Heaven's Gate (15.)
Directed by Michael Cimino. 1981.
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Sam Waterston, Jeff Bridges and John Hurt. 216 mins.
Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (to give it its full title) is a legendary flop, and one that fully lives down to its legend. Cimino, who after the Oscar success of The Deer Hunter believed not only his own publicity but also believed Kubrick and Lean’s publicity and that it applied to him, went off to the Rocky mountains of Wyoming to shoot his epic western and went wildly over budget making a film nobody wanted to see. Its failure precipitated the demise of United Artists, the studio founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and D.W. Griffiths
This re-release is of the original version that got such a viciously hostile reception from critics and audiences at its New York premiere in November 1981 that it was immediately withdrawn and recut into a shorter version that nobody much liked either. In the thirty years since there have been numerous attempts to revise that initial judgement, even to hail it as a masterpiece. They have failed because Heaven’s Gate’s flaws are just as glaringly obvious today – it fails to engage audience interest, you can’t hear anything anyone is saying and it takes ages not telling a rather basic story that is unrelentingly bleak. It does look quite nice though. Kristofferson is a perfect lead for the film – a visually impressive but inert monument with no communication skills.
The true story it isn’t telling is that of The Johnson County War. In 1890 a cattle owners association (wealth and privilege) hired a gang of mercenaries to kill a hundred odd immigrants (starving masses) who they accused of stealing their livestock. Around this there is a love triangle, which the film takes more than an hour and half to introduce, involving Kristofferson who is presumably the sheriff of Johnson County (typically this is never really elucidated), the local brothel madam Huppert and Walken who is one of the hired killers. There are also some Proustian affectations about the poignancy of time passing with a prologue set in Harvard 20 years earlier and a brief, risible, epilogue at the start on the 20th century. The aim was an elegy to the betrayal of the American dream; the actuality is an incredibly morose version of Paint Your Wagon.
Cimino was so enrapt in his genius and his attention to detail he forgot about the basics. It is a magnificent mansion that has been built without doors or windows or plumbing. Cimino’s work patterns were those of the late era Kubrick where every scene is filmed maybe 50 or so times, looking for the perfect take. It is the equivalent of a writer obsessively re-writing each sentence and ending up with a text full of perfectly written prose that is almost unreadable because there is no cohesion.
Everybody on screen, except Kristofferson, seem terribly worked up about something but exactly what has been lost in amplified street noises that blast out the dialogue, the murky interior where the only light is the shafts coming through the blinds and the holler of un-subtitled foreign dialogue. Watching Heaven’s Gate is like being in a foreign town and getting caught up in a crowd that is hugely animated and excited and trying to work out what is going on.
There are lovely little character bits in the film, such as the moment Kristoffersen and Huppert dance alone in the eponymous Heaven’s Gate dance hall to the accompaniment of the band. The scene would be enchanting if you had any understanding of their relationship or you weren’t wondering what had happened to all the people who were packing the place out just a moment before.
Of the cast only Huppert and Bridges make a strong impression, probably because their characters are easily understood. Most of the others are hampered by us not really knowing who they are or what motivates them. Poor old John Hurt (who somewhere in the middle of filming went off to make The Elephant Man) is made to look absolutely ridiculous in every single scene he appears – you’d think he was raising money for Comic Relief.
Directed by Michael Cimino. 1981.
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Sam Waterston, Jeff Bridges and John Hurt. 216 mins.
Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (to give it its full title) is a legendary flop, and one that fully lives down to its legend. Cimino, who after the Oscar success of The Deer Hunter believed not only his own publicity but also believed Kubrick and Lean’s publicity and that it applied to him, went off to the Rocky mountains of Wyoming to shoot his epic western and went wildly over budget making a film nobody wanted to see. Its failure precipitated the demise of United Artists, the studio founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and D.W. Griffiths
This re-release is of the original version that got such a viciously hostile reception from critics and audiences at its New York premiere in November 1981 that it was immediately withdrawn and recut into a shorter version that nobody much liked either. In the thirty years since there have been numerous attempts to revise that initial judgement, even to hail it as a masterpiece. They have failed because Heaven’s Gate’s flaws are just as glaringly obvious today – it fails to engage audience interest, you can’t hear anything anyone is saying and it takes ages not telling a rather basic story that is unrelentingly bleak. It does look quite nice though. Kristofferson is a perfect lead for the film – a visually impressive but inert monument with no communication skills.
The true story it isn’t telling is that of The Johnson County War. In 1890 a cattle owners association (wealth and privilege) hired a gang of mercenaries to kill a hundred odd immigrants (starving masses) who they accused of stealing their livestock. Around this there is a love triangle, which the film takes more than an hour and half to introduce, involving Kristofferson who is presumably the sheriff of Johnson County (typically this is never really elucidated), the local brothel madam Huppert and Walken who is one of the hired killers. There are also some Proustian affectations about the poignancy of time passing with a prologue set in Harvard 20 years earlier and a brief, risible, epilogue at the start on the 20th century. The aim was an elegy to the betrayal of the American dream; the actuality is an incredibly morose version of Paint Your Wagon.
Cimino was so enrapt in his genius and his attention to detail he forgot about the basics. It is a magnificent mansion that has been built without doors or windows or plumbing. Cimino’s work patterns were those of the late era Kubrick where every scene is filmed maybe 50 or so times, looking for the perfect take. It is the equivalent of a writer obsessively re-writing each sentence and ending up with a text full of perfectly written prose that is almost unreadable because there is no cohesion.
Everybody on screen, except Kristofferson, seem terribly worked up about something but exactly what has been lost in amplified street noises that blast out the dialogue, the murky interior where the only light is the shafts coming through the blinds and the holler of un-subtitled foreign dialogue. Watching Heaven’s Gate is like being in a foreign town and getting caught up in a crowd that is hugely animated and excited and trying to work out what is going on.
There are lovely little character bits in the film, such as the moment Kristoffersen and Huppert dance alone in the eponymous Heaven’s Gate dance hall to the accompaniment of the band. The scene would be enchanting if you had any understanding of their relationship or you weren’t wondering what had happened to all the people who were packing the place out just a moment before.
Of the cast only Huppert and Bridges make a strong impression, probably because their characters are easily understood. Most of the others are hampered by us not really knowing who they are or what motivates them. Poor old John Hurt (who somewhere in the middle of filming went off to make The Elephant Man) is made to look absolutely ridiculous in every single scene he appears – you’d think he was raising money for Comic Relief.
