited with the woman from the photo, but the beautiful woman he used to idealize is spoiled and idle. The movie ends with Jim looking miserable. His youth, his ideals, and the people he cared about are gone and all his money and possessions can't replace them.
Yes I knew the lady in the photo was Jim's girlfriend from Harvard (they attended all that time in the same building, but they never met till the last day?) but it's not made clear as to whether she's now his wife (was the photo of them together a wedding photo?). I always figured that she was then Jim's wife whom he left back east for a time to serve in Johnson County (which is why he seemingly was unable to fully commit to Ella. He probably didn't exactly see himself as cheating, as during the 19th rich guys in America tended to view a marriage differently than today). In historical fact, Jim Averill was married with a son but he lost both of them to illness. Then he moved to Johnson County and opened a roadhouse diner, where he employed then subsequently romanced Ella Watson. He wasn't a marshall but he did really try to protect the immigrants from the rich cattlemen, he really did protest against their actions. And there was a close resemblance between him and Kris Kristofferson (I knew the Kristoffersons casually and I've met Kris Kristofferson in person. I once even suggested to one of the Kristofferson family members that Kris was the Reincarnation of Jim Averill! (the real Jim Averill-though not a marshall-had been in the military).
This is one of those examples of our modern thinking in which we have determined that if we simply declare 2 plus 2 equals 5 then, by golly, it is true. It reminds me of when I saw Eyes Wide Shut for the first time and found it to be magnificent even as I began to get this terrible headache and it got worse and worse until I realized that I was literally splitting my mind in two with the burden of having convinced myself Kubrick was a genius and therefore this work could only be amazing while being thoroughly convinced it was anything but..actually it was dreadful. And so is, sepia or nicely dusted off, Heaven’s Gate. And speaking of the sepia -what the hell? So Camino didn’t intend it to have that? Only Criterion could help him realize his true vision?? That’s ridiculous. It is a mess -and so was Deer Hunter in several ways actually. But what Deer Hunter had was also a good production team that held Cimino’s feet to the fire, great performers who hit the beats where they needed to be and, finally, a sharply outlined structure. Heaven’s Gate has nothing that is taut -it is all overdone, sloppily edited, over designed, over timed, and definitely overacted. It seems deliberately designed to challenge basic common sense-not unlike Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music..and maybe Lulu too ..and maybe Lou Reed himself..? Anyhow, nice Try and very entertaining but a turd is a turd no matter who laid it.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s an awful movie, and it just becomes so nauseating trying to see everything that was evil or poorly wrought from decades past suddenly get this new image and sheen because these empty vessel post modernists and film dorks think they’re saying something interesting or profound by trying to exonerate garbage.
Didn't see the film, and the snippets I see here make me feel it is as you described but I cannot judge what I have not seen. However, spot on with Lou Reed.: P
Absolute nonsense. It's a long film and it messes its pace up at points but the film's story is incredible, very relevant to the American experience, and has a gut-wrenching ending. Maybe you just got your own internal biases you gotta sus out. Best of luck!
Thanks for a couple of really excellent videos. I do have one small quibble though. Most of the clips you show from the movie seem to be from the recent "restoration" that strips the original sepia-tone that befogged the entire enterprise and contributed to people's difficulties in watching the film. In a significant way, the film that is available today is not the one originally released.
And he claims the restoration is Cimino's 'original vision' as if the sepia wasn't a choice he made. He had full control, the sepia was his fault and he apparently realised it was a mistake. So all the critics ragging on the film's presentation weren't being unfair at all, even Cimino agrees.
I subscribed on the strength of the first part of this video essay, and am quite happy to see part 2 up!! Looking forward to part 3 and other film essays.
Good job on re-evaluation of Heaven's Gate! Very misunderstood movie! Could you do a re-evaluation of another misunderstood movie, like Steven Spielberg's underrated 1979 film, 1941?
Pause at 7:19... The first time I watched Heavan's Gate, I too, was blown away, but with a difference. I grew up in an area where, with the super antenna on the roof, we got 3 channels. Not even PBS (which I blame for my odd social skills). When FOX debuted I worshipped at the alter of Tracey Ullman. Our first video rental didn't stock VHS but RCA discs in at the back of a gas station. However, cable finally arrived at my aunt's house and, I remember so vivdly, being glued to the TV-in-a-box watching The Deer Hunter. Fast forward another 15 years or so, and I caught a profile piece on Kris Kristofferson and his background and thought that we could be watching him rather than Clinton from the White House... and heard about Heavan's Gate. Loved Convoy, so... Somehow I managed to find a VHS of the original release, sepia and rollerskates and all, and sat in front of my slightly larger TV-in-a-box spellbound rather than tuning to the ever increasing "-gates". I haven't seen the Criterion release yet. Why am I rambling? The film was breathtakingly beautiful and so well scripted and acted that I never noticed noticed the pacing or wanted to take a break or was bored. (All in...I watched the 4-plus hour Gettysburgh in the theatre and couldn't believe it was over, either. And I have two unmarketable degrees and no one to ramble on at.) The highest praise that I can give on cinematography is wow, that's as good as Heaven's Gate. It was a master work then. I'm looking forward to watching the Criterion edition and comparing the two. Time to start the video again!
I literally watched part 1 like 2 days ago, glad I didn't have to wait long like other people for this video. I find this film and this story fascinating, so many different angles to explore about the whole thing. It shows how a career can be ruined and talent can be lost through just one bad experience. The worst part is that the film wasn't even bad in my opinion, but it didn't matter, the reception, largely influenced by critics at the time and misunderstandings in the filmmaking (the original sepia look wasn't even what cimino wanted, that was the dp's fault from what I know), was enough to bring it and it's filmmaker down. this tale also serves to show how the industry works in a lot of ways, studios that wanted to regain control used the sensationalism and hive mentality propeled by the media to regain power, was this film really responsible for the death the "author era"? Or would the studios eventually find a way of regaining control? They just wanted an excuse, and this film did it for them, an excuse good enough that everyone could get behind. Ultimately this story shows how everyone is on strings, the audience, the critics, the filmmakers. the industry and it's producers in the end won, as they usually do
It was bad and deserved to be excoriated given how many great movies could have been made with only a small portion of its massive budget. The characters are wafer thin and impossible to understand. The scenes with excessive extras fail to be narratively propulsive despite that being the obvious intent. The acting is almost invariably histrionic or overly subdued and the dialogue is uniformly horrendous . Certain characters seem to have no purpose whatsoever (John Hurts brilliance has never been more poorly harnessed). It has one of the most uninteresting love triangles in cinematic history because it never feels like Walken or Kristofferson have any real devotion or connection to this decidedly uninteresting harlot. Every scene filmed to convey a sense of genuine affection between these characters fails. The more they kiss and expose themselves to each other the more their lack of chemistry is manifest. The films sanguinary and grisly use of violence feels contrived and extremely superfluous in the most part. The carnage of the final 2 battle scenes are particularly tedious and wanting for any real poignancy. Some of the scenery is breathtaking and the production designers seemed to be talented but none of that sweeping landscape and camera wizardry gets filled in with anything like organic, tangible characters or intimate interchanges. There is no concretization of any of these characters hopes and aspirations. At most you get the occasional socialistic bromide. Everything seems to clumsily fall forward towards an ending that feels inexorably grueling (which itself eliminates any sense of excitement or dramatic thrust). It’s a truly awful film that cannot be reconciled with the laurels this yt content provider seems determined to present Camino for the sake of kitsch points.
I watched your documentary, both parts.:) I enjoyed it. Now, I'm settling in to watch "Heaven's Gate." Where can I find the 2012 restored version you say is now the definitive version to watch? What do I look for? Can this version be streamed?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've watched this film several times over the years and it still stinks to high heaven for several reasons. The character development is non-existent. High off of his Oscar wins for Deer Hunter, Cimino was completely full of himself when he made it and expected the audience to care about characters that he, himself didn't give a lick about. Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert had acting talent on par with a Junior High School production. Even actors with talent and that I enjoy, such as Chris Walken, Willem Dafoe, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Terry OQuin and John Hurt were given nothing to work with. The plot is threadbare to say the least. The script is terrible, with actors consistently trying to tell the audience how to feel, instead of showing why we should. Richard Masur was a notable offender and I cheered when the hired killers finally offed him. Holy crap he was irritating. Speaking of irritating, the immigrants are absolutely annoying on every level. And we're supposed to be rooting for them. Basically, Cimino pulled a Coppola and sacrificed everything for visual style - which makes the film very pretty to look at in some scenes, but impossible to sit through. So...masterpiece? Um, no. Only a masterpiece of miscalculations.
@@georgemorensteinit’s pretty highly rated among films snobs and country boys alike. It’s probably even top 3 fan favorites along with with Tombstone and Unforgiven.
I can't hate the film. First time I saw it was 5 years ago this month, on an old 35mm film print, and I did my paper on its critical reappraisal (along with Showgirls), and I concluded that it was because of the internet; more access to interact with people who like the same thing make you feel less alone and more vocal. You can equate this with the rise of conspiracy theories into the mainstream as well but the point is I know that Heaven's Gate (and Showgirls) gained its critical reappraisal because more people knew other people liked it, not just reading what was in local newspapers
From the time I saw Heaven's Gate movie, watching tv in Madrid 1985, I felt obsessed with the film. Over time I learned to play David Mansfield soundtrack with my guitar, mainly the "end credits" theme which I play very often. Thanks Michael. Thanks David.
It wouldn't surprise me if competing studios paid off critics to tank the film and bring down a rival since they probably knew the fate of the studio was dependent on the film's success.
No, the movie genuinely sucks. I guess garbage always gets a second life when pondered by wishful film nerds. But everything that the critic said about it back then still rings true. It’s indulgent, vapid and does a terrible job of fleshing out the motivations of every character. The amount of ambiguity is incredible. I watched it with a completely open mind and hated almost the entire thing. There are a few interesting scenes that perhaps could have been developed into a good movie, but they are scattered and all too few.
@@paulguseman6004 Fair enough. However, it’s hard for me to imagine that simply having more scenes is going to make this movie redeemable. There’s kind of a strange acceptance of the idea that if we could just find the longer version of something we would find the true masterpiece hidden beneath the layers of mishap. I mean what, for example, could ever begin to redeem that opening scene at Harvard? Everything about it screams that more editing was required not less…and I mean a lot more. Maybe some of the character motivations could be revealed by restored footage, so if you see the longer film be sure to reply back to me here, so that I can become privy to any character enhancement contained therein. I would love to be wrong about this film, but something tells me I’m not.
Heaven's Gate (1980) is a Masterpiece! Great video... I am a Cinema Studies Professor... The critics killed Heaven's Gate because of its budget and they wanted to put the American Auteor's in their place. This gave us the 1980's of Filmmaking, which became the slick, empty, MTV generation of cinema. Michael Cimino was a visionary... He was an Artist... Not long for the evils of Hollywood.
I saw Heaven's Gate during the summer of 1981 at 16 years of age. I was the only person in the theater and fought temptation to leave. Not because it was horrible but because it was long and the theater was hot (Raleigh, NC). Two years later I arrived in LA and watched it on the Z Channel as the "Director's Cut". It was amazing and was the reason I worked and still work in the movie biz. This is a masterpiece that the critics weren't ready for and let their fear run their judgement.
The thing is the sepia tone really does ruin it. You are unfairly comparing what the critics saw to the new release. Just look at 'Once Upon A Time in America' and how studio cuts can ruin masterpieces. Roger Ebert put the Studio cut on his list of Worst Movies of the year, and the Directors Cut was on his Best Movies of the year. The studio heads pretty much killed Sergio Leone by ruining his movie, and it looks like they killed Cimino he is just still walking around not knowing it...
I never saw the movie, so I can't be sure, but it feels like discussing the movie is probably more entertaining than the movie itself. I am glad people have strong feelings about art and well-reasoned critiques, even if I might disagree with conclusions. I really appreciate the effort our narrator made. 10/10. good work my friend.
I laughed out loud during that ending where our three smiling heroes take their first steps home, and are shot up. Before that point I was interested in watching it based on those grand vistas, and costumes. But thanks for putting the ending in there, it has saved me 3.5 hours of my life.
Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" has finally restored with new cuts, new colors and new printing to give the film and the praise it truly deserves. Thanks to today's filmmakers like Emmy/Academy Award winners Kathryn Bigelow, Edward Zwick and Peter Weir. In those days, "Heaven's Gate" has now becoming an amazing film of all time, like many unrated cuts on such films as "Revenge," "True Romance" and "The Best Little in Texas" beginning in 2007 for both Sony/Lakeshore/RKO and Universal/EMI. "Heaven's Gate" was Oscar nominated for best art direction in 1982. Great cast, excellent writing/directing, gorgeous contributions all around!!!
It certainly looks better than the original release. I concede that 110%. However, beautiful to look at or not, it’s still an absolute disaster from a story and character perspective. The Harvard swing dancing scene has got to be one of the most annoying and pretentious things ever captured on 35 mm.
The first time I watched the film was a quite surreal experience. I was in college and in the middle of the exam season. My mind was packed with all the stuff I was expected to regugitate soon after, and I needed a break. Then the restored cut of the film came up on TV. And I watched every minute of it in awe. Somehow its entire disregard for a traditional narrative was what my mind needed at that point. I stared at minute after minute of hauntingly beautiful images that resonated inside me, while I laughed out loud at how Cimino refused to explain things through dialogue. By the end I was both exhilarated and spent. I couldn't believe such a unique film had caused all that trouble to the people behind it. I've refused to watch it again ever since, afraid it would produce a different effect on me.
It’s not misunderstood. It’s just not a good movie. Sure, some critics jumped at the chance to tear down a movie that went a year over schedule and 400% over budget, but that doesn’t vindicate it. It’s incredibly self-indulgent and meandering for the story it’s trying to tell, half the shots seem to run on at least 10 seconds too long, the 20-minute graduation scene could have been trimmed to 5 minutes without losing anything meaningful, Isabelle Huppert seemed wildly miscast and incapable of emoting, and the climactic battle scene was an incomprehensible mess.
You're really good at making these videos. I subscribed. Look forward to seeing more of your work. I agree the movie seems pretty good but I was watching the colorized version. I'm a sucker for old westerns.
It makes me so happy to see this film getting the recognition I always felt it deserved. First saw it in the early 2000’s and was obsessed with Bach’s book. The criterion restoration is exactly what this film needed to be discovered by later generations. I can’t recommend the criterion version enough. It’s absolutely wonderful.
You know that saying "If you have to explain why a joke is funny, it's not a good joke?" That's how I feel about HEAVEN'S GATE. Yes, it's a movie that has good things in it, but it feels like people always need to explain why it's good, usually going into detail about history and the context of the Johnson County War. The actual plot of the movie doesn't really stand on its own or grab the audience's attention if they go in cold.
I'll admit I haven't watched Heaven's Gate in full. It's just a fascinating film to read about. It's sad Hollywood drew the wrong conclusions from It's box office failure.
It's misunderstood for sure. Most bad press regarding this film aren't about the actual movie on the screen, but all the on-set, behind the scenes drama and money spent. Contemporary reappraisal shows the film as a beautiful work of art. It's a gritty, accurate portrayal of the REAL Old West. It was released at the wrong time when epic Westerns were out of fashion and big-budget popcorn movies were the "in" thing. If you watch the film you will see some of the best cinematography, haunting music, authentic costumes and honest performances.
the re release on Blu Ray has been a revelation , it is a film which in it's way is similar to the widescreen epic "The Big Trail" starring a young John Wayne in 1930.... it's scale, beauty and storytelling is something we will never see again and should cherish.
I just realized Sam Waterson (Jack McCoy of Law & Order) was a bigtime movie star. He even starred opposite Kathryn Hepburn in "The Glass Menagerie" which also starred Michael Moriarty (Ben Stone from L&O). These cats knew each other since 1973.
This is one of those cases where the behind the scenes story is more fascinating than the movie itself. People can go on and on about how good the movie looks and plead its case for all blood sweat and tears that went into it, Heaven's Gate is a bad film. It did not tell its narrative effectively and too far....far too long to get anywhere. Now I am someone who loves slow paced films if they are genuinely engaging but the pace in Heaven's Gate feel like an affectation. It does not benefit from the pacing and scope as the story its telling doesn't seem to complement it. Yes it has some great moments but who cares? The film is the opposite of engaging and I greatly dislike this movie because of it. The Deer Hunter had some of the same problems and no I don't think that movie was great either. All that aside these videos are good and you really put a great amount of effort into them. keep it up.
When this film opened (briefly) in London, I didn't go to it knowing it had been truncated and was confident there would be an opportunity to see the full length version. Because the full length version was more kindly received in Europe, that opportunity eventually arose. What I saw was a flawed, rather murky film with dialogue sometimes drowned by poor sound balance, but a film that had me fascinated, and far from being the worst film ever made (I think, for example that "Ryan's Daughter" was worse). Now it's been cleaned up, the dialogue is far more comprehensible, far more of the money is on the screen, and it's looking more and more like one of the great founding stories of America, with it's violence, hypocrisy and yes, its solidarity too. Maybe that's what cost it at the beginning : the US was in no mood to see some of the harsh realities that had been perpetrated on home soil.
I think if Heaven's Gate was released a few years earlier, around the time of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, it would have fit in with other downbeat, disillusioning films of the 1970s. Instead it was released soon after the U.S. shifted to the right politically and Ronald Reagan was elected president. It was a bad time to release a movie that was critical of capitalism and inequality in America. I think part of the reason Heaven's Gate is better received now is because of frustrations with capitalism and inequality following the Great Recession.
We of the Internet have no business minding a long running time, if there are natural pauses here and there. We're now used to a "season" of a story with huge story arcs broken into "episodes" that are all written and shot simultaneously, and come to a conclusion at the last installment, often with little regard to another "season." We're free to sample one portion a week, or binge in one sitting.
God this film was boring. I don’t CARE about any of the immigrants or the main characters because the film doesn’t help me connect to them. And the villains are so cartoonishly evil I don’t find it “realistic” at all.
Those characters are really secondary in the story anyway...no one brings up the main characters and performances of Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken. I found their "love triangle" and characters compelling, especially Kristofferson's. Even with his privileged American background and education, he was a much happier man being sheriff of some poor, rough immigrant mountain town and being in love with a whore, then a miserable satisfied rich guy on a yacht with his trophy wife. There's the diatribe against "capitalism"
@@eargasm1072 That's all well and good, but the problem with the movie is simple. "The things one loves about life are the things that fade". Well if they fade, then why should I care? You haven't given me a reason to care about them if they're so fleeting and meaningless. If there's no point, why bother?
The people living in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s were so spoiled by the huge number of quality films available to them, that they could afford to nitpick at details that were often minor flaws in what were otherwise very well crafted stories. I say this with the sobering clarity of living through the 2020’s, where the creatively bankrupt Woke inquisition has turned a once vibrant storytelling medium of film into a veritable desert, where only the occasional oasis can be enjoyed and savored.
blaming diversity instead of the actual private equity capital that turned the industry risk-averse is missing the forest for the two-inch tall plants.
Oh please, I can’t believe you’re serious. I’m Mexican, bro. I hate the secular woke religion. That’s exactly what it is. It’s Maoism with American characteristics. Do you have a point? Sure, there was a measurable decline in quality storytelling because of risk aversion by the investors. But if you believe that the intrusion of woke Marxists into all levels of Hollywood didn’t speed the bankruptcy of creativity, I’ve got an iceberg to sell you, buddy.
that is hilarious to read. if you lived in the 60's, 70's and 80's you would probably have called The Deer Hunter, Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon and many more "woke". Hollywood movies have always had a leftist political viewpoint (for better or worse). As the other commenter said it has nothing to do with the wokeness of movies, but movie studios only producing big superhero movies and known IP's as those movies are more reliable to make a profit. I would actually argue that there are more great movies being made to day, due to the the development of film tech having made filmmaking more accessible.
@nasirjones580 With all due respect, your response is so full of holes, I barely know where to begin. I can only assume you must be woke because you show the Leftist propensity to rewrite history for the sake of selling their sociopathic secular religion. Your assertion that classic films of the 70’s and 80’s were somehow “Leftist” is patently absurd. There is an ideological chasm between Liberal and Leftist which makes the two incompatible. Hollywood has historically had a Liberal slant, yes, but the Marxist (Leftist) element was always a fleeting minority. Liberals believe in freedom of speech, expression, religion, etc, etc. Leftists despise any and all forms independent thought. Woke didn’t exist in the way that it does today because Marxism was a fringe cult 40 and 50 years ago. Yes, that’s rights, Woke is Marxist. Or more specifically, Woke is Maoism with American characteristics. Today Marxism (in the form for the secular woke religion we call Woke) has spread like a cancer throughput the West. It hasn’t been grassroots growth the way so many brainwashed youths believe it has been, but astroturfed by segments of the elites who’ve repackaged Marxism and gradually shoved it down the throats of the unsuspecting masses. The idea that modern films are better - on the whole - is childishly hilarious. Why are they better? Because of CGI? You seem to have the wrong idea about what the medium of film is supposed to be at its core. You see, film isn’t any different from books, which in turn aren’t any different from the oldest form of storytelling, the oral tradition. Technology is only as good - only as useful - as the storyteller’s ability to tell a great story orally. In other words, would the story still be compelling if you stripped the story down to its most basic medium without the bells and whistles? For the vast majority of modern films, the answer is obviously no. My proof? Hollywood is dying a slow agonizing death because people no longer want to pay their hard earned dollars for Hollywood’s Marxist product. People - generally speaking - don’t want to be propagandized or programmed, they want to be entertained.
I first saw the film in around 2012. I was in college, hard at study in 1980, so I guess that is how I missed it. But I was fascinated by the film and its soundtrack. I bought copies of both. I watch "Heaven's Gate" periodically. One idea of why I think it wasn't liked in 1980, aside from the cipia error, is that it was somewhat anti-American, especially from the government conspiracy angle. Since the Vietnam War and its finale with Watergate and Nixon''s resignation, I think people had had enough of that sort of criticism and darkness for a while. Also, the public hadn't learned to watch long films yet. The film has flaws, but it makes it up in many other ways, enough to make me watch it about three times a year. I play the film score on my harmonicas and have found some real interesting musical departures that way.
Speaking of Cajuns the most unusual American experience I've ever had was when I spent a week in Lafayette Louisiana. When you drive just 20 minutes out of town into the smaller tiny communities people that were born and raised right in those little town DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH! They speak Cajun Creole which basically French spoken with a deep southern accent. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had no idea that there was part of Continental United States that the native people spoke a form of French. Somebody should make a movie about these people because I feel this fact is something every American should know about.
Cimino was a true artist…he just had to confront stupid audience, producers, and nincompoop critics. Besides, the big studios, the art mafias, left no effort to debase the film. Thanks a zillion for making this video. We need more.
A priceless story, part 1 and part 2... regarding the journey Cimino made, career wise, I would quip it with an adage from Ernst Jünger's Afrikanische Spiele (1936): "You experience everything and its counterpart."
The word "unqualified" in unqualified disaster means the disaster isn't qualified by time (as in the worst disaster this year) or qualified by nation (as in the worst American disaster) or qualified by genre (a disaster of a western film) or qualified in any other way (an Italian/American made disaster). There are no borders to it's disasterness (disasterhood?). You saw the new cleaned up version. The reviewers at that time didn't. End of controversy
It didn't deserve getting critically panned as it did. Its main problems are lacking a solid story and character development. The production values, cinematography, and location filming are fantastic. It also has numerous powerful action scenes. But without a good story all those points mean little.
Exactly. There’s no bite to the story so it ends up being an overly simplified social commentary with cartoonishly mean bad guys and a really unconvincing and a morally illiterate and uncompelling love triangle. The acting by all the supporting players is either hammy or forceless. It’s just commie pandering trying unsuccessfully to convey realism and engender sympathy. I guess that’s the real fatal flaw in Heaven’s Gate. I just don’t feel any real sense of tragedy for the plight of these people, because for all his efforts, Camino never really gives them any texture.
Yes to everything here. I finally watched the film a week ago, and was hooked immediately: the first set piece, the Harvard graduation. Who knows what other masterpieces Michael Cimino may have gifted the world, if not for the bit of spiteful blood sport that the critics engaged in.
The Harvard scenes are incredibly annoying. They don’t do anything to tell us about the characters and serve almost no functional purpose with regard to the actual narrative of the film. I don’t even understand what Camino is trying to say with that entire opening, except that he had a shit ton of money and he was going to spend it on a cast of thousands. The fact that I was able to keep watching the movie after that opening prologue is a real Testament to my patience quite honestly. What a miserable slog. This may not be the worst movie of all time but it’s probably got the worst opening I’ve ever seen.
I am fan of Michael Cimino's work when he did screenplays for Silent Running and Magnum Force. I remembered this documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession talked about Michael Cimino on Heaven's Gate and the banter from some of these so-called Film Critics made about the film. Jerry Harvey from Z Channel approached Cimino to ask if he had a Director's Cut. That pushed the envelope of having Director's Cut of films that are usually get ignored or being obscured
I watched this in the 80's and loved its slow, detailed examination of social realities of the USA and should be a lesson to Americans that the poisonous, toxic inequalities of class and privilege also travelled to the young USA from Europe and especially the UK. As a working class Brit the graduation scene made me want to puke since it became clear that the USA never stood a chance of ever being actually free.
This was an amazing film. Such a strange cinematic experience though, and you're right to compare it to 2001 which was likewise a very unusual watching experience. The critics were guilty of group think. Thanks for making this video.
There have been many films panned by critics that have done well and many films that critics love with failed. Ultimately what decides if a movie of good or not is the audience, if they discover it in theater or after. A production company went out of business because of this film, and it's nobodies cult classic. It's a bad film.
I saw this movie on one of those large RCA video disc machines for the first time in the spring of 1984. I could not fathom why it was panned. It had the raw sting of love lost, the grinding tyranny of class chauvinism, the rabid waist of war & the ruin of aging in the quiet rage & solitude of moral outrage. It was & is the American story. Maybe the critics shunned it because it cut to close the bone of our collective delusion & idolatry of who we are.
I'd prefer the widescreen edition on video in 1996 than anything else because Michael Cimino's Oscar nominated "Heaven's Gate" gives a lot more praise it deserves. Especially for today's cult stars/filmmakers such as Emmy/Oscar nominated actress Juliette Lewis and Emmy/Oscar winning filmmakers Ricki Lake, Curtis Hanson, Kathryn Bigelow, Edward Zwick & Peter Weir.
12:55 - it's really funny that people keep thinking critics don't know anything. They're practically the same as the internet people coz they're just... people. Films-flops like The Thing weren't just blasted by critics, it was by audiences TOO. Same with Heaven's Gate - audiences too were influenced by the negativity back then
Personally, watching the Director's Cut of the film, I enjoyed it WAY more than Mike C's previous classic THE DEER HUNTER. It was such a shame that it had to be cut down by the studio and bomb so hard back in the day - it puts SO MANY films of today (and Hollywood as a whole today) to shame! That we NEVER may get a vision like THIS again shows just how far we've fallen in terms of authentic cinematic quality! I can't help but feel that Hollywood was looking for a scapegoat in terms of film and director just to wrestle control of certain films away from their visionaries or get rid of those types of films and auteurs altogether, and settle for "stable" (read, rigid) marketability.
I watched this in the 80s, and the tv guy gave a brief history of its big budget and subsequent failure, while praising it and urging the viewer to watch. It was just the guy who announced the next program, not a host or film critic, so he must have been passionate about this---anyway, he really set the mood and I watched it; I was mostly impressed by how realistic the violence was, and by the end I FELT the journey, knew I'd just seen something great.
Am subscribed because you've made quality videos that made me think 🤔. Somewhat disagree with heaven's gate as a masterpiece, my main problem with the movie is it's length. Outside of the movie as a work of art, I found it excessive, wasteful, and full of sheer hubris. I loved the deer hunter, but after getting so many accolades I think cimino began huffing farts and thought he could do no wrong. I don't like producers telling film directors how to make art but so much money was lost for this movie. It saddens me to say this but sometimes you have to tell an artist no.
This two part video series on the making & reception of Heaven's Gate was very interesting & a great watch. I hope you continue to make more videos like this!
Not saying it's a bad film at all. Saying it was made dishonesty. Don't promise to shoot this for 7 million and not have any intention to do that. There's 5 other filmakers that didn't get their movies green lit because of this lie.
You deserve more views and subscribers. I have enjoyed this content and look forward to viewing this film for the first time this coming Friday. Please continue to produce this quality work!
The late Robin Wood's great book HOLLYWOOD FROM VIETNAM TO REAGAN. ...AND BEYOND was the first to recognize how bold HEAVEN'S GATE was and everyone should read that book. His chapter on it and DEER HUNTER are must reads!
Gonna stop right here and watch this before I finish your vid. I'm too curious. Just watched Deer Hunter for the 2nd time in 20 years, I think I ought see this entirely before more is spoiled. Seems friggin' awesome. Right up me alley.
Okay, there's a sort of knee jerk revisionism about Heaven's Gate that someone needs to put the brakes on -- and yes, of course, there have been countless movies where the Director's vision was tampered with or undermined by way of studio interference. Sure. But not Heaven's Gate. Cimino got pretty much everything he wanted. He got the money he wanted. He got the time he wanted. He cut the movie exactly the way he wanted. It was initially released exactly the way he wanted -- and it bombed. And he want to United Artists and asked them to pull the movie out of theaters so that he could recut it and re-edit it and shoot additional material (for still more millions of dollars) -- and the studio, in an unprecedented move -- agreed. They pulled the movie and Cimino reshot it, recut it -- and they re-released it. And it bombed again -- and took the whole studio down with it. But if United Artists is guilty of anything, it was guilty of acceding to the demands of a director who had become insanely obsessed with his own genius. He kept going wildly over budget and wildly over schedule and every time they tried to pull him back he threatened to take the movie to another studio -- and they blinked. And they paid and they let him go on shooting. The notion that the studio somehow "messed up" Cimino's masterpiece is bull. Likewise, the idea that there was some "original lost masterpiece" is also bull. Every version of Heaven's Gate was approved by Cimino. The original one that flopped and the revised one that flopped just as bad. The fact that he came back, decades later, and has now come out with yet another version -- well good for him. So did George Lucas. So did Francis Ford Coppola -- along with a new, improved story about how the studios f-ed up their original movies. The studio didn't demand that Heaven's Gate be released in sepia tone. No United Artists Executive would know sepia tone from a hole in the ground. That was Cimino and if, after fifty years, he's changed his miind - - well, good for him, but that's not the studio's fault. And yes, of course, in the end, it was Bach's fault and the studio's fault for caving in to a director who was wildly out of control -- but this is certainly not a story of the triumph of money-counting capitalists over Auteurs. Behind every great Hollywood movie of the seventies there was a studio who supported that movie and that director. But that needed a two-way street. It needed directors who not only had artistic vision but who were also financially responsible and understood that the ride would only last so long as their movies found an audience and were profitable. That's what destroyed by the irresponsibility of both Cimino and Bach.
Very interesting. Thought-provoking. Watched this just a few days after watching the Final Cut doc. On another movie, I am a fan of Ishtar, saw it when it came out, and could never understand the bad rap-- total dismissal-- it got, similar to HG. One thing the two movies have in common: the press latched on to the amount of money well before each film was released, as if that was important. I'd love to see your commentary on Ishtar, if you think it's worth it.
4:55 "Cimino's _true vision"_
No, the the initial theatrical cut was his "true vision" - with the soft focus, smeared lens, sepia filter, and dragged out, prolonged scenes. The altered edition release you're referencing here was an attempt to try and salvage the movie (and his own career and reputation) by *removing* his "true vision" so the audience could somewhat stand to watch it.
It's not like a studio boss came in and demanded Cimino put on that filter and use a smudged lens, and so he felt to remove all that to present his "true vision" - as you call it, afterwards. No, he had free reign, and chose all those negative qualities himself. *He* wanted all that in his movie.
The remake is therefore not - and cannot be - his "true vision".
I have been a movie buff for over 60 years, and I first saw "Heaven's Gate" when the edited-down, 149-minute version was released to theaters in the spring of 1981. What I most remember is how the unvarying sepia tone of the cinematography, along with all the dust, made it look so dull and drab. This visual style was deliberate, and was supposed to match the overall melancholy of the story it was telling, but it made the film seem that much longer and depressing.
So it may be worth mentioning that the restored 2012 version was not so much 'cleaned up and brightened', but more accurately digitally "colorized" -- with the brighter colors actually replacing the original's somber yellows and browns. I agree that it looks (and feels) much better this way; and I would only add that using this new version to claim it is an overlooked and underappreciated masterpiece does a disservice to those audience members and critics who were exposed to a completely different look when it was first shown.
That said, I much enjoyed the videos from New Perspective.
What Criterion did really made the movie far more watchable, even in its bloated form (the problem is too many scenes go on too long). It looks so beautiful now compared to before. And that is why we champion Film Restoration with the 3rd party labels.
I agree, that the sepia tone does imbue a heavy feeling of melancholy, but it is almost oppressively so. It is just not pleasant to look at, even if that was the initial intent of the art's intended expression. However, with the restored version, with the colourisation being overseen by Cimino himself, I feel as though that somber tone is achieved more accurately through the use of dust, in scenes like when Champion confronts Averill in the bar, and with the absence of saturation, devastatingly depicted at the end of the battle. When the once green field is turned to a muted and muddy yellow mess, with bodes strewn all about, it really nails the effect of what it was going for in spades. This is all, of course, my opinion, and I believe every opinion to be valid.
Nah. Critics are invariably conversative and middlebrow, especially in the US. They got it wrong, just as they have got many other films wrong over the years.
Prettier or not, the film is still overwhelmingly awful for any number of reasons. I couldn’t wait for it to end.
@@lamentate07
Most film critics are not conservative. That’s simply false. To use the moniker in reference to them marks you as either disingenuous or an ignoramus.
FWIW, The Deer Hunter could’ve used a big time edit too. The wedding scene goes on FOREVER.
I used to loan my vhs copy with a post it note with fast forwarding timestamps.
Right? I know Cimino wanted to show how innocent their lives were before Vietnam, but after a while I thought, "Do we really need to sit through a whole-ass Polish wedding and reception?"
i gotta agree. the deer hunter was my first all time fave movie but the film loving friends i convinced to watch it, liked or loved the movie but all of them said, damn the wedding part was ridiculously way too long.
wedding scene, good time to get snacks and pee
@@tmamone83 Polish here. What an extremely dumb ignoramus one has to be to consider this Ukrainian wedding ceremony to be ‘Polish’.
With all due highly respect to Ukrainian people and their customs themselves.
“While watching HEAVEN’S GATE, it was easy to see what to cut. But then I thought about what to keep, and my mind went blank.” - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker. “An epic vision isn’t worth much if you can’t tell a story.” - Village Voice.
I take offense to that last quote in particular. Some of my favorite movies have no spoken narrative whatsoever like Samsara, or were created with visual sequences in mind first, and then forced a story to work around them second like some of Nicolas Refn's films. These still play to the strengths of the visual medium. I would rather watch an epic vision, than watch a person sitting in a chair reading an epic story.
Kael’s comment is an utterance from someone who’s point of view is shaped by films that had become the archetypal language and bonded to the popular culture. Cimino wasn’t not only an auteur but a singular voice...an original. In fact, being misunderstood is often a sign that something truly honest and extraordinary is being expressed. Welles easily fits into that category since he suffered the same type of dejection and boycott from the industry after the debacle of the now celebrated ‘Citizen Kane’.
Pauline Karl was a horrible film critic. What a (and I don’t want to sound misogynistic) bitch!
@@connshawnery6489 Kane wasn't a debacle, it was Ambersons that finished him, alas. Also, after the success of The Deer Hunter, his hubris and arrogance whilst making this film made Strohiem seem reasonable, One of the reasons the '80s was poor was that there was no UA to back creative independents. One would also have to take in the fact that such a beautiful film was covered by such an ugly sepia.
@@bobbyjosson4663 Kane almost suffered a blocked release and backlash from William Randolph Hearst after details about the subject matter became known. By the time he made Ambersons, the studio did not afford him the same freedom and autonomy. The studio also recut the film without Welles involvement.
Heavens Gate, although beautiful to look at and a massive effort, was fraught with problems. The fact that he didn’t do ADR ever and if dialogue became inaudible, he just left it this way. The movie got away from him and suffered as a result.
Vincent Canby was definitely a bitter film critic, but you have to admit that his line about comparing Heaven’s Gate to a “forced four-hour walking tour of one’s own living room” is a funny as hell line.
But there are films more deserving of that line than Heaven’s Gate. Especially considering the film has some AMAZING sequences.
I want to see the person's living room that looks like Heaven's Gate.
"is a funny as hell line."
This demonstrates the point. He was more concerned with writing something pithy than actually addressing the film itself.
I'm sure anyone with half a brain, and honesty, could create a massive list of films that were both expensive, overblown, and far, far, far worse than Heaven's Gate, whether they were box office flops, or hits. Just as an example. The Phantom Menace (Star Wars, Chapter 1) made 1.1 billion dollars at the box office. I'd rather be locked in a room for a year with nothing else to watch but Heaven's Gate, than to sit through Phantom Menace again.
@@PhilAndersonOutside Meesa want to show yousa a great movie, okeyday!
The only other line that was funnier than the "walking tour" line was "It's like 'Gone With The Wind' - without the wind." That one cracks me up.
Cimino was such a talent. I only wish he had continued his style of film making on a grand scale. The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate- even the scenes that go on and on are in a way beautiful because the performances feel so real.
Such grandeur but the topics of both probably only a paragraph or page in a history book
Think about how many hundreds of small friendship groups went through what the boys in deer hunter went through or how many conflicts like that happened in the west
Year of the Dragon was also a fantastic movie
I don’t feel like any of the performances feel real. It’s strange that a film that was shooting for such a high degree of verisimilitude never really feels like anything but forced. Sam Waterston’s character is one of the most cartoonish bad guys I’ve ever seen in a movie. I mean Camino gives him absolutely no degree of complexity. It’s like you’re watching Dick dastardly from some Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It’s such a one note character and performance. As if people are that one-sided. I think it’s amazing that filmmakers could get away with making the good guys out to be these men of depth and feeling, while the bad guy is just this intractably psychotic, murderous goon who seems to have no ability to feel a shred of human remorse. Of all the bad things in this movie I think his character is the one that really makes it impossible to enjoy or take seriously.
@@MaximusWolfeto me, he almost felt like a one-dimensional 80's action movie villian, not too much depth, not really iconic, just there to be the bad guy
He almost felt like he didnt belong in the movie
“Unqualified disaster” doesn’t mean the movie is unqualified, it means he’s saying his use of the word disaster does not need any qualifiers, reservations or limitations, i.e. “It was a disaster, considering the expense.”
Am enjoying this reevaluation of "Heaven's Gate". I want to make that clear. I am 61 years old as of this writing, which means I was the ripe old age of 20 when this film was, uh, released - at least in New York anyways. And 41 years later I can still remember vividly all the controversy surrounding this movie. I was one of the 12 or so people who saw the cut version on opening day - and to my dismay found it to be just as awful as the critics said it was. It was 2 hours and 20 minutes - and it's THAT version that felt like 5 hours. It would be a few years later on cable that I would see the original version - and only liked it slightly better, but not much. Through the 41 years I would see the uncut version - get ready for this - eight times. The last time was in 2007 when the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, showed a restored 35mm print of the original version - and it would be the first time I would see that version projected on a big screen with the Dolby sound, the way it was intended to be seen. I don't know which blogger said it as it's been a long time since I read what he had to say, but he said it perfectly for me. I can't remember at what point in the movie, but there was this feeling you get that somewhere in all that footage was a good movie lurking in there. On the big screen some of those shots were absolutely breathtaking. But did it change my opinion? Nope. I STILL think this is one long boring pretentious movie. From the first shot, it seems like Cimino is off camera shouting "THIS IS A MASTERPIECE DAMMIT!!!!" The actors all say their lines as though they are about to say the most important dialogue in the history of the world. And how else is this movie a misfire? My late friend - who died in 2012 (he was older than me by the way), watched it at my house in 1985 or so. It's the scene where we are in Casper, Wyoming - you know, it starts out with the train, and it moves over to show the crowded sidewalks with a ton of pedestrians, and heavily congested roads stuffed with horses and buggies and such. My friend started laughing. I said "What did I miss?" He said, "You got to be kidding. There aren't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW." Okay, obviously I do not agree with your opinion of this movie. But am I glad you made this video? You're damn right. I'm actually glad this movie has it's admirers and there are defenders of this film. I'm also very glad that Michael Cimino was still with us when the restored version played at Cannes and he got that 12 minute standing ovation. I am comforted that he knew this movie which caused him so much hurt did in fact have a ton of admirers too. And here it is 41 years later - and here we are discussing it. Tells you something.
I would much appreciate a simple summary of the life of cimino after all this... .went mad
bankrupt had sex change drug addict lost family friends
.gained new friends was an ok person was narcissistic celeb who couldn't take failure ..took on too big a job and lost the plot ?
I hated this movie. I don’t think any really objective person likes this movie. This is pure film, geek reimagining for the sake of edginess. Heaven’s Gate was, and will forever be a complete disaster. It’s almost a master class on how not to develop sympathy, or any sense of involvement in a given character. The scene where they stand around arguing, whether or not to fight against the hired assassins is one of the most overacted and annoying segments in the history of big budget movie making. It feels so fake and so jumped up and there’s only one man you can really blame for that climate. Obviously I’m referring to Michael Cimino.
My girlfriend and I went to see this movie when it was first released. It was dreadful, but I told her to wait about twenty years and the self-styled intellectual liberal churls would start claiming that it was an unappreciated masterpiece. I was right.
@@MaximusWolfe Oh my. I just saw this comment. Sorry for the delay here. But are you referring to the - for lack of better way of labeling the scene - the "list reading" sequence? THAT is the segment of the movie that leaves me wanting to pull what's left of my hair out. You honestly think for that couple of seconds that Kristofferson is going to read all 125 names. Ugh.
@@nataliep.9047 And guess what? There were those arguing that very same argument when the movie came out - of course I wasn't one of them. But it was enough to lead me to believe that Cimino was wrong to pull the movie. He should have just let it play and let everybody argue about it. Maybe his career would not have been ruined if he had done that, but oh well. By all accounts, Cimino was his own worst enemy.
Great videos! I'm really enjoying your take on this.
One quibble, though: when someone refers to something as an "unqualified disaster" they actually mean "a disaster without any qualifying (i.e., mitigating) factors." In other words, Vincent Canby didn't think that any aspect of the film could be considered as positive. (Similarly, if someone refers to something as an "unqualified success," it means the subject was a complete success with no elements which can be gainsaid.)
Not defending what Canby wrote, just clearing up the language discrepancy.
I was going to say the same thing.
If we want to talk about "unqualified disaster", we could name a million better examples (PLEASE don't start naming any below).
Canby’s review was correct. This is still a terrible movie no matter how many TH-cam film dorks try to flip it around to make it out to be some kind of underappreciated magnum opus.
*Disclaimer* I hold no bitter resentment to film critics or to anyone who happens to not enjoy the films I do. I only reacted harshly towards Canby and Ebert in this video since that is the same treatment they gave Heaven's Gate. Everyone's opinion is, of course, valid. These just happen to be mine :^)
Thank you all for watching. I've been working on this almost every day since Part 1. With this video I'm trying something a little different from part 1. This video is more of an opinion piece rather than an objective retelling of facts. I hope its entertaining and you all like it, and can understand why I make the claims i do in the video. But like I said, these are my opinions on Heaven's Gate so take that as you will. I'm starting work on Part 3 already, and have also started production on a short film of my own. I have no clue when either will be done but we'll just say sometime in 2021 lol. Thank you all again for watching, and make sure to subscribe!!
I'm giving you two thumbs up for your two videos about Heaven's Gate. Really well done. I think people should use critics' opinions to compare them against their own, instead of just blindly believing that the critic's opinion is the 'correct' one.
You have a good outlook, NP, you’re amazing!
Very well done, well narrated, and interesting documentary. I believe that critics in the late 70s were a bit spoiled. They had a decade of great films and could not foresee how bad the movie industry would get. Heaven's Gate is not the Deer Hunter but it is not nearly as bad as the critics rated it at the time.
I really hope there is a part three someday.
@@terr777 I’m working on it, I promise 🙇🏻♂️. The last two years have been increasingly rough on me, which is why I haven’t posted in so long. Part 3 is in the works, but the first vid I should have done is about the movie “The Mist” (2007). It’s gonna be a long one. Sorry for being MIA for so long 😓
I think what the critic meant by "unqualified disaster" was that it was a disaster without qualifiers, or rather a "total disaster." Not that it was disqualified from anything (at 11:58). Great video, though. Loved part one enough to come back for more!
Technically at Cannes they were rewarding failure.
You realize you're reviewing a version of the film the critics never saw, yet you're slagging them off as though they dismissed the version you saw.
Right! I loved the first video but he lost me here when I realized that.
There's one factor that doesn't get mentioned much when it came to Heaven's Gate flopping at first. This film, in its uncut version, premiered just two weeks after Reagan was elected. Nobody was in the mood for anything dark about America's sins anymore. Had Heaven's Gate somehow made it to the original 1979 Christmas release it was aiming for, perhaps it would have been better received then.
The climate in 2012, with people more willing to confront our checkered past, was far more suitable for the movie. And certainly now.
I couldn't agree more. The theme of the film was political and the reaction to the film was an unqualified political hack job. The movie has found a more sympathetic audience in our time.
Spot on! The country was not in the mood for an anti-Western, and Canby was making a living off of panning films. That was an impossible combination. I'm not sure I'd agree with calling the film a "Masterpiece," and it's true that Heaven's Gate contributed to the swing towards money-makers, but that's a problem that comes up in all art forms and the survival of the artists that make them. The restored version is gorgeous to look at (minus that awful sepia filter), but it doesn't rank with other masterpieces that were made around the same time (Shining, for example), at least in my book.
@@pinksealproductions4360 In it's final form, I would not say it's a masterpiece either. But it seems to get better each time I watch it. I do need to revisit the 1981 shorter version.
yes I think thats a good point! Heaven's Gate and Legend of the Lone Ranger-two really good westerns-both came out at the wrong time. 1. First of of all westerns weren't as popular as they had been decades earlier. 2. Nobody wanted to see westerns that showed dark sides of american history-antiwesterns. Both films suffered from just not being the kind of westerns that western fans wanted top see.
Point taken
Great 2nd part! I’m thinking about reviewing the soundtracks for The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate. Keep up the great work.
I have a theory that Ebert was a studio plant. He would sometimes give these super suspicious reviews that would have a ripple effect (given that he and Siskel were for DECADES the voice of film criticism for the general populous) that would severely damage and sometimes destroy the careers of people who the studios were already unhappy with.
It is so so obvious that the studios wanted to make Cimino a scapegoat and wanted to switch to the producer-run blockbuster system we have today.
They were untalented hacks who had no business being in such a lofty position as "critics" of course they were controlled.
@@hendo337 agreed. Just look at how they slaughtered Vincent Gallo's career. If Gallo was European he'd be a celebrated director, but because he talked about the traumas of poverty and called Copola a predator (not an unfounded accusation, given his support of disgusting rapist Victor Salva), Ebert specifically made Gallo a warning to anyone willing to shake the Hollywood boat.
@@hendo337 Yo the uploader deleted my reply lol
Heaven's Gate is not a great film but has great artistry in it. I don't think that the critics didn't understand it but were put off by its length, it's murky looking original print and the under-developed characters. It is a film any film lover should definitely see, however.
Agree. However, it comes down to the writing-the characters, the story. Everybody’s mumbling like some mumblecore drama. Things that should be in the movie aren’t in there (Jim and Nate are friends? How so?) and there are things that look great (roller skating sequence), but how do they help tell the story? Also, we didn’t get to know any of the immigrants. Are some of them actually thieves and anarchists? Are there good immigrants and bad immigrants? Complexity of character and an ensemble cast can certainly be conveyed over 3 and a half hours, and might make for a richer story.
It looks pretty, but so can an art installation.
The critics were out to get Cimino from the start of production on HG. I know, I was there. The attitude was Cimino shouldn’t have beat out the obviously anti-war COMING HOME, with the muddled politics of DEER HUNTER. The LA Times sent a ringer to spy on HG Prod problems and violations from the first shot. And it went like that until it was finished. The film is not quite a masterpiece but I love it dearly, and I told Cimino that when I ran into him shortly before he passed.
@@littlekingtrashmouth9219 I think Cimino was going for a "let's not spoon feed the audience approach" but even at that the film needs some story explanations such as how did Jim and Ella meet and begin their romance? Or why is Billy working for Canton? Or who exactly is the lady in the photo? Also Cimino wants us to be sympathetic with the immigrants but how can we do that when the only immigrant character we get to know is Ella? The rest of them all through the film behave like drunken hoons and we're never given any info on them. The big problem with the film is that Cimino takes it for granted that everybody knows all about the Johnson County War. The film definitely could have used a narrative of some kind explaining the Johnson County conflict.
@@nicholasjanke3476 Billy didn't work for Canton. They were both wealthy members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Billy didn't agree with Canton's plan to kill 125 people, but he didn't want to jeopardize his position in society by going against the Association. When Jim asked, "What'll you do, Billy?", Billy responded, "I'm a victim of our class, James." Billy accompanied the Association's invasion of Johnson County, but he didn't participate in the fighting. He ended up being killed in the crossfire anyway.
The lady in the photo is the woman Jim danced with during the Harvard graduation celebrations. She's also the woman on the boat at the end of the movie. It's left ambiguous in the movie, but my interpretation is that Jim kept the photo of him and the woman as a reminder of his youth, and he was reluctant to ask Ella to marry him because he was still attached to the woman in the photo. After Ella is killed, Jim gives up on being a lawman and he goes back east to resume a life of wealth and privilege. He's reunited with the woman from the photo, but the beautiful woman he used to idealize is spoiled and idle. The movie ends with Jim looking miserable. His youth, his ideals, and the people he cared about are gone and all his money and possessions can't replace them.
Yes I knew the lady in the photo was Jim's girlfriend from Harvard (they attended all that time in the same building, but they never met till the last day?) but it's not made clear as to whether she's now his wife (was the photo of them together a wedding photo?). I always figured that she was then Jim's wife whom he left back east for a time to serve in Johnson County (which is why he seemingly was unable to fully commit to Ella. He probably didn't exactly see himself as cheating, as during the 19th rich guys in America tended to view a marriage differently than today). In historical fact, Jim Averill was married with a son but he lost both of them to illness. Then he moved to Johnson County and opened a roadhouse diner, where he employed then subsequently romanced Ella Watson. He wasn't a marshall but he did really try to protect the immigrants from the rich cattlemen, he really did protest against their actions. And there was a close resemblance between him and Kris Kristofferson (I knew the Kristoffersons casually and I've met Kris Kristofferson in person. I once even suggested to one of the Kristofferson family members that Kris was the Reincarnation of Jim Averill! (the real Jim Averill-though not a marshall-had been in the military).
This is one of those examples of our modern thinking in which we have determined that if we simply declare 2 plus 2 equals 5 then, by golly, it is true. It reminds me of when I saw Eyes Wide Shut for the first time and found it to be magnificent even as I began to get this terrible headache and it got worse and worse until I realized that I was literally splitting my mind in two with the burden of having convinced myself Kubrick was a genius and therefore this work could only be amazing while being thoroughly convinced it was anything but..actually it was dreadful. And so is, sepia or nicely dusted off, Heaven’s Gate. And speaking of the sepia -what the hell? So Camino didn’t intend it to have that? Only Criterion could help him realize his true vision?? That’s ridiculous. It is a mess -and so was Deer Hunter in several ways actually. But what Deer Hunter had was also a good production team that held Cimino’s feet to the fire, great performers who hit the beats where they needed to be and, finally, a sharply outlined structure. Heaven’s Gate has nothing that is taut -it is all overdone, sloppily edited, over designed, over timed, and definitely overacted. It seems deliberately designed to challenge basic common sense-not unlike Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music..and maybe Lulu too ..and maybe Lou Reed himself..? Anyhow, nice
Try and very entertaining but a turd is a turd no matter who laid it.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s an awful movie, and it just becomes so nauseating trying to see everything that was evil or poorly wrought from decades past suddenly get this new image and sheen because these empty vessel post modernists and film dorks think they’re saying something interesting or profound by trying to exonerate garbage.
Didn't see the film, and the snippets I see here make me feel it is as you described but I cannot judge what I have not seen. However, spot on with Lou Reed.: P
Absolute nonsense. It's a long film and it messes its pace up at points but the film's story is incredible, very relevant to the American experience, and has a gut-wrenching ending. Maybe you just got your own internal biases you gotta sus out. Best of luck!
I watched part 1 and was impressed by your essay, which led me to part 2. Thank you for letting me know I can definitely ignore your channel.
You never watched the restored version with added time
Thanks for a couple of really excellent videos.
I do have one small quibble though. Most of the clips you show from the movie seem to be from the recent "restoration" that strips the original sepia-tone that befogged the entire enterprise and contributed to people's difficulties in watching the film. In a significant way, the film that is available today is not the one originally released.
And he claims the restoration is Cimino's 'original vision' as if the sepia wasn't a choice he made. He had full control, the sepia was his fault and he apparently realised it was a mistake. So all the critics ragging on the film's presentation weren't being unfair at all, even Cimino agrees.
Your Chanel is great and both videos are awesome! It’s not even TH-cam video, it’s a full length documentary!
❤
I subscribed on the strength of the first part of this video essay, and am quite happy to see part 2 up!! Looking forward to part 3 and other film essays.
How do you find these essays please?
The Heaven's Gate score is just... some of the only music I've ever heard that truly takes me out of time and space
Some of the best discussion of any film I’ve seen on TH-cam. Fascinating stuff.
Good job on re-evaluation of Heaven's Gate! Very misunderstood movie! Could you do a re-evaluation of another misunderstood movie, like Steven Spielberg's underrated 1979 film, 1941?
Spielberg is unbeatabke at action, clueless at comedy. Short answer.
Pause at 7:19... The first time I watched Heavan's Gate, I too, was blown away, but with a difference.
I grew up in an area where, with the super antenna on the roof, we got 3 channels. Not even PBS (which I blame for my odd social skills). When FOX debuted I worshipped at the alter of Tracey Ullman. Our first video rental didn't stock VHS but RCA discs in at the back of a gas station. However, cable finally arrived at my aunt's house and, I remember so vivdly, being glued to the TV-in-a-box watching The Deer Hunter.
Fast forward another 15 years or so, and I caught a profile piece on Kris Kristofferson and his background and thought that we could be watching him rather than Clinton from the White House... and heard about Heavan's Gate. Loved Convoy, so...
Somehow I managed to find a VHS of the original release, sepia and rollerskates and all, and sat in front of my slightly larger TV-in-a-box spellbound rather than tuning to the ever increasing "-gates". I haven't seen the Criterion release yet. Why am I rambling? The film was breathtakingly beautiful and so well scripted and acted that I never noticed noticed the pacing or wanted to take a break or was bored. (All in...I watched the 4-plus hour Gettysburgh in the theatre and couldn't believe it was over, either. And I have two unmarketable degrees and no one to ramble on at.) The highest praise that I can give on cinematography is wow, that's as good as Heaven's Gate. It was a master work then. I'm looking forward to watching the Criterion edition and comparing the two.
Time to start the video again!
the critics were working with the studios to make sure no directors got it in his head to try this again.
I literally watched part 1 like 2 days ago, glad I didn't have to wait long like other people for this video. I find this film and this story fascinating, so many different angles to explore about the whole thing. It shows how a career can be ruined and talent can be lost through just one bad experience. The worst part is that the film wasn't even bad in my opinion, but it didn't matter, the reception, largely influenced by critics at the time and misunderstandings in the filmmaking (the original sepia look wasn't even what cimino wanted, that was the dp's fault from what I know), was enough to bring it and it's filmmaker down. this tale also serves to show how the industry works in a lot of ways, studios that wanted to regain control used the sensationalism and hive mentality propeled by the media to regain power, was this film really responsible for the death the "author era"? Or would the studios eventually find a way of regaining control? They just wanted an excuse, and this film did it for them, an excuse good enough that everyone could get behind. Ultimately this story shows how everyone is on strings, the audience, the critics, the filmmakers. the industry and it's producers in the end won, as they usually do
It was bad and deserved to be excoriated given how many great movies could have been made with only a small portion of its massive budget. The characters are wafer thin and impossible to understand. The scenes with excessive extras fail to be narratively propulsive despite that being the obvious intent. The acting is almost invariably histrionic or overly subdued and the dialogue is uniformly horrendous .
Certain characters seem to have no purpose whatsoever (John Hurts brilliance has never been more poorly harnessed). It has one of the most uninteresting love triangles in cinematic history because it never feels like Walken or Kristofferson have any real devotion or connection to this decidedly uninteresting harlot. Every scene filmed to convey a sense of genuine affection between these characters fails. The more they kiss and expose themselves to each other the more their lack of chemistry is manifest.
The films sanguinary and grisly use of violence feels contrived and extremely superfluous in the most part. The carnage of the final 2 battle scenes are particularly tedious and wanting for any real poignancy.
Some of the scenery is breathtaking and the production designers seemed to be talented but none of that sweeping landscape and camera wizardry gets filled in with anything like organic, tangible characters or intimate interchanges. There is no concretization of any of these characters hopes and aspirations. At most you get the occasional socialistic bromide. Everything seems to clumsily fall forward towards an ending that feels inexorably grueling (which itself eliminates any sense of excitement or dramatic thrust).
It’s a truly awful film that cannot be reconciled with the laurels this yt content provider seems determined to present Camino for the sake of kitsch points.
I watched your documentary, both parts.:) I enjoyed it. Now, I'm settling in to watch "Heaven's Gate." Where can I find the 2012 restored version you say is now the definitive version to watch? What do I look for? Can this version be streamed?
I've waited a long time for this video. Thanks for all the hard work I bet it will be worth the watch like part 1 was.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've watched this film several times over the years and it still stinks to high heaven for several reasons.
The character development is non-existent. High off of his Oscar wins for Deer Hunter, Cimino was completely full of himself when he made it and expected the audience to care about characters that he, himself didn't give a lick about.
Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert had acting talent on par with a Junior High School production.
Even actors with talent and that I enjoy, such as Chris Walken, Willem Dafoe, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Terry OQuin and John Hurt were given nothing to work with.
The plot is threadbare to say the least.
The script is terrible, with actors consistently trying to tell the audience how to feel, instead of showing why we should. Richard Masur was a notable offender and I cheered when the hired killers finally offed him. Holy crap he was irritating.
Speaking of irritating, the immigrants are absolutely annoying on every level. And we're supposed to be rooting for them.
Basically, Cimino pulled a Coppola and sacrificed everything for visual style - which makes the film very pretty to look at in some scenes, but impossible to sit through.
So...masterpiece? Um, no. Only a masterpiece of miscalculations.
Spot on.
'The Assassination of Jesse James' is the most underrated western I've ever seen.
@@georgemorensteinit’s pretty highly rated among films snobs and country boys alike. It’s probably even top 3 fan favorites along with with Tombstone and Unforgiven.
@@oophorror2251 That's good to know, seeing it didn't fare well at the box office. I might be an altered of film and not even know it.
Oops! Autere, not altered. Spell check.
I can't hate the film. First time I saw it was 5 years ago this month, on an old 35mm film print, and I did my paper on its critical reappraisal (along with Showgirls), and I concluded that it was because of the internet; more access to interact with people who like the same thing make you feel less alone and more vocal. You can equate this with the rise of conspiracy theories into the mainstream as well but the point is I know that Heaven's Gate (and Showgirls) gained its critical reappraisal because more people knew other people liked it, not just reading what was in local newspapers
Showgirls is awful. Heaven’s Gate is only slightly better.
From the time I saw Heaven's Gate movie, watching tv in Madrid 1985, I felt obsessed with the film. Over time I learned to play David Mansfield soundtrack with my guitar, mainly the "end credits" theme which I play very often. Thanks Michael. Thanks David.
It wouldn't surprise me if competing studios paid off critics to tank the film and bring down a rival since they probably knew the fate of the studio was dependent on the film's success.
That's a great point.
No, the movie genuinely sucks. I guess garbage always gets a second life when pondered by wishful film nerds. But everything that the critic said about it back then still rings true. It’s indulgent, vapid and does a terrible job of fleshing out the motivations of every character. The amount of ambiguity is incredible. I watched it with a completely open mind and hated almost the entire thing. There are a few interesting scenes that perhaps could have been developed into a good movie, but they are scattered and all too few.
@@MaximusWolfe Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't realize you were the god of movie criticism...fuckin' troll...
@@MaximusWolfe Were you able to see the full 3 hour + cut? I've been kind of holding off until I can find it.
@@paulguseman6004
Fair enough. However, it’s hard for me to imagine that simply having more scenes is going to make this movie redeemable. There’s kind of a strange acceptance of the idea that if we could just find the longer version of something we would find the true masterpiece hidden beneath the layers of mishap. I mean what, for example, could ever begin to redeem that opening scene at Harvard? Everything about it screams that more editing was required not less…and I mean a lot more. Maybe some of the character motivations could be revealed by restored footage, so if you see the longer film be sure to reply back to me here, so that I can become privy to any character enhancement contained therein. I would love to be wrong about this film, but something tells me I’m not.
Heaven's Gate (1980) is a Masterpiece! Great video... I am a Cinema Studies Professor... The critics killed Heaven's Gate because of its budget and they wanted to put the American Auteor's in their place. This gave us the 1980's of Filmmaking, which became the slick, empty, MTV generation of cinema. Michael Cimino was a visionary... He was an Artist... Not long for the evils of Hollywood.
A movie so good they made a religion about it
No don't-
I saw Heaven's Gate during the summer of 1981 at 16 years of age. I was the only person in the theater and fought temptation to leave. Not because it was horrible but because it was long and the theater was hot (Raleigh, NC). Two years later I arrived in LA and watched it on the Z Channel as the "Director's Cut". It was amazing and was the reason I worked and still work in the movie biz. This is a masterpiece that the critics weren't ready for and let their fear run their judgement.
The thing is the sepia tone really does ruin it. You are unfairly comparing what the critics saw to the new release.
Just look at 'Once Upon A Time in America' and how studio cuts can ruin masterpieces. Roger Ebert put the Studio cut on his list of Worst Movies of the year, and the Directors Cut was on his Best Movies of the year. The studio heads pretty much killed Sergio Leone by ruining his movie, and it looks like they killed Cimino he is just still walking around not knowing it...
I was just thinking the same thing. I cant IMAGINE watching the movie through a sepia filter.
I never saw the movie, so I can't be sure, but it feels like discussing the movie is probably more entertaining than the movie itself. I am glad people have strong feelings about art and well-reasoned critiques, even if I might disagree with conclusions. I really appreciate the effort our narrator made. 10/10. good work my friend.
I laughed out loud during that ending where our three smiling heroes take their first steps home, and are shot up. Before that point I was interested in watching it based on those grand vistas, and costumes. But thanks for putting the ending in there, it has saved me 3.5 hours of my life.
Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" has finally restored with new cuts, new colors and new printing to give the film and the praise it truly deserves.
Thanks to today's filmmakers like Emmy/Academy Award winners Kathryn Bigelow, Edward Zwick and Peter Weir. In those days, "Heaven's Gate"
has now becoming an amazing film of all time, like many unrated cuts on such films as "Revenge," "True Romance" and "The Best Little in Texas"
beginning in 2007 for both Sony/Lakeshore/RKO and Universal/EMI. "Heaven's Gate" was Oscar nominated for best art direction in 1982.
Great cast, excellent writing/directing, gorgeous contributions all around!!!
@Miguel Oniga Thanks!
It certainly looks better than the original release. I concede that 110%. However, beautiful to look at or not, it’s still an absolute disaster from a story and character perspective. The Harvard swing dancing scene has got to be one of the most annoying and pretentious things ever captured on 35 mm.
Excellent job. Read Final Cut, you’ll be rooting for the studio suits. Steven Bach’s book is as much an artistic achievement as the film.
The first time I watched the film was a quite surreal experience. I was in college and in the middle of the exam season. My mind was packed with all the stuff I was expected to regugitate soon after, and I needed a break. Then the restored cut of the film came up on TV. And I watched every minute of it in awe. Somehow its entire disregard for a traditional narrative was what my mind needed at that point. I stared at minute after minute of hauntingly beautiful images that resonated inside me, while I laughed out loud at how Cimino refused to explain things through dialogue. By the end I was both exhilarated and spent. I couldn't believe such a unique film had caused all that trouble to the people behind it. I've refused to watch it again ever since, afraid it would produce a different effect on me.
It’s not misunderstood. It’s just not a good movie. Sure, some critics jumped at the chance to tear down a movie that went a year over schedule and 400% over budget, but that doesn’t vindicate it. It’s incredibly self-indulgent and meandering for the story it’s trying to tell, half the shots seem to run on at least 10 seconds too long, the 20-minute graduation scene could have been trimmed to 5 minutes without losing anything meaningful, Isabelle Huppert seemed wildly miscast and incapable of emoting, and the climactic battle scene was an incomprehensible mess.
You're really good at making these videos. I subscribed. Look forward to seeing more of your work. I agree the movie seems pretty good but I was watching the colorized version. I'm a sucker for old westerns.
It makes me so happy to see this film getting the recognition I always felt it deserved. First saw it in the early 2000’s and was obsessed with Bach’s book. The criterion restoration is exactly what this film needed to be discovered by later generations. I can’t recommend the criterion version enough. It’s absolutely wonderful.
it not really getting any recognition, besides some youtube film nerds talking about it (i am one myself)
You know that saying "If you have to explain why a joke is funny, it's not a good joke?" That's how I feel about HEAVEN'S GATE.
Yes, it's a movie that has good things in it, but it feels like people always need to explain why it's good, usually going into detail about history and the context of the Johnson County War. The actual plot of the movie doesn't really stand on its own or grab the audience's attention if they go in cold.
ironic that your channel is called “new perspective” yet you plagiarized quite a bit from a critic’s essay without acknowledging it…
I'll admit I haven't watched Heaven's Gate in full. It's just a fascinating film to read about. It's sad Hollywood drew the wrong conclusions from It's box office failure.
It's misunderstood for sure. Most bad press regarding this film aren't about the actual movie on the screen, but all the on-set, behind the scenes drama and money spent. Contemporary reappraisal shows the film as a beautiful work of art. It's a gritty, accurate portrayal of the REAL Old West. It was released at the wrong time when epic Westerns were out of fashion and big-budget popcorn movies were the "in" thing. If you watch the film you will see some of the best cinematography, haunting music, authentic costumes and honest performances.
No, it’s a very poorly conceived and indulgent fiasco that you really have to try very hard to enjoy.
the re release on Blu Ray has been a revelation , it is a film which in it's way is similar to the widescreen epic "The Big Trail" starring a young John Wayne in 1930.... it's scale, beauty and storytelling is something we will never see again and should cherish.
I just realized Sam Waterson (Jack McCoy of Law & Order) was a bigtime movie star. He even starred opposite Kathryn Hepburn in "The Glass Menagerie" which also starred Michael Moriarty (Ben Stone from L&O). These cats knew each other since 1973.
This is one of those cases where the behind the scenes story is more fascinating than the movie itself. People can go on and on about how good the movie looks and plead its case for all blood sweat and tears that went into it, Heaven's Gate is a bad film. It did not tell its narrative effectively and too far....far too long to get anywhere. Now I am someone who loves slow paced films if they are genuinely engaging but the pace in Heaven's Gate feel like an affectation. It does not benefit from the pacing and scope as the story its telling doesn't seem to complement it. Yes it has some great moments but who cares? The film is the opposite of engaging and I greatly dislike this movie because of it. The Deer Hunter had some of the same problems and no I don't think that movie was great either. All that aside these videos are good and you really put a great amount of effort into them. keep it up.
When this film opened (briefly) in London, I didn't go to it knowing it had been truncated and was confident there would be an opportunity to see the full length version. Because the full length version was more kindly received in Europe, that opportunity eventually arose. What I saw was a flawed, rather murky film with dialogue sometimes drowned by poor sound balance, but a film that had me fascinated, and far from being the worst film ever made (I think, for example that "Ryan's Daughter" was worse).
Now it's been cleaned up, the dialogue is far more comprehensible, far more of the money is on the screen, and it's looking more and more like one of the great founding stories of America, with it's violence, hypocrisy and yes, its solidarity too. Maybe that's what cost it at the beginning : the US was in no mood to see some of the harsh realities that had been perpetrated on home soil.
I think if Heaven's Gate was released a few years earlier, around the time of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, it would have fit in with other downbeat, disillusioning films of the 1970s. Instead it was released soon after the U.S. shifted to the right politically and Ronald Reagan was elected president. It was a bad time to release a movie that was critical of capitalism and inequality in America. I think part of the reason Heaven's Gate is better received now is because of frustrations with capitalism and inequality following the Great Recession.
We of the Internet have no business minding a long running time, if there are natural pauses here and there. We're now used to a "season" of a story with huge story arcs broken into "episodes" that are all written and shot simultaneously, and come to a conclusion at the last installment, often with little regard to another "season." We're free to sample one portion a week, or binge in one sitting.
God this film was boring. I don’t CARE about any of the immigrants or the main characters because the film doesn’t help me connect to them. And the villains are so cartoonishly evil I don’t find it “realistic” at all.
Yeah. It takes a lot more than great cinematography for a movie to be a great film.
Those characters are really secondary in the story anyway...no one brings up the main characters and performances of Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken. I found their "love triangle" and characters compelling, especially Kristofferson's. Even with his privileged American background and education, he was a much happier man being sheriff of some poor, rough immigrant mountain town and being in love with a whore, then a miserable satisfied rich guy on a yacht with his trophy wife. There's the diatribe against "capitalism"
@@eargasm1072 That's all well and good, but the problem with the movie is simple. "The things one loves about life are the things that fade". Well if they fade, then why should I care? You haven't given me a reason to care about them if they're so fleeting and meaningless. If there's no point, why bother?
The people living in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s were so spoiled by the huge number of quality films available to them, that they could afford to nitpick at details that were often minor flaws in what were otherwise very well crafted stories.
I say this with the sobering clarity of living through the 2020’s, where the creatively bankrupt Woke inquisition has turned a once vibrant storytelling medium of film into a veritable desert, where only the occasional oasis can be enjoyed and savored.
blaming diversity instead of the actual private equity capital that turned the industry risk-averse is missing the forest for the two-inch tall plants.
Oh please, I can’t believe you’re serious. I’m Mexican, bro. I hate the secular woke religion. That’s exactly what it is. It’s Maoism with American characteristics.
Do you have a point? Sure, there was a measurable decline in quality storytelling because of risk aversion by the investors.
But if you believe that the intrusion of woke Marxists into all levels of Hollywood didn’t speed the bankruptcy of creativity, I’ve got an iceberg to sell you, buddy.
that is hilarious to read. if you lived in the 60's, 70's and 80's you would probably have called The Deer Hunter, Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon and many more "woke". Hollywood movies have always had a leftist political viewpoint (for better or worse). As the other commenter said it has nothing to do with the wokeness of movies, but movie studios only producing big superhero movies and known IP's as those movies are more reliable to make a profit. I would actually argue that there are more great movies being made to day, due to the the development of film tech having made filmmaking more accessible.
@nasirjones580 With all due respect, your response is so full of holes, I barely know where to begin.
I can only assume you must be woke because you show the Leftist propensity to rewrite history for the sake of selling their sociopathic secular religion.
Your assertion that classic films of the 70’s and 80’s were somehow “Leftist” is patently absurd. There is an ideological chasm between Liberal and Leftist which makes the two incompatible.
Hollywood has historically had a Liberal slant, yes, but the Marxist (Leftist) element was always a fleeting minority.
Liberals believe in freedom of speech, expression, religion, etc, etc.
Leftists despise any and all forms independent thought.
Woke didn’t exist in the way that it does today because Marxism was a fringe cult 40 and 50 years ago.
Yes, that’s rights, Woke is Marxist. Or more specifically, Woke is Maoism with American characteristics.
Today Marxism (in the form for the secular woke religion we call Woke) has spread like a cancer throughput the West.
It hasn’t been grassroots growth the way so many brainwashed youths believe it has been, but astroturfed by segments of the elites who’ve repackaged Marxism and gradually shoved it down the throats of the unsuspecting masses.
The idea that modern films are better - on the whole - is childishly hilarious. Why are they better? Because of CGI?
You seem to have the wrong idea about what the medium of film is supposed to be at its core.
You see, film isn’t any different from books, which in turn aren’t any different from the oldest form of storytelling, the oral tradition.
Technology is only as good - only as useful - as the storyteller’s ability to tell a great story orally.
In other words, would the story still be compelling if you stripped the story down to its most basic medium without the bells and whistles?
For the vast majority of modern films, the answer is obviously no.
My proof? Hollywood is dying a slow agonizing death because people no longer want to pay their hard earned dollars for Hollywood’s Marxist product.
People - generally speaking - don’t want to be propagandized or programmed, they want to be entertained.
"Woke inquisition," lol. Breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes, Skippy.
I first saw the film in around 2012. I was in college, hard at study in 1980, so I guess that is how I missed it. But I was fascinated by the film and its soundtrack. I bought copies of both. I watch "Heaven's Gate" periodically. One idea of why I think it wasn't liked in 1980, aside from the cipia error, is that it was somewhat anti-American, especially from the government conspiracy angle. Since the Vietnam War and its finale with Watergate and Nixon''s resignation, I think people had had enough of that sort of criticism and darkness for a while. Also, the public hadn't learned to watch long films yet. The film has flaws, but it makes it up in many other ways, enough to make me watch it about three times a year. I play the film score on my harmonicas and have found some real interesting musical departures that way.
Speaking of Cajuns the most unusual American experience I've ever had was when I spent a week in Lafayette Louisiana. When you drive just 20 minutes out of town into the smaller tiny communities people that were born and raised right in those little town DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH! They speak Cajun Creole which basically French spoken with a deep southern accent. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had no idea that there was part of Continental United States that the native people spoke a form of French. Somebody should make a movie about these people because I feel this fact is something every American should know about.
Cimino was a true artist…he just had to confront stupid audience, producers, and nincompoop critics. Besides, the big studios, the art mafias, left no effort to debase the film. Thanks a zillion for making this video. We need more.
Even Ebert called in his review for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones "Deplorable". Which I've seen at least five times.
A priceless story, part 1 and part 2... regarding the journey Cimino made, career wise, I would quip it with an adage from Ernst Jünger's Afrikanische Spiele (1936): "You experience everything and its counterpart."
The word "unqualified" in unqualified disaster means the disaster isn't qualified by time (as in the worst disaster this year) or qualified by nation (as in the worst American disaster) or qualified by genre (a disaster of a western film) or qualified in any other way (an Italian/American made disaster). There are no borders to it's disasterness (disasterhood?).
You saw the new cleaned up version. The reviewers at that time didn't. End of controversy
Awesome perspective. Year of the Dragon. Excellent movie of his.
It didn't deserve getting critically panned as it did. Its main problems are lacking a solid story and character development.
The production values, cinematography, and location filming are fantastic. It also has numerous powerful action scenes. But without a good story all those points mean little.
Exactly. There’s no bite to the story so it ends up being an overly simplified social commentary with cartoonishly mean bad guys and a really unconvincing and a morally illiterate and uncompelling love triangle. The acting by all the supporting players is either hammy or forceless. It’s just commie pandering trying unsuccessfully to convey realism and engender sympathy. I guess that’s the real fatal flaw in Heaven’s Gate. I just don’t feel any real sense of tragedy for the plight of these people, because for all his efforts, Camino never really gives them any texture.
Yes to everything here. I finally watched the film a week ago, and was hooked immediately: the first set piece, the Harvard graduation. Who knows what other masterpieces Michael Cimino may have gifted the world, if not for the bit of spiteful blood sport that the critics engaged in.
He was an easy target having been so successful at the Oscar’s. I just wish they’d do that now to someone like Will Smith. Ruin that prick.
The Harvard scenes are incredibly annoying. They don’t do anything to tell us about the characters and serve almost no functional purpose with regard to the actual narrative of the film. I don’t even understand what Camino is trying to say with that entire opening, except that he had a shit ton of money and he was going to spend it on a cast of thousands. The fact that I was able to keep watching the movie after that opening prologue is a real Testament to my patience quite honestly. What a miserable slog. This may not be the worst movie of all time but it’s probably got the worst opening I’ve ever seen.
Patiently waiting part 3. I need to know what happened to the set pieces for this film!
I am fan of Michael Cimino's work when he did screenplays for Silent Running and Magnum Force. I remembered this documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession talked about Michael Cimino on Heaven's Gate and the banter from some of these so-called Film Critics made about the film. Jerry Harvey from Z Channel approached Cimino to ask if he had a Director's Cut. That pushed the envelope of having Director's Cut of films that are usually get ignored or being obscured
This whole documentary is the most underrated thing I've ever watched. Congrats!
I watched this in the 80's and loved its slow, detailed examination of social realities of the USA and should be a lesson to Americans that the poisonous, toxic inequalities of class and privilege also travelled to the young USA from Europe and especially the UK. As a working class Brit the graduation scene made me want to puke since it became clear that the USA never stood a chance of ever being actually free.
Great video. I gotta ask, are you bird person from Rick and Morty ?
Pheonix Person
There are striking similarities between the story of Heavens Gate and Once Upon A Time in America a few years later.
Heaven's Gate's big problem is that it's more of an european type of western, than the typical,cliched american western.
This was an amazing film. Such a strange cinematic experience though, and you're right to compare it to 2001 which was likewise a very unusual watching experience. The critics were guilty of group think. Thanks for making this video.
Yes, amazing. As in amazingly inept in almost every conceivable way.
There have been many films panned by critics that have done well and many films that critics love with failed. Ultimately what decides if a movie of good or not is the audience, if they discover it in theater or after. A production company went out of business because of this film, and it's nobodies cult classic. It's a bad film.
I saw this movie on one of those large RCA video disc machines for the first time in the spring of 1984. I could not fathom why it was panned. It had the raw sting of love lost, the grinding tyranny of class chauvinism, the rabid waist of war & the ruin of aging in the quiet rage & solitude of moral outrage. It was & is the American story. Maybe the critics shunned it because it cut to close the bone of our collective delusion & idolatry of who we are.
I'd prefer the widescreen edition on video in 1996 than anything else because Michael Cimino's Oscar nominated "Heaven's Gate"
gives a lot more praise it deserves. Especially for today's cult stars/filmmakers such as Emmy/Oscar nominated actress
Juliette Lewis and Emmy/Oscar winning filmmakers Ricki Lake, Curtis Hanson, Kathryn Bigelow, Edward Zwick & Peter Weir.
I like the film so much!
This Movie is not a Disaster, but say what you want, the Script is terrible written.
Michael Chimino is really Phil Spector! Now that's a plot twist
Great series - thank you legend... is part 3 coming?
12:55 - it's really funny that people keep thinking critics don't know anything. They're practically the same as the internet people coz they're just... people. Films-flops like The Thing weren't just blasted by critics, it was by audiences TOO. Same with Heaven's Gate - audiences too were influenced by the negativity back then
Personally, watching the Director's Cut of the film, I enjoyed it WAY more than Mike C's previous classic THE DEER HUNTER. It was such a shame that it had to be cut down by the studio and bomb so hard back in the day - it puts SO MANY films of today (and Hollywood as a whole today) to shame! That we NEVER may get a vision like THIS again shows just how far we've fallen in terms of authentic cinematic quality! I can't help but feel that Hollywood was looking for a scapegoat in terms of film and director just to wrestle control of certain films away from their visionaries or get rid of those types of films and auteurs altogether, and settle for "stable" (read, rigid) marketability.
You can't ignore the influence of Stroheim, Renoir and Visconti on this film...
I watched this in the 80s, and the tv guy gave a brief history of its big budget and subsequent failure, while praising it and urging the viewer to watch. It was just the guy who announced the next program, not a host or film critic, so he must have been passionate about this---anyway, he really set the mood and I watched it; I was mostly impressed by how realistic the violence was, and by the end I FELT the journey, knew I'd just seen something great.
keep up the great content king
Kind of a stretch, but I do see parallels with the video games industry. Diakatana as Heaven’s Gate with John Romero as Chamino.
Am subscribed because you've made quality videos that made me think 🤔. Somewhat disagree with heaven's gate as a masterpiece, my main problem with the movie is it's length. Outside of the movie as a work of art, I found it excessive, wasteful, and full of sheer hubris. I loved the deer hunter, but after getting so many accolades I think cimino began huffing farts and thought he could do no wrong. I don't like producers telling film directors how to make art but so much money was lost for this movie. It saddens me to say this but sometimes you have to tell an artist no.
This two part video series on the making & reception of Heaven's Gate was very interesting & a great watch.
I hope you continue to make more videos like this!
Not saying it's a bad film at all. Saying it was made dishonesty. Don't promise to shoot this for 7 million and not have any intention to do that. There's 5 other filmakers that didn't get their movies green lit because of this lie.
Holy shiet, amazing video! Hope you'll get many more subscribers and I'm really looking forward to the third one!
AMAZING NEW PERSPECTIVE!!
happy i found you
You deserve more views and subscribers. I have enjoyed this content and look forward to viewing this film for the first time this coming Friday. Please continue to produce this quality work!
The late Robin Wood's great book HOLLYWOOD FROM VIETNAM TO REAGAN. ...AND BEYOND was the first to recognize how bold HEAVEN'S GATE was and everyone should read that book. His chapter on it and DEER HUNTER are must reads!
Gonna stop right here and watch this before I finish your vid. I'm too curious. Just watched Deer Hunter for the 2nd time in 20 years, I think I ought see this entirely before more is spoiled. Seems friggin' awesome. Right up me alley.
John Hurt said that the intro scene (which was cut later on) cost more than the ENTIRE SHOOT of The Elephant Man
Okay, there's a sort of knee jerk revisionism about Heaven's Gate that someone needs to put the brakes on -- and yes, of course, there have been countless movies where the Director's vision was tampered with or undermined by way of studio interference. Sure.
But not Heaven's Gate. Cimino got pretty much everything he wanted. He got the money he wanted. He got the time he wanted. He cut the movie exactly the way he wanted. It was initially released exactly the way he wanted -- and it bombed.
And he want to United Artists and asked them to pull the movie out of theaters so that he could recut it and re-edit it and shoot additional material (for still more millions of dollars) -- and the studio, in an unprecedented move -- agreed.
They pulled the movie and Cimino reshot it, recut it -- and they re-released it.
And it bombed again -- and took the whole studio down with it.
But if United Artists is guilty of anything, it was guilty of acceding to the demands of a director who had become insanely obsessed with his own genius. He kept going wildly over budget and wildly over schedule and every time they tried to pull him back he threatened to take the movie to another studio -- and they blinked. And they paid and they let him go on shooting.
The notion that the studio somehow "messed up" Cimino's masterpiece is bull. Likewise, the idea that there was some "original lost masterpiece" is also bull.
Every version of Heaven's Gate was approved by Cimino. The original one that flopped and the revised one that flopped just as bad.
The fact that he came back, decades later, and has now come out with yet another version -- well good for him. So did George Lucas. So did Francis Ford Coppola -- along with a new, improved story about how the studios f-ed up their original movies.
The studio didn't demand that Heaven's Gate be released in sepia tone. No United Artists Executive would know sepia tone from a hole in the ground. That was Cimino and if, after fifty years, he's changed his miind - - well, good for him, but that's not the studio's fault.
And yes, of course, in the end, it was Bach's fault and the studio's fault for caving in to a director who was wildly out of control -- but this is certainly not a story of the triumph of money-counting capitalists over Auteurs.
Behind every great Hollywood movie of the seventies there was a studio who supported that movie and that director. But that needed a two-way street. It needed directors who not only had artistic vision but who were also financially responsible and understood that the ride would only last so long as their movies found an audience and were profitable.
That's what destroyed by the irresponsibility of both Cimino and Bach.
the death of Champion is basically the same of Sonny Corleone
Upon repeated viewing it is still a dreadful unmitigated disaster. Even worse than when I first saw it ..
I always thought that Mickey Rourke's death scene in the cabin in Heaven's Gate comes off as really silly.
Very interesting. Thought-provoking. Watched this just a few days after watching the Final Cut doc. On another movie, I am a fan of Ishtar, saw it when it came out, and could never understand the bad rap-- total dismissal-- it got, similar to HG. One thing the two movies have in common: the press latched on to the amount of money well before each film was released, as if that was important. I'd love to see your commentary on Ishtar, if you think it's worth it.
This is impressive stuff! Can't wait to see this channel blow the hell up