Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

MGM HD is showing the uncut version of Heaven's Gate this month in 1080i with a running time of 3:39 minutes. The showing contains an intermission which can be used to divide the file for recording onto two dvd- or + r's. I haven't watch it yet I recorded the movie to the hard drive of my Panasonic recorder in SP. What I saw looked really good.

For show times check MGM's website.

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

Interesting. So it is possible they made a new transfer in preparation for a 2 disc SE release, but then shelved it when the new management came in.

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

The MGM HD presentation is really good looking with great sound. Of course Vilmos Zsigmond’s soft/sepia leaning treatment of most of the film detracts from the “HD Snap”. And as noted with the intermission at 2:09, records nicely for an anamorphic copy. It is on MGM HD again next Sunday 8/10.

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

Did anybody record it and perhaps make an anamorphic DVD-R of it they'd be willing to trade?

Vincent

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

This film is begging for a Bluray release. Is one of the most spectacular films i have ever seen. Epic from start to finish. The current dvd don´t do it justice.

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The crying shame is that you can beg MGM all you like and it still won't appear. If they wouldn't release a new SE after that restoration and limited theatrical release a couple of years back, they surely won't as things stand now.

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I don't think those prints were from a restoration. They were just new prints made from the original uncut IP. The print I saw looked pretty horrid, even accounting for the fact that is how the film is meant to look, it was still full of dirt and even scratches that could be fixed during a proper restoration.

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

Really? According to this and this, the film was restored especially for the theatrical engagements (including Australia) by John Kirk, and from the latter link:

"...Now Heaven's Gate is facing a drubbing all over again. Bingham Ray, the studio executive who commissioned the restoration, was ousted from MGM/UA not long after he gave the green light to Kirk. The original idea was that the newly minted Heaven's Gate would be released in tandem with Epstein's documentary and that both would be issued on a special edition DVD. Post-Ray, MGM's enthusiasm for the project rapidly cooled and Kirk's budget shrank. When MGM re-released the film in the US it was with the minimum of fanfare. Predictably, it did minimal business..."

License it to Criterion?

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Part of the reason MGM called off the reissue was that this was during the Sony Occupation, when they effectively claimed the entire studio as theirs despite not even owning a majority share in the consortium that bought it. John Kirk was reassigned to "restoring" Sony sitcoms before finally he left and before Sony was handed their walking papers by the rest of the MGM board.

Maybe if Robert Harris does his magic with THE ALAMO, MGM will finally get the appetite for more revival and do that big GATE package after all.

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I think they are using the term restoration pretty loosely. It seems a lot of it was reconstructed lets say, from separations or even worse elements. It just didn't look very good when I saw it at the cinema, it reminded me a lot of the quality on the Australian DVD.
I think they own a lot of other films far more worthy of a restoration. I don't believe that Heaven's Gate was some magnificent film that was just ruined by studio meddling.

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

I haven't seen the "restored" version, but I wonder if the reason the print you saw didn't look so hot (i.e., your comments on the condition of the print itself) was simply due to the fact that MGM only struck a couple prints of the "restoration" and then cycled them around from theater-to-theater and festival-to-festival. I know Kirk did have trouble finding the negative trims of the cut footage, but I've read a few comments on-line re: the restored prints and they seemed to indicate that it looked very good, and comments I've seen re: the MGM-HD showing indicated that it looked very good, too. If an InterPositive from 1980 of the long cut was used to source most of the additional footage for the restoration, there's really no reason for it to be beaten up, since so few prints of the long cut were ever struck back then.

Vincent

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

There's now a fanpage for Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE on Facebook:

Login | Facebook

Vincent

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

Possibly, but usually prints that only go to festivals stay in better condition than regular prints.

Maybe I just have high expectations of what a restoration should look like, and Heaven's Gate was just never intended to look that good?

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But the prints did go to more than just festivals. The "restored" HEAVEN'S GATE played for a couple weeks at the Film Forum in New York City, for example. My point is, if only a couple prints were made (as seems to be the case since the budget for the restoration/re-release was cut), they might have been cycled around to many, MANY festivals and arthouse theaters, and that leads to inevitable print damage. I wonder what the print you saw looked like straight out of the lab- was the damage the only issue you had with it? Or did you note other problems?

Vincent

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The film was 2 hours too long?

It looked the same as the DVD. Dirty, grainy, faded etc. Maybe that is simply how it is meant to look?

It was exactly the same as the Australian DVD I own. So there wasn't any footage additional or missing compared with what I had previously seen.

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Well, regarding the part I bolded, that wasn't what I was asking, Simon. I was simply asking if your issues re: the "restoration" were regarding the physical condition of the print you saw, or other issues. I also have the Australian DVD and while it certainly is quite dirty in many places (having been mastered from an actual 35mm print it seems), I don't see how it's "faded". Unless by "faded" you're referring to the lowering of contrast and color saturation caused by "flashing" the negative, which was was a pretty popular cinematographic process in the 1970s. If that's what you're referring to, then yeah, it would be related to the "intended" look of the film.

Given the apparent tone of your response to me (i.e., the "2 hours too long" line), I'm guessing you're misreading my posts to you. I'm not attacking your opinion of the film itself, I'm just trying to get to the bottom of your response to the condition of the projected print you saw was, and how it might relate to the quality of the "restoration" that was done a couple years ago on a whole.

Vincent

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I think we are dealing in semantics.

What has been called "restored" is really just a reconstruction of the long version made from whatever they could find, which quite possibly included using parts of prints.

If the negative has been trashed for the long version, it may still exist as separations, and would likely look a lot better if it was reconstructed from those.

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I doubt that the whole project would have been undertaken in the first place, and involved John Kirk, without some kind of clean up. Like Vincent, I haven't seen the HD broadcast, but from comments, it does sound as if the work was completed satisfactorily.

Thanks for the heads up re; Facebook Vincent; anywhere we can demonstrate that there is a market for this film, presented properly on home video, is okay with me.

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For folks with a PS3 and an HDTV, the long version of HEAVEN'S GATE is available as a High-Definition download rental from the PS3 store. I rented it and watched it yesterday on my video projector, and it blows all video versions of the film I've seen to date away. I was seeing all sorts of little details that I never noticed before (like a copy of Dante's Inferno on Averill's nightstand). I used to think folks who've complained about shots lingering too long on faces had a point, but I've changed my mind after seeing all the little nuanced details that Cimino was getting out of his performers just in their facial expressions and movements. There are some instances of dirt and debris on the print here and there, and the few opticals and dupes stand out, but the reel change marks that plague all other video versions of the long cut are gone, indicating that a true pre-print element like a InterPositive was used for this HD master.

Unfortunately, the PS3 downloads are unnecessarily restrictive in their DRM- you can have the movie on your hard-drive for 14 days, but once you start watching it, you only have it for 24 hours. Why they don't just let you watch it as much as you want for the 14 days is beyond me- do they really expect these sort of download rentals to take off if you give the consumer so little leeway in how and when they can watch what they've downloaded? It's worth it if you're a fan of this film, though, and you know you'll be able to spare an evening to really sit down and watch the movie. I wish they allowed you to buy the HD download- it'd be a good holdover until the hopefully eventual Blu-ray release. The upshot is, they DO offer and standard-definition download to own, and assuming it uses the same master as the HD version, even that should be better than the current non-anamorphic region 1 DVD, and the anamorphic PAL region Australian version (which looks to be just an unconvert of the 4:3 letterbox-master-taken-from-a-print that was used for the U.S. DVD).

Vincent

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...8056944?ref=mf

Re: Heaven's Gate Uncut Version

Thanks for your post, Vincent, it was very interesting. I don't have a PS3 but it is good to hear the film has an HD print, I'm longing to see it on Blu-Ray. I'm still making do with my US disc, when it was released back in 2000 it didn't look as awful as it does now. Even though I have a 50" Plasma , I bring out my 26" Panasonic LCD when I want to watch Heaven's Gate - somehow the picture quality doesn't look quite so bad on the smaller screen

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Lol same with me

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DIVX lives!

I take it the Australian R4 DVD which was released in 2006; is anamorphic, is the long cut/directors cut, and is the best DVD of the film available? correct? what about the R1 MGM May 2009 DVD ?

also, with the HD/MGM/PS3 download-able version, would it be possible for someone to transfer it to a DVD-R? hopefully dual layered? or a BLU-RAY-writable disc ?   discreetly of course.

I live in Australia btw, and would appreciate this very much. I will pay for the expenses as well!

thanks

hey!
please read my above post.
does your mention of DIVX relate to what I'm looking for?  I hope so :)

thank you!

No, you're asking for someone to do bootlegging for you, which is prohibited by forum rules. 

No, the reference to "DIVX" is to a long-abandoned rental version of DVD that failed miserably and hasn't been available for over a decade.

As noted, what you're asking for is prohibited by the Rules of this forum. Please do not ask for any such thing again. See HTF Rule 5: