A Few Words About A few words about...™ Heaven's Gate -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Vincent_P]

Jeffrey Wells says it's real...

Jeffrey Wells also vehemently insisted that ROSEMARY'S BABY should be 1.66:1 and called folks who disagreed with him nazis and fascists. Jeffrey Wells is a tool.
Vincent

 

[Scott Calvert]

Jeffrey Wells also vehemently insisted that ROSEMARY'S BABY should be 1.66:1 and called folks who disagreed with him nazis and fascists. Jeffrey Wells is a tool.
Vincent

Not sure but you seem to be conveying some anger here. If so I'm not sure why, as I stated that I don't puch much stock in Wells' opinions. Are you upset I posted the tweet? If it turns out it isn't a fake, are you still going to be pissed that I posted it?
EDIT: reading all of his tweets again I'm starting to think maybe it is a fake. If, so it's a pretty good one. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.
EDIT 2: William Friedkin (verified account) was his first follower...

 

[Vincent_P]

I have no anger towards you at all, Scott. As for Mr. Wells, I do believe that he is a worthless tool, regardless as to whether the disputed Michael Cimino twitter account turns out to be real or not.
Vincent

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

As for Mr. Wells, I do believe that he is a worthless tool...
Vincent

As one of the people (along with Bob F.) who has been called a "fascist" countless times by Wells simply because I point out factual information regarding aspect ratios, I concur.

 

[Jon Hertzberg]

As one of the people (along with Bob F.) who has been called a "fascist" countless times by Wells simply because I point out factual information regarding aspect ratios, I concur.

I, too, concur...except on matters pertaining to the criminally underrated MIKE'S MURDER, of which Wells is a longtime champion.

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by Jon Hertzberg /t/325361/a-few-words-about-heavens-gate-in-blu-ray/120#post_4016475
I, too, concur...except on matters pertaining to the criminally underrated MIKE'S MURDER, of which Wells is a longtime champion.

As I recall, Mike's Murder is available via Warner Archive.

RAH

 

[Jon Hertzberg]

As I recall, Mike's Murder is available via Warner Archive.
RAH

Yes, I own it. It's not a very attractive transfer, but it's the best we have.

 

[tippedcollar]

I first encountered Heaven's Gate in its director's cut through a television screening in the late 80s / early 90s. It then became a favourite of mine through a number of repeat viewings of the Irish DVD. Finally, I had the good fortune to see a near-pristine original 35mm print (also the director's cut, I've never seen the truncated version) at the London NFT / BFI Southbank a few years ago - the kind of cinematic event that all should experience at least once. I was therefore looking forward to the blu-ray with some anticipation, and indeed they've pulled a wonderful amount of detail out of the seperation masters. However... As I see it, Cimino's new colour grading and mixing and re-editing is a travesty on-par with Friedkin's first bu-ray of The French Connection, or Lucas' endless messing around with Star Wars. A greater travesty, actually, as I hold this film in higher regard. The faded sepia look of the film in all previous versions, both theatrical and home video, was clearly a conscious creative choice by both Zsigmond and Cimino in 1978-80. The useful quote from American Cinematographer earlier in the thread ("We arrived at that different look by flashing not only the negative but the prints as well, our Aim is to have a low-contrast, pastel and sort of sepia-tone image all the way through the picture") confirms this to be so. The look enhances the period feel of the film, adding very much to mood, and provides an intentionally dusty brown challenge to the 'grandeur' of the typical Fordian western. There are images in this film that seem to have been gifted from the heavens, not constructed on a mere filmset - as the camera weaves through the carriage of the train towards the close-up of Kristofferson you feel as if you are being physically transported in time, a feeling almost as powerful as the match cut in 2001... This very same shot on the blu-ray is unspectacular, the mysterious, ephemeral quality to the photography has evaporated somehow. Zsigmond's lack of involvement in the blu-ray then becomes starkly clear... In what seems like a bid to make the film more "accessible" to the Pixar generation, it transpires that Cimino has re-graded the film himself, applying a bland, standard colour timing that actively counteracts the effects of the flashing. Contrast and colour are artificially boosted. Greens in particular pop in a distracting way, drawing the eye where is isn't meant to go. Cimino has also re-mixed the sound using modern digital noise-reduction tools to make the dialogue more audible... yet the murky dialogue, deep in the mix, was another distinctive feature of the original film - the Cimino of that time indifferent to what he "should" or "shouldn't" do. But that's not all - we then have the inexplicable removal the Intermission, which provided a necessary dramatic break, and a number of other small edits too. Surely it is a basic principal of home video, at least for cinephiles and certainly for a label like Criterion, that a film should be presented as its director and director of photography ORIGINALLY intended, not altered thirty years later to pander to modern taste. Great picture quality isn't always about being crisp and clean and colourful, and this is the ultimate case in point. I'm surprised therefore, and disappointed, that unlike The French Coonection and Star Wars, criticism has been muted, and these changes have been accepted, even embraced, by many. I can now only hope that rights issues will fortuitously prevent access to the Criterion master if/when the film receives a blu-ray release in Europe... In the meantime, I'll be sticking to the DVD, and my memories of that 35mm screening, which in any case no blu-ray or digital projection could adequately capture...

 

[Peter Neski]

while you are right about it being different ,The Idea that this new version somehow isn't as great looking is totally wrong ,I Have both HD versions ,and they both show off Vilmos lighting of Ciminos images ,The old lasers and tapes didn't ,This is a film where the stuff before the camera and the lighting are tops,the BR shows this fine ,Vilmos HD version is not all that different ,I compared them many times,Also like I said earlier ,Cimino started changing things with the short version,

 

[Vincent_P]

I still have the first letterboxed home video version of HEAVEN'S GATE, the Image Entertainment LaserDisc, and while it's not as vivid as the Criterion transfer, it looks much more like it than the later MGM LaserDisc and DVD versions, which are pushed much more towards redish brown, so this "new look" isn't quite as "new" to me as it is perhaps to others who have only seen the later MGM LD and DVD versions. The European DVD of the short cut also looks a lot more like the Criterion version. As for the sound, Cimino didn't actually "remix" as they didn't have the separate music, dialogue and effects tracks of the long cut. The sound was tweaked in places to make the dialogue more audible, but a full-on remix was not performed. That being said, as much as I like this "new version", I agree that the Zsigmond-supervised HD master of the actual premiere cut should also be released (clips of it can be seen during the restoration demonstration), as well as an HD version of the short cut which has several minutes of footage unique to it. Vincent

 

[tippedcollar]

The Idea that this new version somehow isn't as great looking is totally wrong

As I said, clean, clear and colourful isn't in itself a good thing if that isn't how the film was supposed to look. And the 1980 quote from Vilmos Zsigmond tells us categorically that it isn't. If you think there's little difference between the two versions, I suggest you re-watch the "Restoration" featurette. Vincent, I'm basing my own reaction primarily on a fairly-recent viewing of the 35mm print, with the European DVD of the director's cut as back-up - not to mention the Zsigmond quote. This being the Zsigmond who was excluded from the grading of the Criterion edition, who has previously been a vocal supporter of the film yet has had no involvement with this release whatsoever... Whilst the negative effects of the new grading are in some ways hard to put into words, the problem of the boosted greens I believe to be very clear cut. A cinemtographer as talented and experienced as Zsigmond doesn't just point a camera at the scene and figure the rest out later, he has a very clear idea in his head of exactly what he wants to achieve in terms of the light, colour, composition, etc, and complete command over every element in the frame. He also knows that an end result can be achieved that is very different from the natural conditions as visible to the human eye on set. Shooting Heaven's Gate, he will have known that the greens were going to be washed out and muted through a combination of the flashing process and pre-planned optical colour timing choices and will have taken this into account when composing and 'signing off' on a frame. What then happens if you artificially restore those greens, using technology that didn't even exist in 1979, is that you're not just making the film look a little bit 'different', but you're actively changing - damaging - the composition of the frame. Most particularly, patches of bright green grass, which previously blended with the surrounding yellow-brown tones, suddenly become a distraction to the eye in a way that Zsigmond clearly never intended.

 

[Vincent_P]

The thing is, the 35mm print you saw would NOT have been a vintage 35mm print, but rather based off the mid-2000s photochemical restoration performed by John Kirk using less-than-optimal source material. While Zsigmond was involved with that restoration, one has to ask, what was he using to absolutely ascertain that the results they were achieving color-wise were exactly what they got and intended back in 1980? Actual prints of the premiere version from 1980 (of which there were very few) would likely have been faded by the mid-2000s, so I'd have to think he was going off memory while at the same time pushing the less-than-optimal film elements they had access to to the best of their ability. I'm in no way knocking Kirk's heroic work or Zsigmond's intentions against incredible odds back then, but the early-1990s LaserDisc I mentioned was mastered from a vintage color-timed print which would not have faded by the early 1990s. The color on that LD is close to the Criterion version rather than the later very reddish/brown MGM versions that were released on LaserDisc, DVD, and finally broadcast HD. Frankly, I don't find the Criterion look to be "distracting" at all. It's certainly more vivid than the Image LaserDisc that was my go-to version of HEAVEN'S GATE for more than a decade, but it's a lot closer to the look of that LD than the later MGM LaserDisc and DVD transfers, and the broadcast HD version that's currently streaming on Netflix. Vincent

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by Vincent_P
The thing is, the 35mm print you saw would NOT have been a vintage 35mm print, but rather based off the mid-2000s photochemical restoration performed by John Kirk using less-than-optimal source material. While Zsigmond was involved with that restoration, one has to ask, what was he using to absolutely ascertain that the results they were achieving color-wise were exactly what they got and intended back in 1980? Actual prints of the premiere version from 1980 (of which there were very few) would likely have been faded by the mid-2000s, so I'd have to think he was going off memory while at the same time pushing the less-than-optimal film elements they had access to to the best of their ability. I'm in no way knocking Kirk's heroic work or Zsigmond's intentions against incredible odds back then, but the early-1990s LaserDisc I mentioned was mastered from a vintage color-timed print which would not have faded by the early 1990s. The color on that LD is close to the Criterion version rather than the later very reddish/brown MGM versions that were released on LaserDisc, DVD, and finally broadcast HD. Frankly, I don't find the Criterion look to be "distracting" at all. It's certainly more vivid than the Image LaserDisc that was my go-to version of HEAVEN'S GATE for more than a decade, but it's a lot closer to the look of that LD than the later MGM LaserDisc and DVD transfers, and the broadcast HD version that's currently streaming on Netflix.
Vincent

Precisely, Vincent.
I believe those prints were from a dupe neg, reduction printed from a slightly faded 70mm print, which in turn, had been made as a blow-up frm the 35 OCN. Not a great deal of control was possible.
RAH

 

[tippedcollar]

The BFI National Archive hold a great many rare and valuable prints, so I don't think we can assume this print came from the later restoration. Certainly, it didn't look like the faded dupe that RH's description would suggest. Even if it did come from the restoration, they would still have had photochemical control over the colour, ie. there would have been nothing compelling Zsigmond to favour magenta/yellow over green/blue. This brings us back to the crucial point that all 35mm versions were approved by the cinematographer, unlike the disc now being sold by Criterion, which is notable for Zsigmond's total lack of involvement from the colour timing through to the extras. To say that they didn't have a lot of control over the 35mm version also strikes me as a little bit misleading - of course Cimino had infinitely more control sitting in a Da Vinci suite, but this is technology that wasn't available in 1980, with many of the subsequent choices seeming to work actively against the original documented fogging effects, ie. choices that cannot reasonably be considered part of the film's original vision. In regards to bright greens distracting the eye, here are a few early examples: 0:21:07 - A shot of a train approaching, but for a few moments it is the bright green trees to the left of the frame that draw the eye. 0:23:34 - after Walken has shot the rustler, we see him walking away through the hole in the bedsheet. On the blu-ray, the luminous green trees behind him are now the most prominent visual element, distracting both from Walken's form and the bleak mood of the scene. 0:26:27 - luminous green leaves to the right of frame distract from both the passing train and the superimposed place card. 0:33:00 - again, the bright green trees in the background are out of whack with every other colour in this wide vista of the town, reducing the overall visual impact. Looking again, I do also wonder if some of the strangeness in the colour isn't a byproduct of the separated master source. The colours seem, for want of a better word, artificially separate... in a manner that reminds me of digital restorations from 3-Strip Technicolor negatives, ie. MGM musicals, etc. Not only does it look nothing like the Heaven's Gate I'm accustomed to, nothing like any other Vilmos Zsigmond picture I've seen, but it also looks nothing like any other film from the era in which it was made...

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by tippedcollar
The BFI National Archive hold a great many rare and valuable prints, so I don't think we can assume this print came from the later restoration. Certainly, it didn't look like the faded dupe that RH's description would suggest. Even if it did come from the restoration, they would still have had photochemical control over the colour, ie. there would have been nothing compelling Zsigmond to favour magenta/yellow over green/blue. This brings us back to the crucial point that all 35mm versions were approved by the cinematographer, unlike the disc now being sold by Criterion, which is notable for Zsigmond's total lack of involvement from the colour timing through to the extras. To say that they didn't have a lot of control over the 35mm version also strikes me as a little bit misleading - of course Cimino had infinitely more control sitting in a Da Vinci suite, but this is technology that wasn't available in 1980, with many of the subsequent choices seeming to work actively against the original documented fogging effects, ie. choices that cannot reasonably be considered part of the film's original vision.
In regards to bright greens distracting the eye, here are a few early examples:
0:21:07 - A shot of a train approaching, but for a few moments it is the bright green trees to the left of the frame that draw the eye.
0:23:34 - after Walken has shot the rustler, we see him walking away through the hole in the bedsheet. On the blu-ray, the luminous green trees behind him are now the most prominent visual element, distracting both from Walken's form and the bleak mood of the scene.
0:26:27 - luminous green leaves to the right of frame distract from both the passing train and the superimposed place card.
0:33:00 - again, the bright green trees in the background are out of whack with every other colour in this wide vista of the town, reducing the overall visual impact.
Looking again, I do also wonder if some of the strangeness in the colour isn't a byproduct of the separated master source. The colours seem, for want of a better word, artificially separate... in a manner that reminds me of digital restorations from 3-Strip Technicolor negatives, ie. MGM musicals, etc. Not only does it look nothing like the Heaven's Gate I'm accustomed to, nothing like any other Vilmos Zsigmond picture I've seen, but it also looks nothing like any other film from the era in which it was made...

There is little to be done in regard to direct positive fading of prints. If the archive placed their print in a cold vault early on, it is possible for it to have decent color. But chances are any print struck in late October - early November of 1980, isn't going to look as it should. Even early Eastman SP prints, mid-1981, will be nicely toward a muted brown.

 

[Peter Neski]

while in many cases not having the the dp oversee the color for the video might be a problem,But this isn't just another director who doesn't have a great eye,while I can understand the fact that extra sepia was included this time around,and the new version isn't the way the film looked in the theater,But that earlier vilmos approved HD version wasn't perfect either with some color not there because of fading of the source , the new version doesn't suffer as much ,when it comes to faded color,I noticed this on the Days of Heaven BR,the shots look excellent ,till you see shots from the older not so hot laser that color should be there ,this of course should have been 4K at least they got 4k for Badlands

 

[JoshZ]

In regards to bright greens distracting the eye, here are a few early examples: 0:21:07 - A shot of a train approaching, but for a few moments it is the bright green trees to the left of the frame that draw the eye. 0:23:34 - after Walken has shot the rustler, we see him walking away through the hole in the bedsheet. On the blu-ray, the luminous green trees behind him are now the most prominent visual element, distracting both from Walken's form and the bleak mood of the scene. 0:26:27 - luminous green leaves to the right of frame distract from both the passing train and the superimposed place card. 0:33:00 - again, the bright green trees in the background are out of whack with every other colour in this wide vista of the town, reducing the overall visual impact. Looking again, I do also wonder if some of the strangeness in the colour isn't a byproduct of the separated master source. The colours seem, for want of a better word, artificially separate... in a manner that reminds me of digital restorations from 3-Strip Technicolor negatives, ie. MGM musicals, etc. Not only does it look nothing like the Heaven's Gate I'm accustomed to, nothing like any other Vilmos Zsigmond picture I've seen, but it also looks nothing like any other film from the era in which it was made...

I've already voiced my issues with the disc, which are much the same as tippedcollar's here, earlier in the thread. I just want to say that, unlike him, I hadn't seen the movie in years prior to the Blu-ray and didn't approach the disc with any sort of preconceived notions of how it's supposed to look. I didn't compare it against older video transfers or memories of theatrical screenings decades ago. All I had to judge by was the disc itself. Nevertheless, the colors almost immediately looked off to me - artificial, boosted, and just wrong. It doesn't look much like 35mm film to me. It looks digital.

 

[Peter Neski]

] This is faded ,the original had more color

 

[Noel Aguirre]

I saw Heavens Gate that first week in 1981 before Cimino pulled it. The intermission was brilliant- the color stunning. I recently saw the NY Flim Society screening this past October with Cimino and Kristofferson there. No intermission- people constantly going to the toilet and returning. Plus this is not the original color. Is definitely had more of a sepia tone. I was disappointed but happy it was complete. Yet as it stands now- it's entirely a different film. This is therefore the third version. Also I believe that first version had subtitles which added to the characters and story. These are now all gone. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Matt Hough]

There were subtitles when I saw it theatrically in the original run, and there are no subtitles now.