I've seen about four of director Michael Cimino's films, and every time I see one I feel like I am watching an attempt to create the equivalent of opera within the film medium. All of Cimino's films are filled with things one would often expect to find in the opera: emotional soliloquies, multi-layered mob conflicts, varied ethno-religious pageants filling the screen, extended love scenes, contrasting symbolisms between murky and bright color schemes, and plenty of furious soul-searching by its male characters following unexpected death and despair. Plus, like opera, his films are LONG.
The problem is that the old Italian conventions of the opera are not what most American audiences and even critics want to see. That is my theory for why his films have never gained the kind of respect he would probably get if he were a purely European director. My guess is that one day they will - alongside someone like Sergio Leone, whose work is quite similar.
A film treatment of a melodramatic novel by Mario Puzo about a Robin Hood-type (emphasis on the "hood") outlaw stealing from the Sicilian gentry to give to the peasants in Fascist 1930s Italy is really the best possible setting I've seen for a Cimino film. His style of multi-layered art filmmaking was just not compatible for the American West of the 1880s in "Heaven's Gate." Here, he is using an incredibly literate screenplay (supposedly most of which was written by the literary legend Gore Vidal, the rest by author Steve Shagan), filled with endlessly quotable spiritual/political/philosophical dialogue and musings. Aiding this is the Nino Rota-esqe score by Cimino's usual musical composer David Mansfield.
Subtle character development has never been the strong suite of Cimino; he explores bigger things in his films like mood, place, and theme. And in this respect, he really does deserve credit for putting the audience in the middle of 1930s Italy, with its cauldron of conflicts between indentured peasants, land-owning gentry, shifty politicians, and the self-righteous dons and pontiffs who control things behind the scenes. This would be an excellent movie to watch alongside "The Godfather III," also based upon the work of Puzo, to spot common themes. While nowhere near as groundbreaking or spectacular as The Godfather films, this movie does deserve its place as a companion piece in Puzo's screen adaptations. It's not a fast-paced Scorcese mafia film; it requires patience.
The problem is that the old Italian conventions of the opera are not what most American audiences and even critics want to see. That is my theory for why his films have never gained the kind of respect he would probably get if he were a purely European director. My guess is that one day they will - alongside someone like Sergio Leone, whose work is quite similar.
A film treatment of a melodramatic novel by Mario Puzo about a Robin Hood-type (emphasis on the "hood") outlaw stealing from the Sicilian gentry to give to the peasants in Fascist 1930s Italy is really the best possible setting I've seen for a Cimino film. His style of multi-layered art filmmaking was just not compatible for the American West of the 1880s in "Heaven's Gate." Here, he is using an incredibly literate screenplay (supposedly most of which was written by the literary legend Gore Vidal, the rest by author Steve Shagan), filled with endlessly quotable spiritual/political/philosophical dialogue and musings. Aiding this is the Nino Rota-esqe score by Cimino's usual musical composer David Mansfield.
Subtle character development has never been the strong suite of Cimino; he explores bigger things in his films like mood, place, and theme. And in this respect, he really does deserve credit for putting the audience in the middle of 1930s Italy, with its cauldron of conflicts between indentured peasants, land-owning gentry, shifty politicians, and the self-righteous dons and pontiffs who control things behind the scenes. This would be an excellent movie to watch alongside "The Godfather III," also based upon the work of Puzo, to spot common themes. While nowhere near as groundbreaking or spectacular as The Godfather films, this movie does deserve its place as a companion piece in Puzo's screen adaptations. It's not a fast-paced Scorcese mafia film; it requires patience.