Heaven's Gate

Rating:
Summary: It's As Terrible As Everybody Said On Release
Review: I never saw Heaven's Gate in the theatre having been forewarned by the universal panning it got by nearly every critic in the business. I later saw it in parts on it's first release to cable and, seeing it that way, a few segments at a time, especially the great showdown battle at the end, I thought " it's not that bad".

I recently got the DVD and watched it from beginning to end....all three plus interminable hours of it, and it took everything in me to stick it out to the end. Flat out...the movie stinks. It has moments of quality, hopelessly sunk by the tremendous weight of its lethargic and pointless hours of nothing much going on. Michael Cimino, a director I had begun to admire, seems to have fallen so in love with his "art" that he forgot how to make a movie. He stages huge scenes like the beginning episode in Harvard that take forever and go nowhere. He's not content to show an establishing shot of people dancing, he has to show them go around and around and around and around till you scream "for Godsake cut to something!" He repeats it again with a roller skating barn dance that goes on and on and on and on.....enough already, Michael, we know they're skating in a circle....tell us something!

There are great set pieces and beautiful scenery. A cast that anyone would want....and an atrocious soundtrack with wagons splashing through the mud drowning out dialogue. That might be "arty" but it sure as hell doesn't help move the story along. There is one pretty good fight between the settlers and cattle men at the end. Save yourself grief and skip the 3/4 of the movie prior to that and just watch it.

The rumors as to why this movie was such an incoherent mess were pretty widespread when it was released. I won't repeat them, but, if true, it would explain how this much money and talent could be wasted on such a sorry "epic". The 1 star is for the scenery and costumes.

Rating:
Summary: Scissors and earplugs, please!
Review: The actors were often great. The story line COULD have been compelling. The cinetography was lovely although at times too dark (literally!). But I kept on thinking "OK, *this* scene made its point 5 minutes ago, and it is WAY TOO LOUD to boot." I kept having to ask my husband to turn down the sound, because it became so irritating. I wanted to get into the story and the characters (and I'm quite OK with ambivalent, 'real' people who are good and bad and endearing and annoying all in one film) but I found that the neverending scenes drained my interest and drove me into the kitchen to do dishes. Could not the director have edited just a tiny bit and still preserved the complexity?! As for huge noisy crowd scenes - a little goes a LONG way.

We both liked Jeff Bridges the best.

Rating:
Summary: Surely one of the masterpieces of all time!
Review: If this film had been directed by DW Griffith or Stanley Kubrick, it would be recognized for what it is: a cinematic masterpiece, told with depth and subtlety and passion, a film with no equal in the visual realm. It is unremittingly stunning and also very brutal in its depiction of our great heritage of greed and annihilation. And of course, what the reviewers could not abide is it doesn't tell a simple narrative dick-and-jane tale like 99% of hollywood output. Its characters are complex and confused by their passions and thoughts, fears and emotions. They even appear to be thinking, something your average movie reviewers do not understand and cannot abide, so they destroyed it. See the original uncut wide-screen version. It is stunning.

Rating:
Summary: Heaven's Gate was Heaven Sent
Review: Even thought the critics panned the film, I though the film was visually stunning and the cast incredible. Due to studio pressure and bad time line editing the truly beautiful story was lost. Had the film been left it's original 4 1/2 hour length I believe that "Gone With The Wind" would have "Got Up And Left..." to make room for "Heaven's Gate"...

Rating:
Summary: ANARCHY IN THE U.S.
Review: How suicidal was Michaël Cimino's bet to believe that HEAVEN'S GATE, a western, an already dying Hollywood genre in 1976, without indians nor Clint, had the tiniest chance to score in the U.S. box-office ! How could he believe for a minute that the average audience would care for such anti-heroes as Ella, the prostitute, or a sherif without a star, during 219 minutes ! I couldn't refrain myself to think, while I was watching Brad Dourif's character throwing bombs towards the enemy camp as if he was a russian revolutionist, that Michaël Cimino was engaged in a desperate battle against the Hollywoodian establishment.

HEAVEN'S GATE is a great sick movie, the kind of movie that can move you a lot more than the hundreds of films you have swallowed last year. I love these movies but, nevertheless, I'm not afraid to admit that they are not masterpieces. HEAVEN'S GATE has moments of pure cinema but it also bored me during long minutes with endless scenes that didn't have the slightest interest.

So, if you're a curious movie lover, you surely already have this DVD in your library because, in a way, HEAVEN'S GATE is part of Movie History but if you're just looking for a good saturday night movie to rent, skip it.

Average sound and images and only a trailer as extra-feature.

A DVD for Christopher Walken.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Movie for Two Reasons...
Review: "Heaven's Gate" may be, in fact, the "biggest" movie flop of all time, it may be incredibly and dubiously self-indulgent, but if God would strike me down, it, in my opinion, is one of the greatest films ever made! Michael Cimino was probably known as the "ego-man" after this was made. This man rebuilt sets that were already sufficiently built, annoyed actors with taking about fifty takes to get right which wasn't already perfect, made a film without audience potential, edited it only down to just under four hours, but he put up with a lot of rappaport in his post-production, and he didn't let this get him down, even though his career never recovered. In my opinion, Michael Cimino is a man of courage because he has to live with a flop on his hands every day of his life. This is a beautiful film in numeroius aspects. Kris Kristofferson always hasn't had any acting talent but in thsi film, it can be said that he's found his niche. Personally, I would have liked if John Hurt's alcoholism would have been explored more and that tiny subplot might leave some people cold because it's never quite explained. David Mansfield's score is breathtaking, contrary to some opinions. Some people who I showed it to said that it reminded them of "The Godfather," another sprawling epic. This, undoubtedly, was a fdilm to take note of... and still is- it's a filmmakers' swan song. This film has a lot to be said of it- mainly because it is talked about my so many and seen by so little. The name itself has become synonymous with the word "flop." It's a lesson to filmmakers, a beautiful love story, sprawling epic value, and a little told story of a destroyed American Dream. It should be seen by anyone wanting to enter the business and should be seen before "Citizen Kane." People who talk of it as a flop probably won't be disappointed.

This film is Rated R for profanity, violence, nudity, and for Christopher Walken's coarpse. Ugh!

Daniel Kremer, film critic and filmmaker

Rating:
Summary: Great film that got bad reviews
Review: Heaven's Gate has always been my favorite Cimino film. Year of the Dragon with Mickey Rourke is second, and I guess I'd rate the Sicilian with Christoper Lambert as a tie for third with The Deer Hunter.

Since I grew up in the west and know the history maybe this meant more to me. It's hard to believe that the Bill Bixby film "The Wars of Johnson County" and "Heaven's Gate" are about the same subject, which in this case was the attempted slaughter of the farmers by the cattle people. The same type of feuds also occured betweend the sheepherders and the cattle barons.

The photography is stunning - there is more moving camera work than in most films, most to good effect. The camera becomes part of the scene and helps put you into it.

The film seems not to have a plot as it is be more like an historical record or documentary tracing Kris Kristoferson's character from Harvard, through the wars, and his later life than a typical film with a plot. It just sort of jumps to the ending with the woman was was shown in the window at Harvard being on his boat. It's almost as if Cimino needed another 1/2 or more of screen time to tie them together.

It's one of those films that gets better the second time through - as then it starts to make sense.

An interesting historical side note is that Johnson county was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had their 'Hole in the Wall Gang' while the town that was portrayed as "Casper Wyoming" with all the smoking buildings, was Wallace Idaho, where Butch Cassidy and Sundance robbed their very first bank. Wallace,where the whole city is on the National Historic Register, was the 'star' of last years film, Dante's Peak.

Rating:
Summary: Puzzling and Beautiful...
Review: It seems to me that Cimino was doing everything in his power to make the greatest Western ever committed to celluloid. "Heaven's Gate" is nowhere near as bad as critics have said. Likewise, it is nowhere near as good as it could've and should've been. It could very well have been the greatest Western of all-time, considering its scope and story. Huppert, Kristofferson, Bridges, Walken, Hurt and Brad Dourif all turn in spectacular performances. The cinematography is legendary as expected from a lenser like Zsigmond (who also shot what IS the greatest Western ever - "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"). Simply put: the soundtrack is sometimes unintelligible, the editing is sometimes too lenient, the script is (in places) far too hazy. I admire Cimino, but he is a far better director than screenwriter - he would have been wise to let another writer final draft his script. "Heaven's Gate" is a good movie, but it deserved to be unmatched.

Rating:
Summary: My all time favorite movie...
Review: Please see Bill Durham's review of this movie: I second everything he wrote. If you appreciate films that take time to develop and don't depend upon unnecessary banter to fill time, this is the film for you. It includes amazing and subtle performances by Huppert, Walken, Hurt, Waterston (who knew he could play a bad-guy so well?) and Kristofferson as well as a beautiful soundtrack and story lines that tackle everything from class struggle to love triangles to political and monetary greed. Needless to say, the cinematography is gorgeous (you can't expect anything less with Cimino directing). It does take time and requires that the viewer really pay attention, however. Final word; If this is not an American Classic, I don't know what is.

Rating:
Summary: More background info on the movie...
Review: Those interested in reading more about it, I have found 2 hard-to-get books covering the making of the film:

(1) Final Cut by Steven Bach in which the author, a studio exec who was later fired (or quit) details the whole bloody mess.

(2) Hollywood Hall of Shame by Harry and Michael Medved. The HG chapter in this book is fast, funny and unfortunately very accurate (although they reserve their biggest massacre for "Inchon.")

Anyway, the movie wasn't awful, but it did take quite a long time to tell a rather simple story. The performances were fine...but no one actor really delivers the knock-out character an audience needs to care about.