Heaven's Gate | | Cast : | Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken | | Director : | Michael Cimino | | Studio : | Mgm/Ua Studios | | Format : | Color, Widescreen, Closed-captioned | | Released Date : | November 19, 1980 | | DVD Released Date : | May 01, 2001 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 06, 2005 | | Summary | Slowest film ever made | Content
 | No amount of foul words can sum up my herculean hatred of this self-indulgent, lumbering, painfully slow movie. I have to sit hours because I wanted to write a really positive review of it after getting sick of the negative reviews but I can not bring myself to like it. It is a sadistic attack on the patience of the ordinary viewer. And I hate Jeff Bridges and his asinine looks.
This should be dubbed, Hell's Gate.
Stay away from this horrid movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 21, 2005 | | Summary | Lives up to its infamously (BAD) reputation | Content
| After 25 years, I finally decided to commit myself to watching the entire 4-hour epic that nearly brought United Artists down back in 1980.
For those who don't know the backstory, this film from Michael Cimino, who'd already scored Oscar success with THE DEER HUNTER in 1978, not only forced UA to merge with MGM to save their assess, but it also ended the independent, creative run that many new and young directors had enjoyed for the past decade. The decade "under the influence" which had began with films like EASY RIDER and BONNIE AND CLYDE, officially ended with HEAVEN'S GATE.
For it's few good points, the film has beautiful cinematography, good camera work and good performances from the cast. The story, however, is very weak and very, very slow (makes 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY look like an action film).
Other than a minor hit with YEAR OF THE DRAGON in 1985, poor Cimino's career never recovered from this bomb, and it looks like it never will. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 26, 2005 | | Summary | Understandably shreaded in 1980 | Content
| It's hard to believe that this November it will be 25 years since this movie made its, uh, mark on film history. And trust me, 25 years later I can remember like yesterday the whole controversy over that doomed project. In 1978, being a nieve movie-goer at age 18, was blown away by "The Deer Hunter" so much so that I would pay to see it 4 times in the movie theater. So NATURALLY I was eagerly awaiting Michael Cimino's follow-up project.
You can only imagine my surprise while on the way to school on that Thursday morning hearing on the radio that United Artists had cancelled Friday's opening of "Heaven's Gate" because of bad reviews. Huh? Pull a movie the day before it's suppose to open? And because of bad reviews? So what, I thought, lots of movies get bad reviews. As most of us old enough to remember know, these were not your ordinary set of bad reviews. They went way beyond saying the movie stunk. Why were the critics so nasty to this one particular film when there were obviously worse ones out there? For that, we will skip ahead four years to the time I rented the VHS tape for my friend - who was quite curious as to whether the movie was as bad as he had heard. And I might add, this still holds true in 2005:
Movie opens in 1870. A graduation ceremony is taking place at Harvard University, where we see a marching band, and several men running to no particular place with the greatest enthusiasm. My friend says the first indication: "My God. That's two minutes right there that could have been cut." Unfortunately, we're only 3 minutes into the film.
Now we skip to 1890, and we're now in Casper, Wyoming. The camera stays with Kris Kristofferson as he walks through the streets crowded with horses and buggies, plus seemingly endless supply of people on the sidewalk. Just then my friend starts to laugh. Huh? Did I miss something here? He says, "You got to be kidding. There ain't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW."
And there you have it. Amongst the historically inaccurate settings, inaudible dialogue, and can't-see action, lies a movie that is screaming "THIS IS A MASTERPIECE DAMMIT!!!" Starting with frame one, it's as though EVERY camera move and every line of dialogue is being fed to us as though we're suppose to think this is the most awe-inspiring movie experience we're EVER going to see. It shows with EVERY shot being filled with dust or smoke, and those artful pauses between each line of dialogue - provided you can actually hear what's being said, and the actors standing in such a way as to tell us that "you're going to hear the most important stuff ever muttered by an actor". Every ounce of this movie is so pretentious, I can totally understand why the critics went after it with the gusto in which they did. And through all my own not-nice things I have had to say about it, I do have much sympathy for Cimino, cause I truly believe he thought he was making a masterpiece that would stand the test of time.
But is the movie really THAT bad? I'm going to say no. In the grand scheme of things, worse films have and will continue to be made. And despite the pretentiousness of it all, there are certain camera shots that are breathtaking, and the photography - when it's not dusty - is true eye candy. But 25 years later, alls I can recommend is that you buy the movie, watch it with a group of friends, and discuss while watching the movie where the whole thing went wrong. Sorry, but 25 years later has not made me see this movie any differently - it's still an achingly dull misfire that sank United Artists and became a byword for "Big Budget Disaster". |
| Rating | | | Date | May 18, 2005 | | Summary | How Not to Make a Movie | Content
| You have to acknowledge Cimino's contribution to cinema. He gave us both the most over-rated film in history (The Deer Hunter) and the worst film in history (Heaven's Gate)- although I give it a second star for visuals. .
For 20+ years I listened to the critics and avoided "Heaven's Gate"-actually this was not hard because you are hardly bombarded with opportunities to view this film. Then a few days after seeing the 'Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate' documentary I stumbled on a used $9.99 DVD of the long version. My advice after 229 minutes is to seek out the most negative review ever written about this film (you will find a wide selection), and imagine that the reviewer is Cimino's devoted mother and that she is doing everything she can to put a positive slant on her dear son's movie. Then you will have an idea of just how big a mess Cimino made.
While pretty much everything is wrong with this film, what ultimately tips the scale to make it the worse ever (and a classic 'less than zero' example) is its shameless distortion of history. Although the cattlemen's association did send a group of regulators/gunmen to Johnson County and did have a list of targeted names, the actual facts of an interesting historical event are hopelessly exaggerated. On the morning of April 9, 1892, Nick Ray and Nate Champion were besieged and eventually killed by an army of about 50 cattlemen and Texas hired guns who had come to Johnson County to clean out "rustlers." The citizens of the county then besieged the regulators who finally were arrested (or rescued) by the Army. Women did not actively participate in the fighting and aside from Ray and Champion there were minimal casualties. After all, these were sieges not assaults-and there were not wagons of immigrants riding in circles around the encampment of regulations (early westerns to the contrary this was a film making device and not an actual tactic of the Indians). And weeks prior to the arrival of the regulators a number of Johnson County residents were hanged without trial including Jim Averell, the keeper of a modest road ranch, and his wife Ella Watson (who Cimino resurrects as his two leads and he even shows Averell living to a ripe old age).
There is no movie-making sin greater than fictionalizing history, if you are going to play fast and loose with historical facts, then change the names and locations to protect the unsuspecting audience members who might go away from a film believing what they saw actually happened. Fortunately so few people saw this film that the damage was minimal. Perhaps it is harsh to blame Cimino for his distortion of history. He could probably escape blame anyway with an insanity defense-the film provides plenty of support. If Cimino was insane during the production of Heaven's Gate it would explain a lot of things. But my vote goes to 'lack of directing talent' instead of insanity.
There are some good things about Heaven's Gate. You can actually see on the screen where some of the huge budget went; expensive sets-beautiful epic camera shots-artful dance sequences. Isabelle Huppert (a strange casting choice that actually worked) gives an agreeable and likable performance although most of her scenes are extremely boring (that tends to happen when the director forgets to give the viewer any reason to care about the characters). The dialogue is generally solid if rather ordinary.
But don't fall for the crap that this film experiments with storytelling by intermixing carefully crafted moments of character interaction with textured pageant-like explosions of communal action. This implies that there was a method to Cimino madness. 'Experiments' is another word for when a filmmaker gets so lost in his project that a coherent story is no longer possible. The simple fact is that there is no evidence Cimino storyboarded a single scene or made any attempt at control or organization. What it looks like is that he just turned his DP loose to stage action and to get an endless selection of colorful shots-1.5 million feet of loosely staged scenes. Then he tried (without success) to pare this down and fit everything together in post-production.
The final battle scene is genuinely hilarious as babushka wearing townswomen (perhaps borrowed from a 'Fiddler On The Roof' touring company) throw countless sticks of dynamite at the regulators. Unfortunately each explosive falls just short of the target and explodes harmlessly. After you see this happen 50-60 times you can relate to the woman (the one who looks like something out of 'The Grapes of Wrath') who puts a huge gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger. This is probably what Cimino's mother did after writing that review.
So believe what you have been hearing about this film since 1980. It is a sloppy, disconnected, poorly paced, and historically distorted mess. Of value only as a 'how not to make a film' example for film historians and as a source of amusement to those knowledgeable about the actual history of the American west. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 15, 2005 | | Summary | A Loss Of Innocence | Content
| There is just no beating around the bush when people mention Michael Cimino's 1980 film, "Heaven's Gate." You either love it or hate it...there is only black and white when discussing this film. Having just seen the reconstructed director's cut, I will follow that trend and state: "Heaven's Gate" is a superior film.
I first saw the butchered, approximately 2+ hours version in the theaters several years ago and had to agree that it was pretty bad: incoherent, of course... badly edited...in both sight and sound. At the time it reminded me of those badly made European productions in which every actor is speaking a different language and after the fact, the film is dubbed into Italian or French. The film was literally a mess.
In its glorious 3-½-hours+ state, though, "HG" is a pleasure to behold. It is a grand saga dealing with greed, the loss of innocence and how money corrupts...to name a few issues it tackles. It's scope is on the grand scale of such films as Luchino Visconti's "The Leopard," Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" and Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900." What makes these films special, thoughtful and important though is that they all tell their stories from the personal perspective of individuals: and "Heaven's Gate" does this as well...in the person of Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson).
The film is gorgeous to behold (Vilmos Zsigmond was the photographer) but one big scene bears mentioning: the scene shot in the huge dance hall (actually called Heaven's Gate) in which the entire town is in attendance, everyone roller-skating to fiddle music, several cameras swirling around with the crowd...so involving, so dynamic as to take your breath away. On the other side of the coin the scene with Ella (a young, fresh-faced Isabelle Huppert) and Nate Champion (a rouged and mascara'd, Christopher Walken) in Nate's digs couldn't be sweeter: innocent and personal...Nate brushing off bread crumbs and straightening Ella's place setting on the table, Ella, nervous and jittery...is unforgettable.
All of the acting is first-rate but Walken, I think steals the movie with his quirky portrayal of a somewhat fey, yet obnoxiously macho, Nate. In one particular scene, Nate senses that Jim is back in town and tells Ella: "I can feel when he is around." In another scene, Nate sneaks into Jim's room and watches a sleeping Jim with, for want of a better word, Desire in his eyes. Nate also picks up and rubs Jim's boot lovingly: interesting, distinctive stuff especially in the context of this great big, masculine film.
Isabelle Huppert is also a standout as a Madam, torn between her love for both Jim and Nate and as such is the catalyst for the jealousy and fire in the scenes between Walken and Kristofferson.
At the very least, this version of "Heaven's Gate" will stand the test of time as a personal and loving statement to a period in America when we began to lose our way and our innocence to boot. At the very most, this version will survive as a testament to how wrong a lot of people can be about a film's worth and importance. If you are a fan of American Films, you owe it to yourself to check out this beautiful, resonant, complex and resoundingly heartfelt movie.
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