HEAVEN'S GATE special edition

Re: HEAVEN'S GATE special edition

What I had heard, and I had read this in an article about the movie when it was re-released in the UK, was that when the new mangement team came into MGM, the company had completely lost interest in the project. The doc that was made about the movie and broadcasted on TRIO is now banned from the airwaves, since the film clips were supposedly used without permission, or something like that.

I agree, it really is a shame, since even though the film is very egocentric, you can't deny that the film for the most part is a wonderful masterpiece. It has never deserved the reputation it received, and that is really sad.

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Well...I think "can't deny" might be overstating it. There's lots of reasonable people who have viewed it (even in recent years) who would take issue with "for the most part is a wonderful masterpiece". I don't deny you your opinion, but it's hardly a consensus opinion today, even among those who have given it an honest second chance.

Re: HEAVEN'S GATE special edition

i thought this was an announcement of a special edition.

i would like to see it.

wonder why it was a box office mess.

Re: HEAVEN'S GATE special edition

Yes I would love to own a SE

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Vilmos Zsigmond's photography alone deserves a good release! And include the "short" version. I've never seen it, and maybe it's terrible, but it was the version that was most widely released, I believe.

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Well, the concensus may not be that the movie is a masterpiece, but the concensus that I'm aware of seems to be that the film was, at the very least, treated unfairly. The tabloids and general media hatred is what killed this film, not the film's quality.

I, for one, like the film, although I would not call it a masterpiece -- but it doesn't have to be to deserve a Special Edition DVD. There's a four-disc DVD of Pearl Harbour out there, why not a two-disc Heaven's Gate?

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Not every film that's a gigantic failure is an unheralded masterpiece.

Great cinematography or not HEAVEN'S GATE is a dud. You can't fault the studio for trying a myriad of times to make sense out of it. Long version, short version -- it's gorgeous looking but has almost nothing else to recommend it.

I also take issue with the fact that it was "treated badly." It had one of the biggest budgets of ALL TIME when it was made. Cimino showed a reckless disregard for the money he was entrusted with, and delivered a project that was -- and this is putting it kindly -- less than good.

The movie single-handedly wrecked the studio that produced it, and you're saying the studio treated CIMINO and his movie badly? Talk about revisionist history! UA was guilty only of indulging him to the degree of excess that he showed behind the camera (and ultimately in front of it). If anything he was given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted -- and the film turned out as it did because of Cimino's excess.

After what Cimino did, and in the insane amount of other people's dollars he blew on that project, frankly the studio had every right to cut it and do whatever they could with it. No version, at any length, worked.

And Cimino's career after that (as much as I plead guilty to enjoying Year of the Dragon) basically confirms what kind of disaster he produced with that film. I love the cinematography as much as anyone but otherwise it's one of the most glaring displays of personal excess on a director's behalf in the history of the cinema.

Re: HEAVEN'S GATE special edition

There's more than just exceptional cinematography on offer here - the story itself, of a dark period in American history, is fascinating. But the structure, pacing and general dynamic of the film is way off and that is what weakens it. But it is far from a bomb. It certainly deserves a new HD transfer and Cimino commentary (he hates both documentaries made on the film, BTW).

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I think the major flaw is that nearly every scene goes on for twice as long as necessary. Atlman said the same things more eloquently in McCabe & Mrs. Miller...

Oh, and the final battle is farcical, they all would've been killed in a few minutes. DVD is about making money, and other than the French, not many people are interested in buying Heaven's Gate on DVD.

Heaven's Gate didn't really bankrupt United Artists. As Steven Bach details in his great book "Final Cut", U.A.'s parent company TransAmerica wanted to get rid of U.A. for ages, because it wasn't helping its share price. The success of the Bond film Moonraker more than made up for the loses incurred by Heaven's Gate. But TransAmerica used Heaven's Gate as an excuse to get out of film production.

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Sorry, Robert - I had it in my mind that there was another documentary besides "Final Cut", but there isn't - not yet, anyway; any future DVD set may include an all-new featurette or documentary. It's a shame: the current transfer of the film is pretty poor and I'd love to see an all-new, restored HD transfer and the "Final Cut" documentary, but it looks like neither desire will be fullfilled any time soon.

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So now that Fox is running the show as far as distribution and title selection, any hopes that HEAVEN'S GATE will be put back on the schedule?

The current disc is dire and badly in need of a new edition. Last I'd heard through the grapevine was that a new HD transfer was already done when the film was restored a few years ago, so all MGM would need to do is release it...with the FINAL CUT doc included, one hopes.

The shortened edition is supposed to be worthwhile as it really is a considerable rethink with alternate takes used, plus some of the muddled dialogue was relooped in this version and narration added etc. It would also be a great inclusion.

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For all it's flaws -- and they are heavy -- I find much to enjoy in HEAVEN'S GATE. I would buy a special edition, or even a multiple disc edition, in a heartbeat.

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the long cut plays much better than the theatrical (Ray had a print that we ran a couple times). I've spoken with people who worked on the film. Their on location stories were better than anything in Final Cut. There was more than cinematic genius fuelling that set.

what gets me is that everyone wants to praise the living daylights out of Days of Heaven as if it was a box office stud. But it earned as little as Heaven's Gate. Plus it also had an out of control production schedule and Malick cut it for two years. But everyone had their knives out for Cimino.

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The comparison between the productions of DAYS OF HEAVEN and HEAVEN'S GATE is fairly valid, except Malick's film cost only a fraction of the budget of HEAVEN'S GATE. I like both films, though DAYS OF HEAVEN is at least more coherent and watchable. In any case, after a decade when directors more or less got what they wanted, HEAVEN'S GATE was used as an argument against the freedom that created many masterpieces in the 70's... as well as some movies, like Dennis Hopper's THE LAST MOVIE, that were virtually unreleasable. Unfortunately it also meant the begining of film making that is so market tested, it results in films that are singularly bland and uninteresting, a legacy that persists to this day.

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Malick is businesslike, self-disciplined, thoroughly prepared if not overly prepared, does what he says he'll do, and is easy to get along with. He also takes care of your money.

Cimino, on the other hand was abrasive personally and had a talent for making enemies out of friends. He didn't have a clear idea what he wanted, kept changing his mind and everyone else's plans, was utterly unprepared, and the last thought in his head was to take care of your money. If the money people don't feel they can depend on you, your career is over.

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Where did you hear that rumor about Malick? Malick is not even close to a disciplined guy. On both Days of Heaven and Thin Red Line, he tossed out the script and just improved the film. He wanted the actors to "find the film." The man took 2 years to cut Days of Heaven along with the year to shoot it so it can all be done at Magic Hour. He doesn't come close to taking care of the money. Days of Heaven didn't set the box office on fire. Thin Red Line cost $52 million and after you factor in the P&A at $13 million, it doesn't look like Fox was rolling in gravy with a gross of $36 million. "New World" cost $30 million. it didn't clear $13 million which was probably as much money as Fine Line spent on P&A. And that doesn't include the costs of recutting the film after its first week.

As far as personalities go, how do we know what Malick's personality? He doesn't even allow himself to be shot in the "making of" documentaries. The guys who produced Thin Red Line weren't exactly in love with their Terry time. from imdb.com's trivia on the film:
Prior to the film's release, Geisler and Roberdeau allegedly violated a confidentiality clause they had signed by giving an interview to Vanity Fair about their long involvement with Malick and the film. Malick was upset by this. Geisler and Roberdeau had to sign another agreement stating they would not attend the Oscars ceremony. If they violated that agreement, their names would be stripped from the film and video credits.

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Your evaluation is erroneous. You're leaving out so much about the production process and distribution I don't know where to start. It's impossible. I'm not going to debate this with you. But I will ask what makes you think Malick is in competition with Cimino? Why does one have to be compared to the other? Forgive me, but your analogy is ill-informed if not fatally flawed.

I reiterate, I find much to enjoy and appreciate in HEAVEN'S GATE regardless of its flaws, and I will cheerfully buy a special edition. I support your suggestion one-hundred percent.

Regarding THE NEW WORLD, I have one complaint to level against the film, and Malick, and it's a big one. BIG. All the historical evidence, from the eyewitness descriptions in journals, letters, and ship's logs, to the pilgrim's drawings, are unanimous that the "red savages" lived naked and were naked during their interaction with the pilgrims. Indian men, women and children were all casually naked. So, Pocahontas should have been naked throughout the film. To clothe her is to perpetuate a glaring historical inaccuracy, in a film that boasts a rare historical intelligence. Malick really chickened out in this regard. Just think of the boost nudity would have given to the box-office.

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The most amazing thing about Heaven's Gate is that it got made. According to Steven Bach, Cimino first pitched the film to U.A. in 1975. Here is the list of cast that he presented to U.A.

John Wayne (main character, played by Kristofferson)
Jeff Bridges (ultimately played by Walken)
Jane Fonda (ultimately played by Huppert)

Minor characters: Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Rod Steiger, Burt Reynolds, James Caan.

As the immigrants: Richard Widmark, Ingrid Bergman, Gene Hackman, George Kennedy, Jon Voight, Kirk Douglas.

U.S. Marshall - Joel McCrea, Govenor of Wyoming, Randolph Scott, U.S. cavalry captain, William Holden. Mayor of the town, Arthur Kennedy. Classmate of Wayne character (ultimatly played by Hurt) Jack Lemmon.

That proposed cast list just SOUNDS like someone who is in a fantasy land, and not serious about making an actual film.

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You don't know where to start? Well how about by just defending your single statement that Malick "does what he says he'll do." He twice tossed out the script when he arrived on location. How is that "businesslike?" Malick does what he wants to do. I don't know if you've ever tried to produce a film, but the moment your director decides to chuck out the script and "find the story on the location," is when you talk to set security about what's the difference between First degree homicide and third degree manslaughter.

Mallick could have easily burned through the budget of Days of Heaven if he had the infamous UA memo.

There is something fatally flawed about calling Malick business-like. You describe him as the second coming of Hitchcock.

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Hitchcock improvised more than he admitted. He liked to say everything was planned in advance, but especially in his 60s and 70s films he would improvise staging and dialogue on the set.

He also told Bogdanovich about a funny situation when working on Torn Curtain. Hitchcock contacted Universal to say that he was on location but could not shoot because it was raining. He received a memo back asking him what he intended to do. Hitchcock replied "I will do anything necessary to complete the film, which in the future, will be called 'our film'" :-P

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"Atlman said the same things more eloquently in McCabe & Mrs. Miller..."

This film is bought up a lot , because Vilmos shot
that too,But I think "Heavens Gate" is far bigger and epic in its scope and
Look,The Altman film dosn't say the same things,
But The Cimino picture is far better with Visuals and more concerered with Visuals than
Altman is(and this might be he greatest looking film)
Gate might be a flawed flim,But Visualy it far better than
McCabe or the Storaro shot "Reds" because of Cimino.
Zigmond should have won the Oscar,

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I think Altman was very interested in 'visuals' during the 1970s films. He is basically interested in taking regular Hollywood genres, but then photographing them in completely irregular ways. He is interested in breaking down the conventions of studio Hollywood, hence he moves the camera without motivation, he uses heavy diffiusion or flashing to degrade the image, and he frequently reverts to long lenses and zooms, when previously Panavision films favoured short and medium focal lengths. I agree his 1970s films don't look carefully composed, or classically framed. But this is the whole point, he wants to take a familiar story or genre, but then show it in a new and experimental way. He cares about the image a great deal, but his focus is on making the film look unconventional.

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You know, it's not unusual for director to form these kinds of lists, but they're only for reference, so you know what kind of actors they're thingking of for a particular role. It's pretty easy to find these kinds of things written in scripts too.

But yeah. About two years ago there was this full retrospective of his carrer on the Portuguese Cinematheque. Cimino attended some of the movies and gave small introductions to The Deer Hunter, Year of The Dragon and obviously Heaven's Gate (one of the producers was there too). In between those, he gave a 90 mins / 2 hour Q&A session and while I found him fascinating to hear (he was very chatty, I'm pretty sure none of his answers lasted less than 10 minutes), I'll admit that his vision can easily get distorted by both his enthusiasm and his ego. But he didn't sound too arrogant, which kinda surprised me.

Additionally on that Q&A he metioned that Desperate Hours had been severly cut (he had very few nice words to say about the editor) and apparently he owns much of the cut footage (some 30 mins, I belive) which he promised to screen whenever he came back, but I dunno if that will ever happen... I posted a video on Google Video a while ago with him describing one of the scenes but the image and sound quality weren't so good... I also have the whole Q&A on audio but I never managed to covert it to a decent audio format (again, the audio quality wasn't so good either).

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Cimino is one of the most articulate filmmakers I have ever listened to (via interviews and commentaries). He was a total maverick in the late 70s and early 80s - fearless, reckless, but passionate and loaded with great ideas. He just lacked discipline - or a hard-ass producer. No one forced him to spend all that time and money on Heaven's Gate. But that's what used to happen in those days of Hollywood - create a monster hit critically and financially and win loads of Oscars and one of the heads of the studios would let you keep all of his daughters in your own harem. The film was initially titled, The Johnson County Wars and had a $2-million budget and Cimino would have ran with that, but the ideas started coming and so did the money and resources he asked for and his ego swelled and swelled and swelled.

Waterloo (1970, Sergei Bondarchuk) financed by Dino di Laurentiis and and Russia's Mosfilm cost between $25-32 (sources differ) and made very little, with only $1.4-million in the USA. Few people wanted to see a film like that in 1970 - just as few wanted to see Ryan's Daughter, Cromwell, The Molly Maguires, The Last Valley or Catch-22. Viewed today, those films strike me as being highly impressive films, daring in scope and featuring great acting. I especially love Waterloo and recently acquired the OOP score by Nino Rota.

1970 was a divisive year for Anglo-American Cinema. Compared to the 60s, there were few mega-budget, large-scale films were made in the 70s and Heaven's Gate harkens back to the those days - and many of those epics were flops, ie. The Fall of the Roman Empire, Khartoum, etc. Huge changes were underway by the late 70s, following Lucas and Spielberg's revolutionizing of American Cinema, for good or ill and we were to see many highly expensive films in the 80s. I have not seen Heaven's Gate in many years and that was on TV (in 1.85:1, not 2.35:1) but it was plain to see that here was a visual masterpiece of the first rank and I am one of those decadent fellows who cherish films like this as they very, very rare. Nicholas and Alexandra is another pet favourite of mine for this very reason, though I like almost everything about it.

I badly want to re-evaluate Heaven's Gate, but I need a gorgeous 2.35:1 amamorphic transfer to do so. A Cimino commentary would also help, I'm sure.

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Just wanted to throw in an alternate opinion on Malick-

Malick consistently turns out high quality product, and makes them for peanuts. That's businesslike. His working process may be rooted in spontaneity, but that doesn't make him incompetent- there's no other way the final products could be as uniquely dazzling as they are. The shooting script for Thin Red line is so much less interesting than the movie it's not even funny. Why was Malick bothered by Giesler talking about him in public? That's easy- he doesn't like publicity. He's a philosophy professor, not a movie star. One doesn't get the impression from Sarah Green and others that he rampantly disrespects his backers; they know what they're in for. Hell, he made Thin Red Line, which was originally 6 hours (and I'm not talking assembly cut), for 52 million. That's incredible.

And as Simon says ( ), Hitch was definitely no stranger to improvisation. As we all know, it's just as valid a method of creating art as any other.

I've read about Cimino's absurd levels of irresponsibility, of course, but I haven't seen Heaven's Gate. I look forward to seeing what the fuss is all about. For what it's worth, Ebert actually has the film in one of his "Great Movies" books.

Regards,
Nathan

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No, the list was not just for reference. Those were the actual actors that he wanted U.A. to get for the film.

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I saw this movie once a long time ago. It seems like such a waste that so few people have ever seen it on a big screen. I'd love to see an Apocalypse Now Redux-style new version get a limited theatrical release, followed by a good dvd. (Maybe if they change the name to Johnson County War, people would be more likely to give it a look. The phrase "Heaven's Gate" has a lot of baggage now.)

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I read Baches Final Cut and remeber reading that David Brown was stunned by what he saw and urged him to cut it I believe. He might have asked him why didn't you come to me for help or something along those lines. LOL. Thats how badly the premire went. The HG people pissed off the locals while shooting the movie also. I agree with an earlier poster that there was probably more than the smell of film on that set. Hahaha.

As for Malik I think is films are well shot but pretty dull when compared to Kubrik, Altman, Bergman etc. I bought the Thin Red Line on dvd and have watched it once in 4 years. Thats saying something. The poetry crap got on my nerves. Scoresse liked the movie alot when he was on Ebbert & Roeper some year back. He must see something some of us don't. It won Academy nominations also. ITS DULL TO ME THOUGH! LOL.