Heaven's Gate

Rating:
Summary: Quite Possibly the Most Maligned Picture Ever Made
Review: When self-appointed film experts talk about the worst movies of all time, Heaven's Gate invariably enters the conversation. Until the release of Ishtar, this depiction of the Johnson County War in the late 19th Century enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the biggest box office flop of all time. In my view, however, a box office flop doesn't necessarily denote a bad movie. A bad movie is one with low production values, bad effects, and/or muddled script, like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate. Heaven's Gate, though it may have been a box office flop, is actually a very good movie that got it's undeserved reputation due to director Michael Cimino's obsession with perfection. This resulted in multiple takes of scenes that most directors could have shot in one or two. Ultimately, the picture cost three or four times its original budget to make. Negative pre-release publicity from a reporter who managed to get into the film as an extra after Cimino refused to grant him an interview, and the critical shellacking that it received from the critics when released, conspired with the well reported cost overruns to doom Heaven's Gate before it was even out of the starting gate.

Personally, I like this movie. And while I appreciate Cimino's insistence on period authenticity in such things as trains, costuming and sets but I have a problem reconciling it to a script that takes such artistic liberties with recorded history. The real Jim Averill was a cattle ruster who along with his wife was hanged. He was not the noble sheriff with an Ivy League background as portrayed in the film by Kris Kristofferson. Nevertheless, Heaven's Gate is a superb motion picture in many respects. The cinematography by Villnos Zsigmond is nothing short of magnificent, and the acting performances are all good, especially those of Kristofferson, John Hurt, and Christopher Walken. Although many previous reviewers have criticized the sound quality, I found nothing wrong with it. I also didn't find the plot all that hard to follow, as others claim. Perhaps they expected the movie to give them a clue without any sort of thinking on their own. Of all the complaints that have been levelled against Heaven's Gate, the only one I think that has any merit to it is that the pacing is painfully slow. That said, I don't believe it distracts significantly from the enjoyment of the movie. Incidentally, have I mentioned that David Mansfield's score (sadly, not in print) is beautiful?

Sure, Heaven's Gate is considered to be a flop. But I would suggest to anyone reading this review that you watch it for yourself and decide. It's really not as bad a movie as others have led you to believe it is.

Rating:
Summary: Better than you've heard
Review: Heaven's Gate has been unfairly stigmatized by the circumstances of its creation. According to a documentary aired in a TRIO channel series called FLOPS, the film was done in by Michael Cimino's ambition to create a new "Gone with the Wind." What he created, however, was an exciting, ravishingly beautiful art film whose natural audience was much, much smaller than what the studio needed to recoup its expenses. Some reviewers say that the story was confusing, but I was able to follow it and was quite gripped by it, even though the pacing was slow and it did not spell out the plot details or give obvious clues for the audience in the usual way of Hollywood movies. I thought this was rather a compliment to my intelligence. Cimino's obsessive attention to detail -- the ultimate reason for the cost overruns that killed United Artists -- really paid off for this viewer, who loved the authenticity, the sense of being drawn back into another time (although Isabelle Huppert was too modern-looking for her role). The young Christopher Walken's tender and vulnerable character may be a surprise to those used to seeing him protray ghouls. I must point out that Kris Kristofferson's Harvard classmate is played by John Hurt (of "Elephant Man"), not William Hurt.

Rating:
Summary: As bad as they say it is
Review: One of the most expensive art-house movies I've ever seen. (Meaningful glance. Look out window wistfully - Seven minutes later.)
May have deserved another star for photography, but by the end of the film pouring blinding light in through slightly open doors and windows and underlighting the foreground, and then drenching it in a sepia-bath, got old. (Go to roller rink. Have derby hatted rollerskating boy with violin play a symphony or two while rabble pound and cheer. Have him go into bandbox. Cut to shot of Jeff Bridges vomiting. Exchange meaningful glances for five minutes. Have band play long dance tune so rabble can roller-dance. More meaningful glances. Finally have Isabelle and Kris dance in now empty building.)
HEAVEN'S GATE moves about as quickly as a gila monster with a gullet full of Seconal. Brutally bad, with too much dross and too little dramatic pacing. (Exchange one last long lingering glance and, unless you like train wrecks masquarading as movies, move on, pilgrim.)

Rating:
Summary: Notorious White Elephant But In Fact Rather Impressive
Review: This film presents a fictionalised version of the Johnson County War of 1892 when the Wyoming Stock Growers Association turned a small army of paid and armed thugs against the poor farmers of Johnson County. It begins some 20 years earlier with a brief sight of two of the characters, Jim Averill (Kristofferson) and Billy Irvine (Hurt) at their Harvard Commencement, happy, innocent young members of America's privileged class. The action then jumps 20 years to Wyoming and a lawless world where the fruits of their expensive education have little value but where Jim has come to be marshal of Johnson County while Billy, a ineffectually disaffected senior figure in the Stock Growers Association has degenerated into a coward and a drunk. Jim competes with Nathan Champion (Walken) for the affections of Ella Watson (Huppert) who runs the local brothel and worries about what to do when the Association come after the people they have placed on a 125-name-long death list.

This film was famous for its failure. Hugely overbudget it did poorly both critically and commercially and bankrupted United Artists. In fact it's a pretty good movie, pretty well as good as `The Deerhunter', Cimino's infinitely better received previous movie. Part of its poor reception may be due to its bleakness in the harsh spotlight it casts on an ugly episode in American history. Historically it's pretty loose. The characters are all real but their biographies hardly accurately presented; for starters, the historical Averill and Watson were both lynched in 1889 a good time before the main events shown here. The photography by Vilmos Zsigmond is astonishing; the direction often impressive; the acting consistently good, especially by the utterly mesmerising Isabelle Huppert as Ella. Anyone who has had the good fortune to spend any time at either or both of Oxford and Harvard universities will find something a bit surreal about the opening scenes where the former is called upon to do an impersonation of the latter - apart from both being relatively old they have almost nothing in common at the level of physical appearance. Such quibbles aside, this is a dark and unusualy Western, very well worth seeing.


Rating:
Summary: A Dream of A Movie
Review: Michael Cimino is a brave guy. In THE DEER HUNTER he leads with a forty-minute or so wedding scene. In HEAVEN'S GATE he includes several of these rambling scenes. I give him credit... he's the American Visconti, combining a documentary-like mise en scene with overt political ideology. The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece. Heaven's Gate is something less. Mr. Cimino missed the fastball right down the middle of the plate and ended up with a long fly ball, but at least it's interesting, and the sort of movie no Hollywood studio will ever make again. It has some gorgeous photography that and rates with DAYS OF HEAVEN.

There are a few things in the film that really have me scratching my head -

1) Christopher Walken wants to marry Isabelle Huppert. Don't you think he might mention that she's on a death list? I mean, don't you think it might come up at least once in a conversation that she should be watching her backside? Just ONCE?

2) Mr. Walken's house is being attacked by the fifty bounty hunters. Ms. Huppert rides in on a rescue attempt. Then the house is in flames. Where does Ms. Huppert go? SHE TOTALLY DISAPPEARS FROM THE SCENE. POOF! GONE! As if the footage was lost. THIS JUST DOESN'T MAKE ANY DRAMATIC SENSE WHATSOEVER! This is as strange as if Charlie Chaplin's reaction shot at the end of City Lights was edited out.
This is one of the most mystifying things I have ever seen.

3) The Coda. I watched this in almost complete disbelief. I figured after the Harvard prologue, Mr. Kristofferson was a bored, jaded rich guy who had headed out West sometime after 1870 and changed his life.

Now - WHAM! He's yachting off Kennepunkport like the Kennedys and living the tycoon life. What the blank? Okay, and then we see HER. The college girl. WHAT? You mean to tell me he was married to the college girl ALL THIS TIME and we didn't have a clue? As if maybe this is why he never proposed to Ms. Huppert? What was he telling his wife all these years? "Honey, I have to go out to Montana and marshal for a decade or so. I might be a few minutes late for dinner." What the blank?

Oh... okay... now on second thought I get it. Cimino did what Sergio Leone did! Just like half (or more) of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA is merely Robert De Niro's opium dream, Cimino one-upped Leone. So this is the way I see it: Kristofferson never left the east coast after graduation. He led the typical Harvard graduate-late 1800's monied existence. And he was bored. So on his yacht one day... as he stares off into the ocean... he daydreams. And the whole Montana story is merely a daydream. He envisions William Hurt's student nutcase become a bigger, drunker nutcase. And he fantasizes about the French hooker love interest because he's so bored with the college girl he married.

It's all just a daydream.

Sublime!


Rating:
Summary: Forget Roger Ebert's Dumb Opinion
Review: Okay, Rog, "poorly filmed", huh. It's shot among some of the most beautiful landscapes of our country for starters. Every freaking shot counts, as if it were a moving painting, the field of view is the canvas in every scene. Some of the shots are even filmed in a hazy yellow, perfect. What better way to portray a western sunset feeling then to make everything the color of the sunset? And it's not like it's out of place, not like if it were red or green or anything. It is just in the realm enough that it seems like it was just shot with old film. I can see why many people wouldn't like it in our day and age, though, especially if they are for the American government at this point, because it is the same crap that is happening. The rich hire the poor and weak to kill the poor and weak and on an even lower note, the main characters couldn't change their class as much as they wanted to. They just were who they were, who they were destined to be in a way. So many subjects are touched on throughout the film, it is surprising that so many critics missed them. This is a film made for a reader's mentality. A must see film.

Rating:
Summary: Not Worthy of It's Reputation
Review: I viewed "Heaven's Gate" with a sense of morbid curiousity. I was well aware of the film's notoriety as the film that brought down a studio, United Artists, and I wanted to see how bad or self-indulgent a mess it had to be. To my pleasant surprise, this is not a bad picture. The film is not without faults, such as it's overlength and an occassionally muddled script. Aside from that, it was an engaging picture and I definitely would not call it boring. It brought to mind, at least to me, Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" but without that film's flair or larger than life characters. The acting here was generally good, though John Hurt's character's presence here puzzled me(what's a besotted Brit doing in the middle of the wild west?). The technical attributes of this film were outstanding particular mention going to David Mansfield's terrific score and Vilmos Zsigmond's breathtaking cinematography. One should definitely view this film divorced from it's reputation and see it for what it is; a very good film.

Rating:
Summary: The film is a masterpiece but the dvd is a shame!!!
Review: Let me say the my "lonely star" goes to the bad dvd quality only. Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate is indeed a masterpiece! I bought it because my previous VHS tape was poor. I bought it also because I thought it was a 16/9 format. Unfortunately it is a LETTERBOX one. Be aware of that because the beauty of this film is once more comprimised. Another reason of disappointment: none of the many deleted scenes are available. MGM should think about making a new two-disc set, restoring the full lenght version and the quality of the picture, not to mention the audio. I love this movie so much that I would buy it again (even if I truly believe that MGM should give money back for this first "mess"!)

Rating:
Summary: Delusions of Grandeur
Review: Much has been written about the critical and commercial fiasco of "Heaven's Gate" (1980). Director Michael Cimino's misguided epic not only contributed to the downfall of United Artists, but almost single-handedly destroyed the Western genre. (Luckily, Clint Eastwood helped save the day with "Pale Rider" and "Unforgiven.") Perhaps a good film might have emerged from the Johnson County Wars. However, "Heaven's Gate" is an overlong mess -- with excessive subtitles, inexplicable nudity, and clouds of dust that obscure the climactic action. The film certainly has its defenders, but the finished product is a depressing waste of time, money and talent. What was Cimino thinking?

Rating:
Summary: The Spoiled Sensory Abilities
Review: I saw "Heaven's Gate" in the original 4 hr. version in a tiny theatre in Blacksburg, VA, shortly after it flew in and out of the mainstream. I was on vacation and this was a box of Godiva cocoa candy for me.It is a story within a story - the point that most people have overlooked. And it IS only a movie.The friendship between Kristofferson and Hurt lingers due to common bonds (i.e. money, background, societal mores of the times). Kristofferson sees the dichotomy of what is really happening and acts. After seeing Sam Waterson in that part I can't watch him even in a commercial.That's how powerful the characters are.Ella is an indication of what is to come for women, the right to vote. Independent, fierce, she creates a space that is the apex of the triangle with the two men.Nate dying in the burning cabin penning her a love letter in death is in direct contrast to his focused killing of the immigrants. This is a chromograph paen to a time that few today can truly understand. People want their movies in fast food bites with very little to do but nod their heads today sadly. This movie brings you straight into that time. Slower paced,more deadly than you can ever imagine, only the triumph of the human will survives. Yes, it is long. So is "Gone With The Wind". Art is not always popular nor truth. I fell in love with this movie having grown up in the West.Inaccuracies are inevitable in any retelling of a story.But "Heaven's Gate" shows the robber baron attitude in the latter part of the 19th century that was a preamble to an accepted form of behavior even to this day.And the score is available on CD."Heaven's Gate" is worth a watch. Along with the "Wild Bunch". And then you might understand how the West was really won.