When watching Heaven's Gate today, it's an overlong, indulgent mess. Certain scenes will remind one of the greatest David Lean epics, yet there is no true intimacy. The characters are just faded photographs without life or emotion. Scenes (though beautiful) of dancing and skating go on for 10-15 minutes, barely propelling the lumbering story. Dialog is vague and stilted. Even the final battle (which is historically inaccurate), is about as ripe as a Ted Turner civil war epic. There's a lot of sound and fury and dying, but the viewer never really cares who lives or dies. And for a western, most unforgivable of all, it's boring.
Cimino's career was ruined after Heaven's Gate, and he's made just four mediocre films since then. The one-time genius comes out of hiding on occasion to give odd interviews and accept awards in France (they love him as much as Jerry Lewis over there). He usually compares himself to Jim Morrison or Picasso or Tolstoy, and he does so with Napoleonic seriousness. Cimino's a walking ghost undoubtedly wondering just what went wrong in Montana, when filmmaking was changed by an obsessive megalomaniac with dreams of Xanadu.
Final Cut is a tragedy exposing the end of a golden era of filmmaking and a once-great studio. It's as good as an Irwin Allen disaster film, and a lot cheaper.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Chris, i thouroughly enjoyed this, man. Those tales of hollywood disaster are always strangely enjoyable. You almost make me wanna watch heavens gate again.
2 - Chris Kent
Thanks El Senor Duke. I read this book over the July 4th holiday and decided to write a post. Not too happy with it as I didn't convey appropriately how fine this book is. A fascinating account by a man in the Hollywood loop for a few years of extraordinary filmmaking. Cimino claims this book is a "work of fiction." Bach has some interesting observations, most specifically how this film ended the syle of creative filmmaking during the 1970s and also why filmmaking is such an awkward and potentially dangerous form of creative art. It exposes a brief moment before films became pre-sold packages and when artistic merit still had box office clout.
I've always thought part of the success of The Deer Hunter was the presence of Robert De Niro - he was very much the glue that held that awkward film together. There was no De Niro on the set of Heaven's Gate - just Kris Kristofferson and the Montana scenery.