In his last dramatic and interminable years, Michael Cimino spent his days in solitude rewatching old movies in the Bel-Air mansion he bought during his heyday. On the rare occasions that he ventured out, he drove a Rolls-Royce he acquired while making The Deer Hunter in 1978, his chauffeur having left long ago, as well as his success.
Even in those final moments, he did everything he could to show a winning image to Hollywood, a town that had ostracized him ever since the colossal Heaven’s Gate fiasco that had bankrupted United Artists during the early ’80s. He had a perpetually ironic, scornful smile, but he was the first to know how pointless, even miserable, that act was. The only thing he had left from his triumphant years was some money, and he would show up at the hangouts of movers and shakers like the Polo Lounge, where he often ended...
Even in those final moments, he did everything he could to show a winning image to Hollywood, a town that had ostracized him ever since the colossal Heaven’s Gate fiasco that had bankrupted United Artists during the early ’80s. He had a perpetually ironic, scornful smile, but he was the first to know how pointless, even miserable, that act was. The only thing he had left from his triumphant years was some money, and he would show up at the hangouts of movers and shakers like the Polo Lounge, where he often ended...
- 2/17/2024
- by Antonio Monda
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
‘In the Fade’ director is collaborating with Hamburg filmmaker Hark Bohm on the screenplay.
Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.
The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in March covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.
Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...
Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.
The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in March covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.
Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...
- 10/7/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
‘In the Fade’ director is collaborating with Hamburg filmmaker Hark Bohm on the screenplay.
Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.
The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in Maruch covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.
Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...
Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.
The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in Maruch covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.
Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...
- 10/7/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The origin of United Artists is well-known to any passingly devoted Hollywood history buff, and it can be found Tin Balio's book "United Artists, Volume 1, 1919 - 1950: The Company Built by the Stars." In 1918, Mary Pickford, Carlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith — four of the biggest celebrities of their time — felt something fishy was happening with each of their respective studio contracts. Each of their tenures was due to end soon, and none of them had yet received any offer of renewal. In order to find out what was happening, the quartet hired a private investigator (!) to look into what was going on. The P.I. found that the separate companies that each of them worked for planned on a giant merger, which would lock in standard five-year contracts.
The stars were not interested in such shenanigans and elected, instead, to simply form their own production company. As it was founded by artists,...
The stars were not interested in such shenanigans and elected, instead, to simply form their own production company. As it was founded by artists,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
In his first non-fiction book, literary-agent-turned-producer Charles Elton takes on a major topic: the first biography of “critically acclaimed then critically derided filmmaker Michael Cimino.” In “Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and The Price of a Vision,” Elton explores Cimino’s fraught legacy — including his two best known films, “The Deer Hunter” and “Heaven’s Gate” — and uses extensive interviews with Cimino’s peers, collaborators, enemies, and friends to explore and reevaluate a number of sprawling Hollywood myths.
In an excerpt below — available exclusively on IndieWire — Elton unpacks the real truth behind the persistent belief that Cimino’s epic (both in scale and in terms of financial failure) “Heaven’s Gate” led to the end of United Artists. The book is out today.
Michael Cimino’s epic Western, “Heaven’s Gate,” his first film since the Oscar-winning “The Deer Hunter,” was shown to the New York press on November 19, 1980. The next morning,...
In an excerpt below — available exclusively on IndieWire — Elton unpacks the real truth behind the persistent belief that Cimino’s epic (both in scale and in terms of financial failure) “Heaven’s Gate” led to the end of United Artists. The book is out today.
Michael Cimino’s epic Western, “Heaven’s Gate,” his first film since the Oscar-winning “The Deer Hunter,” was shown to the New York press on November 19, 1980. The next morning,...
- 3/29/2022
- by IndieWire Staff
- Indiewire
Shawn Ryan is adapting for television the 2020 novel The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk. The Shield creator revealed the project last night as part of a series of tweets about some the favorite books he read in 2020.
He listed The Night Agent in the category of “Books I read, Decided To Adapt For Television And May Have Already Finished Writing The Pilot Episode.”
I hear Ryan wrote the pilot script on spec at Sony Pictures TV where he is under an exclusive overall deal. The project is believed to be still in internal development and will be taken out in the new year. Ryan is executive producing via his MiddKid Productions, with the company’s Marney Hochman also expected to exec produce.
Published in October to strong reviews, Quirk’s The Night Agent has drawn comparisons to the early novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci. It centers on FBI...
He listed The Night Agent in the category of “Books I read, Decided To Adapt For Television And May Have Already Finished Writing The Pilot Episode.”
I hear Ryan wrote the pilot script on spec at Sony Pictures TV where he is under an exclusive overall deal. The project is believed to be still in internal development and will be taken out in the new year. Ryan is executive producing via his MiddKid Productions, with the company’s Marney Hochman also expected to exec produce.
Published in October to strong reviews, Quirk’s The Night Agent has drawn comparisons to the early novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci. It centers on FBI...
- 12/24/2020
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
Heading to a book party for screenwriter-novelist Tom Epperson’s latest, a South American journalistic thriller called Roberto To The Dark Tower Came, I got to wondering: Will there ever be another great Hollywood book? You know, the kind that makes you catch your breath, slap the beach chair, and gasp, “Did they really do that stuff?”
Mostly, they did—witness the photograph of Robert Towne lounging in the sand with his naked Amazons, as he did some sort of prep for Personal Best, in 1981. The snapshot is tucked in the middle of Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. Published in 1998, it was, for me, the last truly great movie business book. Biskind dished shovel-loads of gossip within a cultural arc, as he told how film greats like Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola and, of course, Towne, reached for...
Mostly, they did—witness the photograph of Robert Towne lounging in the sand with his naked Amazons, as he did some sort of prep for Personal Best, in 1981. The snapshot is tucked in the middle of Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. Published in 1998, it was, for me, the last truly great movie business book. Biskind dished shovel-loads of gossip within a cultural arc, as he told how film greats like Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola and, of course, Towne, reached for...
- 6/9/2018
- by Michael Cieply
- Deadline Film + TV
Welcome to almost-summer! That means it’s time to think summer reading. Fans of cinema will find plenty of recent gems to read here, along with some bonus novels, a visual feast for Beatles junkies, and a Blu-ray release of one of David Lynch’s most fascinatingly divisive films. Let’s start with a new look at films based on the work of the horror maestro of Bangor, Maine.
Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television by Simon Brown (University of Texas Press)
It is high time we had a serious examination of the many film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels. In Screening Stephen King, Simon Brown offers deep analysis of not just the obvious choices like Carrie but low-budget fare like Children of the Corn and The Mangler. Especially fascinating is his study of the several ABC-tv miniseries of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television by Simon Brown (University of Texas Press)
It is high time we had a serious examination of the many film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels. In Screening Stephen King, Simon Brown offers deep analysis of not just the obvious choices like Carrie but low-budget fare like Children of the Corn and The Mangler. Especially fascinating is his study of the several ABC-tv miniseries of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
- 5/23/2018
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
With the news of Michael Cimino death came many expressions of love for an oeuvre that hadn’t been well-regarded, at least on any large scale, since the late ’70s. For many, Cimino’s output — and, well, all of New Hollywood — ends with Heaven’s Gate, a financial and critical debacle so large that, by now, you’re likely to know the basic story, including the fact that its helmer, just recently crowned a studio system darling, was so battered as to never again achieve remotely the same levels of success.
Much of this was documented in Steven Bach‘s 1999 book Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate, which was made into a documentary that filtered all this information through the primary magic of movies: not having to read. Narrated by Willem Dafoe (who made a very early appearance in Heaven’s Gate — not that you...
Much of this was documented in Steven Bach‘s 1999 book Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate, which was made into a documentary that filtered all this information through the primary magic of movies: not having to read. Narrated by Willem Dafoe (who made a very early appearance in Heaven’s Gate — not that you...
- 7/6/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Cimino and star Kris Kristofferson on the set of the ill-fated production of "Heaven's Gate".
By Lee Pfeiffer
Michael Cimino, whose fast rise to royalty in Hollywood was matched only by the sudden demise of his career, has died at age 77. He was born in Long Island and entered the film business with his first success as the co-writer of the 1973 Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry sequel "Magnum Force". (He had previously written the screenplay for the sci-fi cult film "Silent Running" starring Bruce Dern.) Eastwood was suitably impressed and gave Cimino the opportunity to make his directorial debut with the buddy crime caper "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Released in 1974, the film was a hit and helped launch Jeff Bridges to stardom with the Oscar nomination he received. In 1978 Cimino released his ambitious Vietnam War epic "The Deer Hunter" starring Robert De Niro and newcomer Meryl Streep. The politics of the big...
By Lee Pfeiffer
Michael Cimino, whose fast rise to royalty in Hollywood was matched only by the sudden demise of his career, has died at age 77. He was born in Long Island and entered the film business with his first success as the co-writer of the 1973 Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry sequel "Magnum Force". (He had previously written the screenplay for the sci-fi cult film "Silent Running" starring Bruce Dern.) Eastwood was suitably impressed and gave Cimino the opportunity to make his directorial debut with the buddy crime caper "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Released in 1974, the film was a hit and helped launch Jeff Bridges to stardom with the Oscar nomination he received. In 1978 Cimino released his ambitious Vietnam War epic "The Deer Hunter" starring Robert De Niro and newcomer Meryl Streep. The politics of the big...
- 7/4/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
There are days where the Internet feels like the most ghoulish game of telephone ever, particularly when the word starts to spread that someone notable has died. Edgar Wright was the first one I saw mention the death of Michael Cimino this afternoon, quoting a Tweet by Cannes luminary Thierry Fremaux, who announced, “Michael Cimino died peacefully, surrounded by his family and these two women who loved him. We loved him also.” Without question, Cimino’s career was defined by one remarkable high and one remarkable low, and to some degree, his career is the perfect illustration of what happened as film culture moved from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, and part of what makes him such a fascinating figure is how questionable every “fact” about him was. Cimino was a mystery in many ways, and when he made his debut as a director with Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, he looked like...
- 7/3/2016
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
It had been a long time since I was in the same room with director Michael Cimino. My first job out of Nyu Cinema Studies was in the publicity department at United Artists in New York, where I witnessed the long delays on Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 1978 anti-war diatribe “The Deer Hunter,” the period western “Heaven’s Gate.”
The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’
“Heaven’s...
The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’
“Heaven’s...
- 7/2/2016
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
It had been a long time since I was in the same room with director Michael Cimino. My first job out of Nyu Cinema Studies was in the publicity department at United Artists in New York, where I witnessed the long delays on Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 1978 anti-war diatribe “The Deer Hunter,” the period western “Heaven’s Gate.”
The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’
“Heaven’s...
The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’
“Heaven’s...
- 7/2/2016
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
If there is a reliable truism that can coexist alongside the American film industry’s dance of death with economically insane budgets that now routinely soar north of $200 million, it is that (most) critics and potential ticket-buyers can be counted on to review bad buzz and publicized woes of dollars and production instead of the actual movie once it finally finds its way to a screen. And it may in fact be true that the drama behind the scenes often outstrips the quality of the wide-screen finished product, though certainly this is not always the case. The reception of big-budget box-office flops like John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Jupiter Ascending and Oliver Stone’s Alexander are but some late examples of our number-crunching obsession with pop culture minutiae and the fascination of a behemoth’s preordained fall. Most who trudged out to see any of these films during their theatrical...
- 5/28/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
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Should there be a 'ground zero' of knowledge for movie criticism? And what makes a critic effective at their job?
When I sat down to watch It Follows for the first time at the start of last year, I had no idea what I was getting. I'm increasingly an avoider of trailers, and try as much as possible to see films cold. It doesn't always work, but in the case of It Follows, it very much did.
As I’ve written before, the film had a very primal effect on me, in that it had me backing further and further into my seat, genuinely unnerved and more than a little scared by what was happening on screen. I hadn't felt like that watching a film for a long time, and my eventual write-up reflected that. Aside from the subtexts of the movie, which I, in truth, only came to later,...
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Should there be a 'ground zero' of knowledge for movie criticism? And what makes a critic effective at their job?
When I sat down to watch It Follows for the first time at the start of last year, I had no idea what I was getting. I'm increasingly an avoider of trailers, and try as much as possible to see films cold. It doesn't always work, but in the case of It Follows, it very much did.
As I’ve written before, the film had a very primal effect on me, in that it had me backing further and further into my seat, genuinely unnerved and more than a little scared by what was happening on screen. I hadn't felt like that watching a film for a long time, and my eventual write-up reflected that. Aside from the subtexts of the movie, which I, in truth, only came to later,...
- 4/17/2016
- Den of Geek
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Looking for good books about the movies to read? We've got a bumper selection of recommendations right here...
A confession. I actually started writing this article in 2013, and the reason you've only reading it now is that I've made sure I've read every book on this list, save for one or two where I've marked otherwise. As such, what you're getting is a very personal list of recommendations. Each of these books has at least something to it that I think is of interest to someone wanting to learn more about film - or just enjoy stories of movie making.
I've tended to avoid picture books, with one exception, as these ones I've chosen are all intended to be chock-full of words, to relax with at the end of a long day. Which is what I did. There are one or two notable omissions, as I'm still...
google+
Looking for good books about the movies to read? We've got a bumper selection of recommendations right here...
A confession. I actually started writing this article in 2013, and the reason you've only reading it now is that I've made sure I've read every book on this list, save for one or two where I've marked otherwise. As such, what you're getting is a very personal list of recommendations. Each of these books has at least something to it that I think is of interest to someone wanting to learn more about film - or just enjoy stories of movie making.
I've tended to avoid picture books, with one exception, as these ones I've chosen are all intended to be chock-full of words, to relax with at the end of a long day. Which is what I did. There are one or two notable omissions, as I'm still...
- 12/10/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
It has been a long time since I was in the same room with director Michael Cimino. My first job out of Nyu Cinema Studies was in the publicity department at United Artists in New York, where I witnessed the long delays on Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 1978 anti-war diatribe “The Deer Hunter,” the period western “Heaven’s Gate.” The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene—and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach's "Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of 'Heaven's Gate.' “Heaven’s...
- 8/12/2015
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Continued from this article
Part I. Denazifying Leni
After World War II, Leni Riefenstahl couldn’t escape the Fuhrer’s shadow. Arrested first by American, then French troops, her property and money seized, she endured interrogations about her ties to the regime. Riefenstahl argued she’d been coerced into making propaganda and wasn’t aware of Nazi atrocities. The image stuck: three denazification tribunals acquitted her (one cautiously branding her a “fellow traveler”), and Riefenstahl began the road to rehabilitation.
More diligent investigators challenged her self-portrait. In 1946, American journalist Budd Schulberg interviewed Riefenstahl for the Saturday Evening Post. Riefenstahl claimed she didn’t know about Nazi concentration camps. Later, asked why she made Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl claimed Joseph Goebbels threatened her with a concentration camp. Disgusted with Riefenstahl’s self-serving contradictions, Schulberg labeled her a “Nazi Pin-Up Girl.”
Then the German tabloid Revue published a damning article in...
Part I. Denazifying Leni
After World War II, Leni Riefenstahl couldn’t escape the Fuhrer’s shadow. Arrested first by American, then French troops, her property and money seized, she endured interrogations about her ties to the regime. Riefenstahl argued she’d been coerced into making propaganda and wasn’t aware of Nazi atrocities. The image stuck: three denazification tribunals acquitted her (one cautiously branding her a “fellow traveler”), and Riefenstahl began the road to rehabilitation.
More diligent investigators challenged her self-portrait. In 1946, American journalist Budd Schulberg interviewed Riefenstahl for the Saturday Evening Post. Riefenstahl claimed she didn’t know about Nazi concentration camps. Later, asked why she made Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl claimed Joseph Goebbels threatened her with a concentration camp. Disgusted with Riefenstahl’s self-serving contradictions, Schulberg labeled her a “Nazi Pin-Up Girl.”
Then the German tabloid Revue published a damning article in...
- 7/18/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Part I. A Filmmaker’s Apotheosis
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
- 7/8/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Aliya tackles Steven Bach's account of the making of 1980 epic Western Heaven's Gate in this month's non-fiction film book club...
When I think of big business in the United States at the end of the 1970s I think of something out of Dallas or Dynasty: deals being brokered over chunky telephones or long lunches; penthouse offices with granite desks and shag-pile carpets; male executives with heart conditions, bleeding ulcers, and good-looking secretaries. This is absolutely the world you step into when you read Final Cut. The first thing to say about the book is that feeling of glee you get from that realisation that your mental image of Hollywood at that time turns out to be true.
Steven Bach was the Senior Vice President of United Artists at the moment when Michael Cimino became the hottest director in Hollywood. His film The Deer Hunter (1978) was proclaimed a masterpiece by many and won five Oscars,...
When I think of big business in the United States at the end of the 1970s I think of something out of Dallas or Dynasty: deals being brokered over chunky telephones or long lunches; penthouse offices with granite desks and shag-pile carpets; male executives with heart conditions, bleeding ulcers, and good-looking secretaries. This is absolutely the world you step into when you read Final Cut. The first thing to say about the book is that feeling of glee you get from that realisation that your mental image of Hollywood at that time turns out to be true.
Steven Bach was the Senior Vice President of United Artists at the moment when Michael Cimino became the hottest director in Hollywood. His film The Deer Hunter (1978) was proclaimed a masterpiece by many and won five Oscars,...
- 11/17/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
This month's fiction book club choice is Cory Doctorow's politically themed Little Brother. Here's what Kaci made of it...
It's taken me a long time to write this review. In a way, I think this is the most difficult book I've reviewed yet. I find that particularly ironic, given that the book is written in undeniably immature prose, and yet the things it's talking about are incredibly mature.
I really want to hear from you all this month, because I believe that the perspective of non-Americans is going to be really interesting.
Security theatre has been a huge issue here in America since 9/11. I was 14 when it happened, and I'm 27 now. I've lived in a post-9/11 world for nearly half my life. I've never gotten on an airplane without a full-body scan or while carrying more than 3 ounces of liquid. It's hard for me to even remember a time...
It's taken me a long time to write this review. In a way, I think this is the most difficult book I've reviewed yet. I find that particularly ironic, given that the book is written in undeniably immature prose, and yet the things it's talking about are incredibly mature.
I really want to hear from you all this month, because I believe that the perspective of non-Americans is going to be really interesting.
Security theatre has been a huge issue here in America since 9/11. I was 14 when it happened, and I'm 27 now. I've lived in a post-9/11 world for nearly half my life. I've never gotten on an airplane without a full-body scan or while carrying more than 3 ounces of liquid. It's hard for me to even remember a time...
- 10/15/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Above: the new poster for Orson Welles' newly restored Othello, screening at the Film Forum. Occasioned by the restoration, Richard Brody writes on the film for The Front Row:
"Welles’s fundamental and lifelong story is that of a big man who gets his comeuppance. He himself was a big man who, in repeatedly filming his own downfall, displayed a kind of emotional masochism, a delight in his own humiliation, that he veritably trumpets in Othello. He films the entire play as a flashback, starting the movie with his own face in closeup: Othello, dead and being borne off for burial. The shock of self-destruction is matched only by the howl of self-pity, albeit a well-earned one—for Welles himself, soon after the world-historical artistic eruption of Citizen Kane, found his own strong and stubborn temperament fiercely countered by the plotters and the potentates of his field."
More on...
"Welles’s fundamental and lifelong story is that of a big man who gets his comeuppance. He himself was a big man who, in repeatedly filming his own downfall, displayed a kind of emotional masochism, a delight in his own humiliation, that he veritably trumpets in Othello. He films the entire play as a flashback, starting the movie with his own face in closeup: Othello, dead and being borne off for burial. The shock of self-destruction is matched only by the howl of self-pity, albeit a well-earned one—for Welles himself, soon after the world-historical artistic eruption of Citizen Kane, found his own strong and stubborn temperament fiercely countered by the plotters and the potentates of his field."
More on...
- 4/30/2014
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Top 10 Ryan Lambie 27 Mar 2014 - 05:42
We look back at one of the most infamous film productions in history. Here are 10 stories of excess from Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate...
In 1979, director Michael Cimino was at the height of his powers. Having just won five Oscars for his finely-honed, controversial Vietnam film The Deer Hunter, Cimino suddenly found himself in the enviable position of being able to make just about any project he wanted. The film he chose to pursue was based on the Johnson County War, a moment in 19th century American history where the conflict between settlers and wealthy landowners was at its height.
United Artists, with a reputation for fostering creativity and Oscar-winning films, eagerly agreed to make what would become Heaven's Gate, and set aside a generous budget of $11.6m to make it. Anxious to have the film in cinemas by the winter of 1979, making it legible...
We look back at one of the most infamous film productions in history. Here are 10 stories of excess from Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate...
In 1979, director Michael Cimino was at the height of his powers. Having just won five Oscars for his finely-honed, controversial Vietnam film The Deer Hunter, Cimino suddenly found himself in the enviable position of being able to make just about any project he wanted. The film he chose to pursue was based on the Johnson County War, a moment in 19th century American history where the conflict between settlers and wealthy landowners was at its height.
United Artists, with a reputation for fostering creativity and Oscar-winning films, eagerly agreed to make what would become Heaven's Gate, and set aside a generous budget of $11.6m to make it. Anxious to have the film in cinemas by the winter of 1979, making it legible...
- 3/26/2014
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
If Cleopatra signalled the demise of Hollywood epics, Heaven's Gate ended the reign of the all-powerful director. Should these films' reputations be rescued? And has the film industry lost its kamikaze tendency?
Sexual intercourse must have been invented earlier in New York than in Yorkshire because all that Robert Benton could think about in 1963 was movies. One movie in particular. But it was not Hollywood's current grandest offering, Cleopatra, which Joseph L Mankiewicz directed for 20th Century Fox, with Elizabeth Taylor in the leading role. Benton was thinking about another love story – another portrayal of a woman loved by two very different men. The director was François Truffaut. The star was Jeanne Moreau. Benton saw Jules et Jim 12 times after it was released in the Us, and his obsession was crucial to what happened next.
"You cannot see a movie that often without beginning to notice certain things about structure and form and character,...
Sexual intercourse must have been invented earlier in New York than in Yorkshire because all that Robert Benton could think about in 1963 was movies. One movie in particular. But it was not Hollywood's current grandest offering, Cleopatra, which Joseph L Mankiewicz directed for 20th Century Fox, with Elizabeth Taylor in the leading role. Benton was thinking about another love story – another portrayal of a woman loved by two very different men. The director was François Truffaut. The star was Jeanne Moreau. Benton saw Jules et Jim 12 times after it was released in the Us, and his obsession was crucial to what happened next.
"You cannot see a movie that often without beginning to notice certain things about structure and form and character,...
- 7/19/2013
- by Leo Robson
- The Guardian - Film News
Brad Pitt's star power helps his new film avoid disaster. So what does it take to make a genuine modern mega-flop?
You can almost taste the disappointment in the air: World War Z turned out all right, after all. "Advanced word said [it] was the walking dead. This was the giant zombie turkey, come screeching from the shadows to tear the careers of director Marc Forster and producer/star Brad Pitt to shreds," wrote Henry Barnes in this paper, before admitting the film to be "a punchy, if conventional action thriller".
As anyone who understands the ecosphere of Hollywood will know, this was most ungentlemanly of Pitt, the only thing keeping the press alive during the wall-to-wall marketing jamboree of the summer being the slim hope that one film will mount the diving board and execute a perfect triple summersault and twist, before going splat on to the concrete. With bear-baiting now illegal,...
You can almost taste the disappointment in the air: World War Z turned out all right, after all. "Advanced word said [it] was the walking dead. This was the giant zombie turkey, come screeching from the shadows to tear the careers of director Marc Forster and producer/star Brad Pitt to shreds," wrote Henry Barnes in this paper, before admitting the film to be "a punchy, if conventional action thriller".
As anyone who understands the ecosphere of Hollywood will know, this was most ungentlemanly of Pitt, the only thing keeping the press alive during the wall-to-wall marketing jamboree of the summer being the slim hope that one film will mount the diving board and execute a perfect triple summersault and twist, before going splat on to the concrete. With bear-baiting now illegal,...
- 6/20/2013
- by Tom Shone
- The Guardian - Film News
Lois Smith, a much-admired veteran movie publicist and the mother of Grey's Anatomy actress Brooke Smith, died Sunday afternoon after suffering a brain hemorrhage due to an accidental fall, Deadline reports. She was 85. The New York-based industry trailblazer was in Maine, where her husband, Eugene Smith, was set to be recognized for his philanthropic work. Smith fell down the stairs late Saturday night at the bed-and-breakfast where they were staying while in town. A maternal figure to both stars and journalists who tended to adore her in equal doses, Smith, along with Pat Kingsley and Patricia Newcombe, helped establish the...
- 10/8/2012
- by Alison Schwartz and Stephen M. Silverman
- PEOPLE.com
It's hard to express how great the last few days of movie watching have been for me. In preparation for the coming RopeofSilicon Movie Club I watched Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock and Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. I hadn't seen either film and that was the main reason I chose them for the Club, and both should certainly offer more than enough spirited conversation. That said, if you aren't familiar with what I'm talking about when I say "RopeofSilicon Movie Club," click here for more information as I will have a fully functional homepage for the club soon enough. Picnic and Ice Storm are the first two titles we'll be discussing, beginning October 15. Then I watched Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. A film credited with marking the end of the New Hollywood generation of the '70s, ruining United Artists and ending Cimino's career. A restored version of...
- 9/30/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In celebration of the Venice Film Festival's 80th anniversary, the fest will screen a program of restored classic films, titled "Venezia Classici." Included in the cinephile-dream lineup is Orson Welles' seldom-seen "Chimes at Midnight," Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander," Howard Hawks' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Roberto Rosselini's "Stromboli" and the restored version of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," which Cimino will accompany (the epic failure, as described in Steven Bach's must-read "Final Cut," brought down United Artists). The program's mission statement shows an admirable embrace of both the preservation of invaluable film heritage and the new digital age: Although relatively recent, the promotion of access to and appreciation of the vast heritage represented by classic films is now a phenomenon of international significance. Until the end of the...
- 7/25/2012
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Great Movie Books: Final Cut by Steven Bach
(In this new series, What Culture!’s Tom Barnard takes a look at a selection of great books written about and around that endlessly interesting subject: movies. Be it a tell-all memoir of Hollywood scandal, or a chronicle of a filmmaker’s struggle to make his masterpiece, each of the books in the series have one thing in common: they are classics; books that will stand the test of time; books that will be referenced and sighted for their unique contribution to movie literature. Above all, they are relentlessly entertaining works.)
No. 1: Final Cut:
Dreams And Disaster In The Making Of Heaven’S Gate by Steven Bach (1985)
By the early 1920s, four major Hollywood players decided that the early studio system wasn’t for them. Like being caught in the grip of a boa, it was restricting, terrifying, and – ultimately – soul crushing.
(In this new series, What Culture!’s Tom Barnard takes a look at a selection of great books written about and around that endlessly interesting subject: movies. Be it a tell-all memoir of Hollywood scandal, or a chronicle of a filmmaker’s struggle to make his masterpiece, each of the books in the series have one thing in common: they are classics; books that will stand the test of time; books that will be referenced and sighted for their unique contribution to movie literature. Above all, they are relentlessly entertaining works.)
No. 1: Final Cut:
Dreams And Disaster In The Making Of Heaven’S Gate by Steven Bach (1985)
By the early 1920s, four major Hollywood players decided that the early studio system wasn’t for them. Like being caught in the grip of a boa, it was restricting, terrifying, and – ultimately – soul crushing.
- 7/7/2011
- by Tom Barnard
- Obsessed with Film
Hi Lee,
When you say in your online reply to the Candy defender that you're "about the only one who will admit to seeing some great things in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate", do you mean the only in your house? The only one of Retro's editors? If not, I'd be amazed if you didn't know that the film has a large following of reputable critics who regard it (as I do) as one of the last great Hollywood movies. See, for instance, the chapter on it in Robin Wood's book Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (in the Sight and Sound 1982 critics poll, Wood named it as one of the ten greatest films of all time).
On the other hand, I think you're right about Skidoo. But I know one academic critic who loves it! I don't think Rosebud is too bad either. I guess every film has its champion...
When you say in your online reply to the Candy defender that you're "about the only one who will admit to seeing some great things in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate", do you mean the only in your house? The only one of Retro's editors? If not, I'd be amazed if you didn't know that the film has a large following of reputable critics who regard it (as I do) as one of the last great Hollywood movies. See, for instance, the chapter on it in Robin Wood's book Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (in the Sight and Sound 1982 critics poll, Wood named it as one of the ten greatest films of all time).
On the other hand, I think you're right about Skidoo. But I know one academic critic who loves it! I don't think Rosebud is too bad either. I guess every film has its champion...
- 6/23/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Paul Matwychuk and Heather Noel, hosts of the DVD Afternoon podcast, were nice enough to invite me on their show to talk about podcasting and film criticism and assorted other topics. We closed our conversation, which you can listen to here, with a topic so intriguing I thought it was worth extra discussion: dream DVD commentaries. In other words, if time, space, and technology were no obstacle, what people would you like to hear discuss what films in DVD commentary form?
Paul, Heather, and I had some interesting choices, and you can hear them all on the podcast. When I sat down to pick my three choices, I decided to go against anything too super obvious to spice up the show. But I have no problem leaving this blog post unspiced, and my initial shortlist included a lot of highly desirable but totally impossible gimmes. There's plenty of great possibilities...
Paul, Heather, and I had some interesting choices, and you can hear them all on the podcast. When I sat down to pick my three choices, I decided to go against anything too super obvious to spice up the show. But I have no problem leaving this blog post unspiced, and my initial shortlist included a lot of highly desirable but totally impossible gimmes. There's plenty of great possibilities...
- 5/31/2011
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
By Lee Pfeiffer
Andy Albeck's name may not be known to even the most die-hard movie fans. Like most executives of United Artists, Albeck, who died on September 29 at the age of 89, chose to keep a low profile even when he was appointed president of the company in 1978, following many years of service. Albeck took over the position when legendary UA chief Arthur Krim and his team left the company to form Orion Pictures. Albeck's unobtrusive manner belied the fact that he championed a number of highly successful films including sequels to Rocky and Pink Panther franchises. He also backed Scorsese's masterpiece Raging Bull when many others in the industry thought a black and white film about boxing would be a major miscalculation. Albeck also oversaw the continuing success of the James Bond series, working with producer Cubby Broccoli to produce the Roger Moore hits Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only.
Andy Albeck's name may not be known to even the most die-hard movie fans. Like most executives of United Artists, Albeck, who died on September 29 at the age of 89, chose to keep a low profile even when he was appointed president of the company in 1978, following many years of service. Albeck took over the position when legendary UA chief Arthur Krim and his team left the company to form Orion Pictures. Albeck's unobtrusive manner belied the fact that he championed a number of highly successful films including sequels to Rocky and Pink Panther franchises. He also backed Scorsese's masterpiece Raging Bull when many others in the industry thought a black and white film about boxing would be a major miscalculation. Albeck also oversaw the continuing success of the James Bond series, working with producer Cubby Broccoli to produce the Roger Moore hits Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only.
- 10/7/2010
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Andy Albeck, who as head of United Artists signed off on the classic "Raging Bull" and the infamous flop "Heaven's Gate," died of heart failure Sept. 29, four days after his 89th birthday, at Nyu Hospital in New York.
Albeck spent more than 30 years at UA, where he worked with such renowned filmmakers as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and impacted the iconic James Bond, Rocky and Pink Panther franchises.
After stints as president of UA broadcasting and senior vp operations, Albeck was named studio president and CEO in 1978 after the previous studio leadership left and formed Orion Pictures. His three-year stint at the top was well-documented in former UA executive Steven Bach's best-selling book "Final Cut," which focused on the making of the Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate."
The 1980 Western, starring Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken, is considered one of the biggest box-office bombs in history.
Albeck spent more than 30 years at UA, where he worked with such renowned filmmakers as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and impacted the iconic James Bond, Rocky and Pink Panther franchises.
After stints as president of UA broadcasting and senior vp operations, Albeck was named studio president and CEO in 1978 after the previous studio leadership left and formed Orion Pictures. His three-year stint at the top was well-documented in former UA executive Steven Bach's best-selling book "Final Cut," which focused on the making of the Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate."
The 1980 Western, starring Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken, is considered one of the biggest box-office bombs in history.
- 10/1/2010
- by By Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
William Grimes in the New York Times reports that Steven Bach, former U.A. studio executive and author of Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate has died of cancer at the age of 70. As an exec he was associated with such films as Annie Hall, Cutter and Bone, and True Confessions, but he is perhaps best remembered for Final Cut. Says critic David Thomson in the Times obit: "It is the best book ever written about the making of a movie. It gives you an understanding of the battles, the egos, and how a film like that could come about. It’s all the more remarkable because he’s one of the stooges in the story: he let it happen, and he admits that.” I'll second Thomson's recommendation. It is the best book about studio...
- 3/30/2009
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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