Review of Heaven's Gate (1980) by Bill M — 01 Dec 2013

This infamous film is of course known as probably the biggest artistic and commercial flop of all time, killing a studio, the western genre (briefly) and the directors career and shifting the power behind the production of a film from the director to the studio and ending the auteur era of american cinema, leaving us with the more safe, franchise heavy, risk adverse cinema we now have.

Heavens gate has a lot to answer for really, Director Michael Cimino had just come off the huge creative and financial triumph of The Deer Hunter which as well as vast acclaim and big box office won five oscars, the studio then gave him the money and freedom to do whatever he so wanted, what he did was create a disaster, four times over budget, massively over schedule and with the director running amuck, demanding perfection with giant sets (which he often had torn down and rebuilt for no reason) 50 takes of every shot, real dynamite used for explosions (one moment of which blew up a real horse and the man on it who unlike the unfortunate horse survived) and millions of feet of film, he even stationed an armed gaurd outside the editing suite so no studio head could interfere.

The initial cut of the film was over five hours long, with the original cut of final battle scene apparently the length of a feature film, once cut down it was released to zero audience interest and in an act of desperation and a move fairly unheralded, the director got the studio to pull the film from release after just a week, then a few months later a heavily chopped down version of the film was re-released to even more dismal box office, the financial faliare of the film forced United Artists, who were on the verge of bankruptcy thanks to the film, to sell to MGM.

Only now after all the hatred towards the film had died down, and after decades of ending up on many worst films ever lists, THE flop has returned in it's full glory, nearly four hours long and heavily reappraised by critics as something like the masterpiece that was once attended by the director, a lost movie reclaimed from the abyss.

Now having seen it, it kinda falls short of masterpiece status, but only just, because despite being so long, even in single unedited feeling scenes, as to feel meandering, waffling, over indulgent and extraordinarily sluggishly paced and emotionally cold, this is still something remarkable.

All that excess pays off in sheer, lavish screen majesty, the storytelling is novelistic in it's detail, the sets and set pieces astonishing, the sheer size and ambition of it all incredible to behold.

This is something special, a classic of american cinema rescued from three decades of ruination and infamously disastrous reputation.