User Reviews

Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" is certainly not without its problems, but it's hard to believe, now that the historical context in which the film was released is long past, that it received such a rough drubbing when it came out 25 years ago. It's quite an interesting film and even a very well made one. It bears many similarities to Cimino's earlier success, "The Deer Hunter": a focus on male solidarity and conflict, man returning to a more primitive state, a narrative structure that has the protagonist moving from civilization to a barbaric world and then back to a civilization that will be changed forever by preceding events. Like "The Deer Hunter," this films deals in images more than words. Unlike "The Deer Hunter," however, and this film's biggest failing, is the lack of a cast of the same strength that graced Cimino's earlier film. "The Deer Hunter" had Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. "Heaven's Gate" gets Christopher Walken, but in a role for which he is ill suited, and instead of De Niro and Streep we get Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert. I don't know what possessed Cimino to think Kristofferson could carry a film of this magnitude, but it's a dire miscalculation on his part. Kristofferson isn't necessarily a horrible actor, but he's certainly not strong enough to retain an audience's interest over the course of a 219 minute film. Isabelle Huppert is bland as well. The result is long scenes with little or no dialogue, in which feelings are supposedly being expressed in the faces of the actors; but since the actors aren't very strong, nothing is getting expressed. That's what makes "Heaven's Gate" much longer than it needs to be. There's really only a wisp of a story, so if we're not fully engaged in the characters, what exactly are we supposed to be engaged in? However, the weak cast and writing aside, "Heaven's Gate" is still a remarkable achievement in its own way, and a much better film than a new generation of movie lovers has been led to believe. Cimino may stumble with actors, but he's got a iron-clad grasp of visuals, and puts some stunning and memorable images on the screen. The film feels much more like a 70's film than it does an 80's film. At various times, it reminded me of "Little Big Man," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," and "The Wild Bunch." If that esteemed company doesn't serve as an endorsement of this film, I don't know what does.

Grade: B

I've been a fan of Heaven's Gate since its first release. I've seen it at least half-a-dozen times and have long thought of it as a masterpiece. So, it was with excitement and a sense of anticipation that I took myself off to see the restored director's cut.

To my surprise, I was disappointed on seeing it again and have since revised my estimation of the film. Heaven's Gate touches upon greatness in parts, but overall, lacks the thematic and narrative consistency and the passionate urgency characteristic of a truly great film.

Firstly, two technical problems: The sound quality is diffuse throughout the film, verging on inaudibility at times. Some of this, perhaps, is intentional - a way to mimic the chaos and confusion of history as it is unfolding. But at key points, one is unable to register what it is the characters are saying.

The cinematography is similarly diffuse. The images lack sharpness and particularity of detail. The result is a certain graininess and lack of pictorial sharpness which succeeds in blurring foreground and background.

Structurally, the narrative is off-key throughout, as if Cimino can't quite make up his mind as to the effect he is after. He wanted an epic, for sure. But a pastoral or dramatic epic? The film sits uneasily and unconvincingly between styles, and perhaps even genres. At times it reminded me of Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' or even 'Elvira Madigan' in its languid pace and elegant scene painting. At other times it threatens to turn into a robust 'western' more akin to 'The Wild Bunch'. In fact the latter film offers an instructive reference point for an assessment of 'Heaven's Gate' as it shares the same period concern and employs a similar tone of ambivalent nostalgia for a darker yet more heroic America.

This structural and thematic uncertainty isn't helped by the poor-quality script which often sounds forced and jarring to the ear. The result is an inauthentic sense of period speech.

The near-greatness of Heaven's Gate resides in its set pieces. The roller skating sequence, in particular, is astoundingly beautiful, one of the most evocative scenes ever put to film.

Another set piece which works very well in terms of unifying theme, mood, and setting occurs when Kristofferson and Huppert go riding in the new rig to the lake and she washes herself while he naps in the shade. The languid pacing, evocative music and monumental scenery combine in this scene to convincingly portray the love story which might just lie at the heart of the film - and which could have been its saving grace if pursued more convincingly.

Some critics have complained about the length of the film. This in itself doesn't bother me. A good film can't be long enough. The restored minutes are critical in restoring the motivation and characterization absent from the cut version, and they are full of pictorial interest.

Perhaps the chief glory of Heaven's Gate lies in the achingly evocative soundtrack. The repeated waltz motif and its different scorings throughout(full band, guitar, solo fiddle etc,)lends a haunting quality to the foreground action and establishes a thematic consistency lacking in the narrative itself.

Despite its obvious flaws, most notably the absence of a compelling narrative, there is a sense of grandeur about the film. One leaves the cinema with a rueful sense of missed greatness and a wish that Cimino could revisit the film -with the wisdom of time and hindsight, to put right what is so badly amiss.

i have anticipated the viewing of this film for quite some time. its legend, being as infamous as it is, required me to see it, no matter how awful. i was also eager to see it based not only on my love for The Deer Hunter, which is tremendous, but also on my even greater love for the western genre in general. when i saw that IFC was playing the film this afternoon, i almost soiled myself with glee. however, i must admit that my eagerness was coupled with the bias of reviewers labeling the work as self-indulgent. i had no idea. the film is remarkably similar to the work of Terrence Malick on Days of Heaven. both films are image-heavy, but light on dialogue and plot. however, Days of Heaven succeeds in transporting the viewer to a world of transcendence and naturalistic beauty where HG succeeds only in forcing the viewer to act as surrogate editor since none of the five persons credited with the responsibility were able to do their job correctly. this is not to say that the film is bad. not in the least. it is, however, quite necessary for enjoyment that the viewer either be a student of film and its history, or at least have a lot time on your hands with no real concern about whether a story is being told, or simply hinted at. it would also help for the viewer to carry with her/him a sense of idealistic nostalgia bordering on naiveté, since the film seems to be resplendent with said qualities. i happen to possess all of the above and was therefore able to thoroughly enjoy myself for the entire 3hrs and 45min. of the film. i find myself wanting to watch it again. i think some of the muddled characters bare repeat viewing for complete understanding, while others are archetypal and without dimension. Sam Waterston's character does everything short of twirling a handlebar mustache in order to leave us without doubt of his villainy. in contrast, Walken, Kristofferson, and Hurt all have multi-faceted characters not easily recognizable in the realm of Hollywood caricatures. David Mansfield's score is exquisitely complimentary of the majestic cinematography helm-ed by Vilmos Zsigmond. the battle scene, while confusing, is more true-to-life than most of the overly choreographed "epics" of that period or any other. i submit that this film is essential viewing for aspiring film makers. its viewing, if not ownership, is also necessary for the exhaustive collection of all true cinemaphiles. did i mention it's a little long?

I'm only one of a very few people who has actually seen BOTH versions of "Heaven's Gate". A frequently asked question is "Why was it ripped apart so badly?" The answer lies in this story here:

In 1984 I rented "Heaven's Gate" in order to show a friend of mine who had wanted to know if the film was as bad as he had heard. About 50 or so minutes into the film, Averill walks into Casper, Wyoming, which at the time this scene takes place is 1890. The town is filled with many meticulously dressed pedestrians, and the streets are filled with horses and buggies. My friend starts laughing uncontrollably. I asked, "Did I miss something?" He pulls himself together and says, "You gotta be kidding. There ain't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW."

That in a nutshell can easily describe what went wrong. The film reeks of a director desperately trying to convince us that this movie is very important and cries for us to think he's an absolute genius. Actors take long breaths between sentences as though they were going to choke on what they are saying (man, just wait till you get to the scene where the deathlist is read out - you truly believe he'll read all 125 names), while every shot is filled with either smoke or dust in order to give us the feeling that this is ART. Camino's intentions were honorable as I truly believed that he believed he was making a masterpiece. This is what happens when you go out to make a masterpiece. I had only wished he tried to go out and make a good western. Then this film might have worked.

Heaven's Gate seems to attract extreme reactions: outright dismissal or unqualified admiration. It is an extreme film, in length, theme and treatment. Its faults have been well-rehearsed, but some are overstated and, equally, some extraordinary virtues seem to have been little noticed. The film is very slow, certainly in the first half, but the central plot is interesting. The Johnson County disturbances exemplify a critical moment in American history, even if the sub-plot of the alienated Harvard man, at the opening and closing of the film, is irredeemably trite. That the working out of the plot is incoherent and chaotic is not a problem - these characteristics are implicit in the term "disturbances" and are an effective metaphor for the central concern of the film. The settlers are disorderly in the conduct their lives and community affairs, they are thieves, not especially lovely people, and the moral balance is tipped in their favour only by the arrogance of power of the Stockmen's leader.

Kris Kristofferson's plays his leading role to the limit of his talent as an actor, but sadly that talent is very small. However, since the part requires him to say little, this is not a fatal flaw. John Hurt plays a decadent drunk as well as an irrelevant and ridiculous part will permit. On the other hand, Isabelle Huppert's performance is outstanding: every expression, every nuance in the tone of her voice, is convincing. The subdued photography, with its narrow palette, is highly effective in communicating the sheer colourless drudgery that life at the frontier must have involved. Most striking of all is the soundtrack, that constant bustle of noise, the rushing of trains and carts and horses and men and wind across the range. This film captures a living experience and the soundtrack does most to bring it alive.

Heaven's Gate is a strange confusion of a film, but in that confusion many good things can be found.

What ? You expect me to review HEAVEN'S GATE a movie that destroyed the Hollywood studio system and bankrupted United Artists ! Okay then , but mind if I ask where do I begin ?

I've seen this movie twice . The original cut in 1986 and the short version ( Amazing to think a movie that has a 149 minute run time qualifies as a short version ) last night and I must say that it's a much better movie than Michael Cimino's Oscar winning THE DEER HUNTER if only because it has a much clearer plot : An association of cattle barons hire a mercenary army to kick immigrants out of Wyoming . There that's the plot perfectly explained and I doubt if anyone can clearly explain the plot of THE DEER HUNTER in one sentence . By a bitter irony Cimino then decides to muddy the waters by throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the movie and the film starts with a character set up in Harvard where friends James Averill and Billy Irvine have the party of their life . These scenes are very cinematic and epic as boys and girls waltz on the lawn but as for introducing the characters they become totally redundant later in the film . It's interesting to note that in the shortened version much of this has been edited out and replaced with a voice over where Averill travels to Wyoming on a train . This could easily have been the opening scene without any detriment to the narrative

HEAVEN'S GATE has four credited editors a ridiculous amount for a movie and while watching the short version you can't help noticing how badly edited it all is . For example we see Averill and Irvine talking in a billiard room . Averill walks away into another room and confronts the association heads and receives applause from Irvine who is now sitting in a chair in the same room which gives the impression that he can teleport ! Even if you have no knowledge about film editing you can't fail to notice that many , many scenes start or finish in a completely unnatural manner but one can't help thinking it's not the fault of the editors since so many scenes should have been discarded from the script at first draft stage which would have led to a better and much more compact screenplay without it losing any epic quality . Having said that it wouldn't have stopped the sound editing being so awful and many sequences are ruined because the background noise drowns out the duologue

Where the film works best is when it concentrates on the hatred the association has for the immigrants and when it does it is a great film at portraying man's callous inhumanity to man . It also contains some very shocking violence and epic battle scenes and it's a pity that HEAVEN'S GATE is known only for the behind the scenes fiasco than what takes place on screen . So if you watch this movie please forgot that it caused studio bosses to be the driving force on a movie instead of the director or that its production costs ballooned from two million dollars to forty million . Enjoy it for what it is - A flawed epic

I'm surprised, looking through the first 20 comments listed, not to see any reference to -Days of Heaven-. Both are director-fueled, idiosyncratic presentations of visions of the American West, wonderfully photographed, rather thinly plotted. Well, this one is more, shall we say, "grittily" photographed and not as idyllic, not with the DVD-esque sheen. Malick is not as prone as Cimino (see also -The Deer Hunter-, especially the first hour-or-so filled mostly with the party scene) to over-bloating the story at the expense of pacing. -Days of Heaven- can be irksome in its own ways, but it gets its story told in a timely fashion; -Heaven's Gate- is obviously, clearly, drawn out too long, without the benefit of an adept editor's craft or a scriptwriter's focus.

It's most unfortunate, too, since this could have been a classic, and you end up feeling sorry for it as it stands. Personally, I really wanted to like this, and was "into" it for even as long as an hour, but started to get tedious, and then got more tedious, and more tedious still, and then some more, and then culminating in a shoot-em-up sequence that was as unfocused and overly drawn-out as the previous 2 hours.

By coincidence, it happens that I saw -The Jack Bull- just days before viewing this -- and, as a portrayal of the ways of late-19th century Wyoming frontier, the "lawlessness" and so forth, it gets it done with much more economy.

Still, a 6.1 IMDb rating underrates this film, and I was surprised to see it that low. (Given the tendency of quality for films with a given rating, I was expecting to see a 6.8.) It *does* manage to reflect the amount of work that went into it. It's not a bad film, not a great one, just an interesting, otherwise well-done work dragged out way too thin and long to be great. On the whole, it rightfully falls somewhere right around the mean, between 6.5 and 7. (A strong 2.5 stars out of 4.)

I first saw this film when released in 1980. From other sources, I've learnt that the only release of the 219-minute cut was in New York City, after which it was severely cut to 149 minutes. So, I guess I saw the shorter version first which, at the time, I thought, was a very interesting anti-Western, if a trifle confusing...

So, it was with even more interest that I finally obtained a DVD of the full-length version. I'm glad I did because this second viewing has confirmed for me that the movie is a true classic, and the critical vitriol poured on Michael Cimino was unwarranted, to say the very least.

Yes, it's a long movie, but so have been many others. For example: Once upon a time in America (1984) at 227 minutes; Cleopatra (1963) at 320 minutes; The Ten Commandments (1956) at 220 minutes; Spartacus {restored version} (1960) at 198 minutes; Gone with the Wind (1939) at 222 minutes and others. So, it can't be the fact of running time that made so many froth at the mouth way back, when Heaven's Gate came on the scene.

But note this: all of those above movies have everything to do with reinforcing myths about history and heroes.

Not so Heaven's Gate: in this narrative, the American West is shown in all its grim and unrelenting harshness, injustice, and poverty. And that's probably the first reason why so many disliked this film: it laid out the circumstances of the Johnson County War of 1892 in Wyoming, showing how the Wyoming Stock Growers Association hired 50 assassins to hunt down and murder a large group of European immigrants accused of cattle rustling; and all with the assistance and conniving of authorities, right up to the President of the United States. For an essay on that war, with the background and what happened, there is a link at Wikipedia under Johnson County War.

Very few like to be reminded of the really dirty periods in their country's history, and which fly in the face of what the country is supposed to be. Had it been a documentary, it would have been barely palatable for most; as entertainment, it was almost bound to fail commercially and be torn to shreds by the shrill and infamous.

Leaving aside the socio-political diatribe, for a moment, that Cimino launched herein, what about the narrative – the story of the three main characters? Well, it probably wasn't unusual for men of that time to fall for a local prostitute, just as it's probably not unusual now. It's a fairly standard love triangle whereby Ella must choose between the two men, and ultimately decides upon the younger man, Nathan, who, although not above resorting to cold-blooded murder when it suits him, shows more spirit and commitment than the older James (or Jim, as most people in the film say). For some, that part of the story threads too slowly, perhaps; in the context of the wider narrative about the war, however, it is, I think, entirely appropriate.

And that war is depicted graphically, viciously and cruelly with scenes of carnage that are exquisitely staged and edited flawlessly – although in the final massacre between the Association and the immigrants, I'm certain that some scenes of wagons blowing apart are repeated. A minor point and perhaps brought about when the 219-minute cut was restored? Any way you look at it, though, it hits you in the face with the noise, dust, chaos and confusion of war...

Which brings me to another criticism by others: the noise and dust is such that it's often difficult to hear the dialog and even see clearly what is happening. I'll admit that I found that to be a trifle annoying at first, even backtracking to replay parts to try to catch the image or the words – until I realized that really wasn't necessary if you accept the director's intent: life is chaotic, it is difficult to hear and see in crowded situations and, in war, it's the sine qua non of this mise-en-scene. In short, it's as though you truly are present in and within the scenes...

And what of the title? From Shakespeare, it refers to a figurative nearness to God and so, if you equate God with the natural world, the stunning scenery that pervades the movie – and it is stunning, hauntingly equal to that of David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965) – is a useful metaphor. I tend to think, however, that Cimino had something more to say, namely the idea that the brave immigrants – the God-fearing salt of the earth – were denied entry to heaven on earth and the freedom to build a life for themselves in the land that espouses to be freedom's champion.

Was that Cimino's intent – to gut the myth of the American West? To show how, in America, only the rich get rich while the poor are massacred, one way or another, throughout history? Is that anything new? Not really, as we all know. Where it really hurt, however, is in showing how America was not and, by implication, is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. Instead, after absorbing this narrative, we are left with an impression that the underpinnings of America have more to do with a land of dispossessed slaves and a home for knaves...

`What one loves in life are the things that fade…' runs the tagline to Heaven's Gate. One can hardly imagine that Michael Cimino; director of the multi Oscar winning The Deer Hunter, loved his career after 1980, because it faded pretty quickly after this monumental flop. Heaven's Gate was an industrial joke, costing anywhere from $35 to $50 million from an original $7.5 million, was lambasted by the critics, made back just $2 million and sunk the United Artists studio. Naturally, it's not that bad. The critical panning was quite uncalled for, but it's still a failure, made worst by the frequent flashes of isolated brilliance that indicate that somewhere in this shapeless slug of a film, there was a slice of cinematic brilliance trying to get out.

`Now why do we do anything?' Kristofferson asks at one point in the film. Cimino would have been wise to ask himself that same question, because at the end of the day, Heaven's Gate simply lacks all motivation behind both plot and characters to work satisfactorily as a whole. There's actually nothing in it that would make you cringe in disbelief. It starts well, with Kristofferson and Hurt graduating from Harvard in 1870, sniffing the promise that the future holds. 20 years later, both men are living in Wyoming; Hurt as a drunken member of the Stock Growers' Association and Kristofferson as a Johnson County Marshall (although that doesn't become apparent until hour in), who sort-of tries to help the Wyoming immigrants who are under threat from the Association. This could have been a brilliant study of the greed and ruthlessness that built the West, but instead Cimino foolishly concentrates on relatively minor details, only occasionally expanding on the story. Thus he digresses into a love triangle sub-plot between Kristofferson, prostitute Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) and gun fighter Walken, padding out the film with irrelevant scenes and incidents that slow it down without either the plot nor characters developing at all. Who are these people? Why are they doing what they are doing? Why is Hurt now a drunkard and why does he stick with the ranchers if he opposes them? Why is Kristofferson only half-heartedly helping the immigrants? Instead of explanations we get a series of authentic scenes and incidents, without anything at all happening: a roller-skating sequence, a cock fight, endless crowd scenes and the immigrants debating about what to do about the rancher's in their native tongues, so we cannot tell what on earth is going. As many critics have said, it's all too much and not enough. And when the final shootout comes, it's so immersed in smoke, dust and poor editing, that we can't see who is shooting whom.

The film is certainly very beautiful with Vilmos Zsigmond's photography, David Mansfield's great score plus the massive sets certainly lend the film an authentic western feel. But much of production that added millions to the budget, like the sets Cimino had torn down and rebuilt are on screen for all of 20 seconds. The performances are generally solid, (although Walken is miscast), but again because Cimino's script is so flat, the actors do little but give one-note performances. Frustratingly, Heaven's Gate has some brilliant moments, such as an immigrant woman hauling a cart along with her dead husband on top, Walken explaining to Huppert that newspaper on his cabin walls `civilises the wilderness' and the deeply ironic and tragic final scene. All of them suggested that this could have been a great film if Cimino had concentrated more on the big picture and not just the little details. For a 3-½ hour film, Heaven's Gate has an incredibly sketchy plot and characters.

However at least the full version makes some sense. After the New York press panned the film and no one turned up to the commercial release, UA pulled the film from release and cut it by an hour at Cimino's request before the rest of the world saw it. The 140 minute piece of celluloid that came out four months later simply reduced an already confusing plot to a series of scenes with little or no relevance to one another, with little of Cimino's ambition shining through. The biggest irony in all this is that the film has such a great concept and so many great moments, that it begs a remake that would correct the many wrongs of the existing film. The result would be utterly superb given the right director, though I doubt whether any producer could to ever be drugged enough to give the green light.

'Heaven's Gate' is not a masterpiece, which apparently was what it needed to be upon first release to justify its great cost, and, more importantly, the continued uneasy reliance of Hollywood on the Auteur model of film-making. Yet 'Heaven's Gate', seen today at last on DVD in a cut of 229 minutes, is a superb film. It is a touch lethargic in pace. But at least it is paced. Quite apart from the incompetence of construction that marks many films today, there have been many films which, deliberate in form, have been severely damaged by being hacked down with no care for rhythm so the films become shapeless and confusing. Beyond this, the criticisms leveled at the film have become in retrospect quite lame. If the good guys and bad guys are too obviously pronounced for a serious film, and yes Sam Waterston's mustachioed, fur-clad villain is comic-opera (and not in the multi-leveled manner of Bill The Butcher from 'Gangs of New York'), and yes, the townsfolk do seem a touch 'Fiddler On The Roof' on occasions, then a few dozen serious films made since then, including 'Titanic' and the graceless 'Cold Mountain' (which bears certain similarities and is a notable failure in convincing qualities compared to this film) can be castigated for exactly the same reason.

Also despite accusations, the film has a plot, quite a well-essayed plot at that. It simply does not bow to standard-form 'epic' quality, by providing Titan heroes, rafts of sub-plots and confusion. It experiments with telling in a manner more like much smaller, modest films, by carefully-caught moments of character interaction, and well-textured pageant-like explosions of communal action, as with the opening at Harvard and, most specially, the wonderful scene where the Johnson County folk, following the lead of a brilliantly physical fiddler, make celebration on roller-skates.

'The Deer Hunter' was a critical and commercial success but abandoned the first half's inspired, mosaic-like accumulation of detail, and I think in a manner similar to criticism of Robert Penn Warren's novel 'All The King's Men' and its dictionary of Jacobean stunts, if Cimino had not had such a strong grasp of the conventions of Hollywood epics, he might have made a special rare work of art based in honest visualisation of people within their milieu. In contrast, 'Heaven's Gate' succeeds in screwing its narrative momentum and tension upwards in a slowly expanding arc, until the finale explodes, whilst not abandoning the mosaic approach.

The central romantic triangle, for instance, resists standard inflections; a decent, intelligent, but psychically defeated man, James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) competes with a hot-shot but identity-challenged young gunman Nate Champion (Christopher Walken) for the hand of a young Madame, Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert); there is no self-conscious bed-hopping, no slaps in the face, recriminations, or typical sad-sack moments, but more a sad and distanced decision by Ella to choose the younger man whom she loves less because he is ready to make the commitment. Ella emerges as the film's true hero (Huppert's performance, though initially awkward, is really quite excellent, balancing a dewy emotionalism with a hard-hammered spirit), attempting first to rescue Nate and then mustering the resistance party of immigrants into an enterprising defence. Subsequently, Averill is stung into action as friends die. Indeed, in the process of overcoming so many traps of cliché and style, 'Heaven's Gate' successfully and willfully throws off the defeated outsider-heroes grace note of so many '70s Westerns and portrays an eventual, vigorous, cheer-the-heroes rallying to a compromised but still relished victory.

The social conflict of so many '70s Westerns at last hardens into a fully-fledged war; where capital attempts a crushing final victory over the miscreants who stand in their way, suddenly they find a massed and more-powerful people's army, led by the man who played the thoroughly-destroyed Billy the Kid a decade before. This is what led the film to be described as the first Marxist Western, but really it simply deflowers a theme of the genre extant well before the '60s. Such various and classic old-school works as William Wyler's 'The Westerner', and even 'Shane', tell awfully similar stories. It is simply here that the romantic myth of the gunslinger has been replaced by the romantic myth of the people's revolt. In a spectacular, exiting, but realistic and thus chaotic finale, the marauding Cattlemen's encampment is attacked, ringed by dust clouds punctuated by fallen horses, writhing bodies, and gunfire. Averill puts his classical education to work finally by stealing a Roman trick and bringing the Cattlemen to the brink of annihilation before they are rescued by the Cavalry (another distinctly seditious touch, but surely not so offensive after 'Little Big Man's unrelenting depiction of Native American massacres). Really, it's hard to think of a more heroically American vision of grassroots resistance. The film's only real dead spot stands as an unnecessary coda indicating Averill's eventual relapse, a rather potted piece of tragedy.

Despite then certain failings and a slow mid-section, 'Heaven's Gate' is a supreme piece of work, a genuine attempt to create a contemporary Western and a new kind of epic. If one has to still join the chorus that reckons Cimino was absurd in his behaviour on set and expenditure, it is regretfully. When, today, flops like 'The Adventures of Pluto Nash' and 'K-19 - The Widowmaker' see nearly a hundred million dollars sink down the drain, and yet a tag of infamy still hangs on this film, one ponders what exactly its grim death signified. The attempt at original style, the bawdy sexuality, the very hard-won sense of detail, the breathtaking rigor of the film-making and what is being filmed, all throw into contrast what is sorely lacking in so much contemporary Hollywood product.

I approached this film after seeing the other great movies of Michael Cimino (Deer Hunter, Thuderbolt and Lightfoot) with more than a little trepidation. It had as stink of infamy that is brought up every time a movie goes wildly over budget (Titanic, Waterworld etc.). I sat down on a weekend night, turned on the answering machine and I prepared to watch this 220 minute bench warmer. Does the film deserve it's infamy? No. I can think of a number of different films that were a lot more deserving of that title. I was surprised to see that the film had a great cast and they hold up their end of the bargain. There is no majorly weak performances. The problem with this movie, which details the Johnston County Wars of 1890, is its lack of focus. Individual scenes grab you, but as a whole there is something lacking. Also, try to watch a widescreen version if you are able to find it. The pan and scan copy does no justice to the breathtaking cinematography.

The film could use some editing, but don't we say that about every film over three hours? Basically this film is one that should be watched in history class. It portrays one of the ugly episodes in the pursuit of the American Dream, but fails to maintain excitement for the whole picture.

...they'd probably be better than this.

Towards the end of "Heaven's Gate", it dawned upon me that Michael Ciminio has no idea what his movie is about. Is it an epic adventure, a revisionist western, a character study, a snapshot of a historical period, a love story, a dramatic expose of corruption, an artful meditation on humanity? Cimino has no idea. He tries to make "Heaven's Gate" into all of these things, more or less failing.

It's not as if he was concerned about the damage this incoherence would do to the plot, characters, pacing, etc. The bottom line is SPECTACLE. The audience is supposed to be overwhelmed; by the epic subtext, cast of thousands, artistic lighting, the sheer money apparent on the screen. But any self-respecting viewer will tell you that being overwhelmed is not the same as being entertained.

Every scene presents a bare minimum of information to tell the story: There's a guy. We saw him before, I think. Now he's on a train. Now he's talking to somebody. Now he's mad. And so on. We get the gist of what's going on, with little clue why or how. Not that we care anyway, the characters are all constructed as supporting players to spectacle.

To make matters worse, every shot, scene, sequence, and subplot is about four times too long. There is one exception: the roller skating scene, filled with such energy and cinematic prowess that it seems tacked on from another picture. That alone was worth the price of admission. Almost.

Cimino has a relatively unimaginative style of direction, which appears standard on prime time TV. Yet Ciminio constantly gets lost in "fetishes", which apparently are dust, trains and horses. Dust is everywhere. Everywhere. Indoors, outdoors, in the middle of grassy fields. Sometimes there's so much dust you can't even see what's going on. Whenever a train appears, we are treated to beautiful, laborious shots that clog up the storyline. There are apparently less people in Johnson County than horses, who repeatedly hog the foreground. Even in the battle sequences. In fact, the dramatic scene at the end of Part I consists of horses riding off a train, obscured by dust. I'm serious.

This would be a film forgotten by time if it weren't for the titanic production misadventure that bankrupted an established movie studio, bringing the New Hollywood era down with it. Of course, "JAWS" and "Star Wars" are guilty too, but only in the best possible ways.

But "Heaven's Gate" is a sheer mess. Not a disaster, or an ostracized masterpiece. An unguided, absolute, sheer mess. Like T.S. Elliot, "This is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper." It would feel a lot better if the age of the auteur that included "The Graduate", "Bonnie and Clyde", "2001", "The Godfather", "Taxi Driver", and "Apocalypse Now" had ended with a spectacular bomb.

But no. "Heaven's Gate" is Hollywood's whimper.

HEAVEN'S GATE will always be remembered for at least three things: destroying United Artists, wrecking director Michael Cimino's career, and ending the last golden age of Hollywood, when the directors could make the types of films they wanted to make. To this day we are still living through the effects from HEAVEN'S GATE. Although the film was made for only $36 million, back in 1980 that was a fortune. Many films since have lost more money, but this one wrecked a respected studio. There is no question as to where all the money went, for it is on the screen to see. Everything was carefully detailed exquisitely down the extras' clothing. An entire town was built in a remote area of Montana. The film opens with a graduation sequence that takes place at Harvard in 1870, which is nicely shot and choreographed, but is completely unnecessary. Many such scenes are scattered throughout, and the film is more than halfway over before the plot finally starts to move forward. The actors all play characters who are one-dimensional and/or irrelevant, especially the John Hurt character. Why Cimino needed so many extras to play the immigrants is unclear, because we never get to know any of them and they are so annoying when they gather together to plot strategies against the rich bad guys who want to kill them off. The editing is pretty bad, but that's to be expected because there really isn't much of a story here, just a series of vignettes. Vilmos Zsigmond's photography is good, but too often there is too much dust and smoke everywhere that obscures the characters and locations. Also, the colors in the film are all washed out; it looks like the filmstock was left out in sun. For example, in the middle of the roller-skating scene, the color simply vanishes, leaving only light brown and black! Granted, there are a few things in the film that I admire, like David Mansfield's score. Isabelle Huppert always looks sexy even without makeup. The battle scenes are pretty exciting, although I could swear that I saw one particular wagon blow up four times. The film has a rather odd denoument that takes place on board a ship, but everything else in this movie is pretty odd. Why the studio didn't bring in another writer or two to rewrite the script is a mystery because inside this mess there was a good movie trying to get out. It's a shame that Michael Cimino still hasn't recovered from this debacle. I sure hope he makes a comeback.

An infamous disaster, often cited as the end of the auteur era in Hollywood. Yet it has its fans. I'm not one of them. This is the story of the Johnson County War of 1890, where cattle barons decided to kill off a community of European immigrants, some of whom are suspected of poaching cattle. Kris Kristofferson plays a sheriff who attempts to rally the immigrants into protecting themselves from the would-be assassins. Isabelle Huppert plays Kristofferson's girlfriend, a madame, and Christopher Walken his romantic rival, who initially works as a bounty hunter for the cattle barons. There's a great story here, but Cimino, fresh off his Best Picture winner The Deer Hunter, gets lost up his own ass. The ridiculous sums of money are often cited when panning this film, but, honestly, the real reason it fails is that it's just boring. This just didn't need to be three and a half hours long. Every sequence is stretched out far past its breaking point, and there are tons of worthless bits that could easily have been cut (the prologue and the epilogue, honestly, add nothing). The actors mostly get lost, with the one exception of Walken, who had won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter and is excellent again here. I can't say I hated this, though. It's almost worth watching just for Vilmos Zsigmond's gorgeous photography. David Mansfield's musical score is also excellent, and, of course, the sets and art design are quite good (it did garner a single Oscar nomination for the art direction). It's kind of hypnotic. I watched it over a couple of days, and it wasn't too much of a chore. Still, I don't know if I'd ever give it a second chance.

"Heaven´s Gate" is by far not the disaster its contemporary critics condemned it to be. And its by far not the pristine achievement its defenders want us to believe. As a movie, it has too many sequences that drag, to many "lyrical" moments that are great to watch but a major violation of the film´s momentum and too many actors evidently not knowing where they are (leading players Kris Kristofferson and John Hurt pitifully among them). But it features Isabelle Hupperts still best performance in a non-french-language movie, one of Jeff Bridges finest performances and a storyline that is willfully political, anti-establishment and anti-Reagan. In fact Cimino seems at times more concerned with the contemporary overtones of his film than with the historic tragedy itself. Coming from a director who just two years before that had made the most conservative and pro-american film about the Vietnam experience (not about the war!), who ran away with the major Academy Awards for doing so, and who had - not to forget - co-written the Dirty-Harry-sequel "Magnum Force" together with John Milius of all people, "Heaven´s Gate" must have come as a surprise with some impact. Being released in the launching stages of what was to become the Reagan-era, both Cimino and the film were dutifully punished for their conduct unbecoming. "Heaven´s Gate" was resurrected as the flawed masterpiece it is at the Cannes film festival four years later. Michael Cimino still hasn´t recovered from the massive blows his career had to take.

Until today, I thought there only three people, including me, who considered Heaven's Gate (1980)to be a masterpiece and perhaps the last great western, (since the 1970), after, Little Big Man (1970), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and The Long Riders (1980).

I was stunned and pleased to see that 22.5% of those voting at IMDB rate this movie a 10, as do I. A recent book, the Worst Movies of All Time, includes Heaven's Gate. Through it's production and release it was vilified, as no movie since Cleopatra, almost twenty years before. At one time it was considered the most expensive over-budget movie of all time, surpassing even Cleopatra. It was blamed for the downfall of its studio, United Artists, until everyone finally saw all the studios were falling. Michael Cimino, fresh from his glory with the Deer Hunter was hated and despised for his success and movie making excess, but clearly, that was petty jealousy at its worst.

Cimino ended up fashioning one of the great expositions of the American experience. This film is not to be missed but any serious student of American filmmaking.

I was expecting this movie to be a stinker but I wanted to see for myself, but I was surprised how good of a movie this was. I know longer movies often don't do well at the box office but why this was pulled and not allowed to be viewed by the public is beyond me. It maintained my interest throughout and the scenery and photography is breathtaking at times. The plot was good and the morality play was a good one. I liked the realism which was along the lines of "Unforgiven". I had to rent this movie to see it but it was definitely worth it.

I missed the full four hour version when it was originally released in theaters because it played one week. I had to settle for seeing the shorter two and a half hour version a year or so later and was left stunned by what I saw. I left the theater thinking I had witnessed a masterpiece and wondering what the full version was like.

The full version is mostly good but it has sequences that are so incredibly dull that the whole movie is pulled down and almost sinks beneath the waves.

The problem is entirely in the editing which should be labeled as the final word on excess. There are times when things go on and on and on and nothing happens. Shots of people in a city that go on much too long with no purpose in the narrative. We get beautiful vistas and visions of such beauty that they bring tears to your eyes but they are used too frequently as a place holder instead of as punctuation or to set a place. Much of the longer version seems to be on screen simply because it looked good.

I've attempted to actually sit down and watch Heavens Gate with out resorting to the Fast Forward button but somewhere along the way I find I can't stand it any more.

I wish MGM would take pity on us and release the shorter version to DVD as well as the huge dinosaur. Perhaps as a two pack so that we could see which is the better version, and whether Cimino was mad or not.

And while they were at it why not include the once rumored Johnson County War edit that ran 90 minutes. Supposedly United Artists tinkered with a further cut in the hopes of getting some of their money back. Whether it was ever done or still exists is up in the air, but it would be interesting to see.

Thanks go to the great Vilmos Zsigmond for making this film look beautiful, but tear that away and you have a ridiculously long (3 hours 39 minutes) weak story with mostly one-dimensional characters. The long gaps between lines and each overwrought scene- be it a noisy town meeting or a gang rape- gives you plenty of time to think about how this could have been a two hour film, and you can spend the rest of the time finding other things wrong with it. While the actors are all pros, sometimes adding dimension to their roles, they are usually bored beyond even scene-chewing. Aesthetic pacing is one thing, but then when it occasionally gives you canned lines like the bad guy saying, 'I am the law' into the sepia mix, well, it's just fodder for MST3000. Even they'd get bored. If you see it, you'll be bored, too.

It's a typical Hollywoodization of an actual historical event- in other words, here, have another love triangle with a sweet prostitute, the sheriff, and a sorta bad guy. In an ultimately failed attempt to reinterpret the western, Camino instead grabs at all the standard 70's clichés: graphic violence that quickly becomes cartoonish, butt-naked ladies, jumpy volume shifts, and anti-heroes. Whee. Face it- when you think Old West, do you think... roller rink?

Not really surprising that it's such a legendary flop; it has such high aspirations to fall from. On its long, long, long way down, it looks great, indulgent, and expensive the whole way, and goes flop. You will thank the invention of the Fast Forward button.

Maybe too much was expected from Michael Cimino after all the acclaim he got for The Deerhunter and he went overboard with it. His next film, Heaven's Gate, became synonymous with overblown budgets and a director run amuck with creativity. We haven't seen anything like it since the silent days of Erich Von Stroheim.

If you're going to tell the story of the Johnson County War, than by all means tell it. For reasons I can't figure out, Cimino felt it necessary to show the close relationship of John Hurt and Kris Kristofferson before the main action of the film and included an elaborate Harvard graduation sequence. I'm not sure why the whole 45 minutes or so wasn't cut from the film. Maybe it was to show that at least one sheriff in the old west had a Harvard degree.

Be that as it may, we next find sheriff Kristofferson objecting mightily to the Cattleman's Association forming a private army under the lead of his predecessor in office, Sam Waterston. Hurt is one of the members of that association now. Cattle rustling they say is running rampant.

According to a Wikipedia article on the Johnson County War, the snowy year of 1888 was the root cause of the problem. It killed so much stock and left the cattlemen were very thinned out herds.

It also left a lot of small ranchers and farmers, many of them immigrants, starving on the plains. They took to killing stray cattle just to keep from starving. The cattleman reacted like the nobles in Merrie Old England did when the peasants killed the king's deer.

Since the small ranchers and farmers had the numbers, they controlled Johnson County and these offenses were lightly dealt with. Not good enough for the big shots in Cheyenne. They organized this punitive expedition to restore law and order as they interpreted the term. As Gabby Hayes said in Tall in the Saddle, he's for law and order depending on who's dishing it out.

That's roughly where Wikipedia and Heaven's Gate are in agreement. After that Cimino is kind of loose with his facts on both sides. Still the spirit of anarchy in sparsely populated Johnson County, Wyoming is captured in the film.

One incident that is captured verbatim is the killing of Christopher Walken's character Nate Champion who led the small ranchers and farmers of Johnson County. What you see there is what actually happened.

Isabelle Huppert plays prostitute Ella Watson true life character who exchanged stolen cattle for a poke as they called in the old West or at least in Breakhart Pass. She's a major star in French cinema and returned there after the beating Heaven's Gate took with American critics. She's very good in the part, but the real Ella Watson was lynched by the Cattleman's Association, not what you see here. Ditto for Kris Kristofferson's character.

Best performance in the film by far though is Sam Waterston. The difference between his character Frank Cantone and Jack McCoy is deep and broad, yet curiously enough they're both about Law and Order. Cantone has minimal regard for the rules of evidence though. Waterston's performance is absolutely chilling.

The action sequences in the final battle are among the best ever staged. Too bad it took so long to get to it though.

When I saw this film at its first release I was twenty or twenty one. I seem to remember being slightly baffled by it. A western is not supposed to spend half an hour dwelling on the antics of students at the ivried towers of Yale. Why did the students appear to be middle aged men? Later, over the years, I decided that this is a great movie. I have to confess, I now do not know why. Maybe because of the very fact that it does confound our expectations of a western. After all, in the old style western the good-guys are trapped in a waggon-circle attacked by bad-guys in the guise of Indians eventually to be saved by the U.S. cavalry. Whereas in this version, the bad guys are still those-guys-who-killed-the-Indians but find themselves trapped in a circle attacked by good-guys who happen to be Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Germans! Then the bad guys are saved by the U.S. cavalry. Confused? Maybe, on the other hand, this is a cynically realistic version of events.

The encirclements are only one manifestation of the circular motif that utterly dominates this film. From the waltzes at the start, through the roller-dances in the middle to the view out of a yachts portal at the end. I recall reading many years ago in Studio International about a film by an East European director, about a peasant rebellion that was told through a sequence of circular battles. Presumeably this compositional ploy is a deliberate reference to it.

Having just re-watched it again, aged forty-four I find that I am rather disenchanted. Why has it taken twenty-two years for me to figure out that what the bearded horseman in an argument with Christopher Walken early on mumbles as he rides off is "Ella ain't yours she ain't no ones." Why? Because the dialogue throughout is abysmally unclear. I now realise that my younger self found the film baffling because much of what is mumbled and muttered and slurred by the cast is often almost unintelligible. Moreover, I know why the students were middle-aged! It was simply the directors ineptitude in expecting John Hurt and Kris Kristofferson to be able to depict themselves as younger versions of their characters.

I also find myself belatedly agreeing that most of the scenes are simply several times as long as they have any reason to be. Such as that Waltz at the beginning. What exactly happens in it? A man tells a girl she is attractive. How long does that take? About three minutes! Now I also find that the all-pervasive miasma in the indoor scenes, which I had earlier regarded as an atmospheric allusion to dust, reminds me of the romantic clichés of Nineteen-Seventies photo and cinematography. Loads of haze, back-lighting and soft-focus. In fact, this film now strikes me as being shot in the style of soft-porn of the time!

The strong lasting aspect of the film is its characters. Particularly the threadbare Nate, struggling to better himself by wallpapering his log-cabin with news-bills and teaching himself to read. He goes along with enforcing the bad-guys' laws, with absolute ruthlessness, only so far. Then, when the Barons push him too far, he becomes a martyr to resistance!

I would choose as a tag-line the Kristofferson characters comment regarding his decision to go West "...so my life turned out differently."