Anyone ever see Heaven's Gate?

[underthecity]

It was the movie that bankrupted United Artists in 1980.

At its premiere, it was over three hours long.

Audiences hated hated it.

Cimino cut it down to two-and-a-half hours.

Audiences still hated it.

In the late 70s, successful directors had much more control over their films than the studios allow today (Heaven's Gate changed that), and Michael Cimino had won five Academy Awards for The Deer Hunter, so UA greenlighted his Heaven's Gate project. The cost overruns were rampant, and HG cost a fortune, much due to Cimino's building and rebuilding of elaborate sets, among other things.

And while it has since won a Golden Raspberry award for Worst Director, ironically it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction/Set Direction.

source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(film)).

Plus, weirdly with a title like Heaven's Gate, it's a western. Since it's a western, I would expect it to be called Rustler's Roundup or something. Apparently, this film was at the end of the western movie era, save for a few that came later.

I have no idea why I was thinking about Heaven's Gate recently. I looked it up on youtube and watched a couple of clips from the movie. One was a strange rollerskating scene with a bunch of townspeople at a dance hall set to music played by a old-timey string band. (I never even knew that rollerskates were around then! I wanted to shout "Anachronism!" but wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerskate) shows that rollerskates have been around for two centuries.) *

I used to read Mad Magazine, and they would refer sometimes to Heaven's Gate being a bomb, even satirizing it with "Heaving's Gate." I had no idea what it was then.

Anyway, I'm just curious, has anyone ever seen it? From the clips I saw on youtube, it looked like it had some great cinematography and camera work, but that's only a few minutes of film. What's the overall experience like? Is it as bad as they say? If so, what makes it so bad?

When I sign up for Netflix someday, I kind of want to see it.


*After watching the Final Cut documentary about Heaven's Gate, I learned that the whole rollerskating scene was historically factual.

[alleycat]

I watched it years ago. I can't say I remember it all that well, but I think the deal about it being a terrible, terrible movie was kind of piling on. Some of it seemed to be Cimino getting his "comeuppance".

Great movie? No.

Worst movie ever? No.

[roonil_wazlib]

Worse movie ever? No.

Yeah, that title is reserved for The Room (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room_%28film%29).

To be honest, though, when I saw the thread title, I thought about the cult and wondered what it was doing in this particular forum.

[MaryMumsy]

I've seen it a couple of times. Usually as background noise when I was doing something else. Not great, but not as bad as Ishtar.

MM

[underthecity]

I watched the Final Cut documentary about Heaven's Gate on youtube and learned quite a bit more about this film. About how Michael Cimino insisted upon absolute historical accurary in every shot. About how he wanted to make the first "epic western." About how there was no initial studio control, which allowed him to fall quickly behind on shooting. About how he would go through over fifty takes just to shoot one scene. About how he made the actors take rollerskating, lessons, waltzing lessons, shooting lessons. And on and on and on.

From what I've read, the movie's basic story is unappealing. As in other epic movies, there's a central character, a hero, that the audience roots for. In HG, nobody cares about any of the characters. Scenes go on for way too long, unnecessarily so, and overall the movie is boring.

At the same time, though, the cinematography is supposed to be amazing. From what I've seen on youtube, it looks like it.

This makes me curious to see this movie.

And they never show it on TV, from my experience, anyway.

[eyeblink]

I saw it in 70mm about twenty years ago and think it's a very good, if certainly overlong and flawed film. (And some of the soundtrack is badly mixed, which muffles some expository dialogue early on, when Kris Kristofferson arrives in town.) But some scenes have a huge impact and as visual spectacle it's hard to beat - Vilmos Zsigmond's camerawork is spectacular.

It's nowhere near the worst film ever made - Cimino's career never really recovered, but Heaven's Gate is better than The Sicilian and The Desperate Hours. And there are films which have lost far more money than this one did.

A film long overdue for re-evaluation - and as alleycat said, many people were ready to give Cimino his comeuppance.

See it on a big screen if you get a chance - and only in the full three and a half hour version. As far as I'm aware the full version is only available to cinemas in 70mm.

[ChristineR]

Yeah, I've seen it. It's decent, not awesome. The thing is, there are plenty of high-budget, overproduced movies that surpass it. That kind of thing is actually the norm, now. It's just that it was one of the first, and it didn't do well at the box office, but that was mostly because it was vilified long before it was finished.

Had things been a little different, it might have been that year's big hit, although it would still be only a so-so movie.

It's on DVD, any decently stocked rental outlet will have it for you.