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

[TonyD]

What is the ADR being referenced?

 

[Richard V]

BTW the published account of on-set indulgence to which I referred was the LA Times article by Les Gapay, which served as a major body blow to the movie and Cimino before the opening.  Gapay, for those readers who haven't followed the whole sordid story, was trying to write an article about the production and when he got stonewalled, decided to work on the movie as an extra and get his story from the inside.  The result was devastating to everyone involved.

After having both read the book, and seen the documentary of "Final Cut", I think this single article, did more to poison both the public and the other film critics, against the film. I believe the article set in motion a pre-conceived bias against the film, from which it could never recover. When the movie finally came out, those who read the article decided that they were NOT going to approve of the film no matter what. JMO.

 

[rsmithjr]

Even without behind-the-scenes tales of his behavior, one need look no further than the movie's title for proof of Michael Cimino's indulgence. As seen in the opening credits, the film's title is not "Heaven's Gate." It's "MICHAEL CIMINO'S HEAVEN'S GATE."

Cecil B. deMille's The Ten Commandments
Wiliam Wyler's presention of Ben-hur
etc.
All I suppose were "indulgent".

 

[Kevin EK]

I would add "John Carpenter's" before any movie of his, and I believe that Alfred Hitchcock did the same many times.

The director's name before the title isn't necessarily an indulgence, even in this case. Granted, there are many screenwriters who would disagree with me, and about ten years ago, this was a bone of contention for the WGA in negotiations with the whole "A Film By" argument. But that kind of thing doesn't even register as far as indulgences on this movie. Now, if we were talking about Harlem Nights, then we can have the discussion. I remember people talking about the audience seeing the credits read: Paramount and Eddie Murphy Productions present, An Eddy Murphy Film, Starring Eddie Murphy - at which point the laughing was no longer about the movie's content and became about how many times one name was going to be plastered on the credits.

ADR, by the way, stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. The slang term is "Looping". What we're talking about is the re-recording of dialogue in post production, where the actors are brought into a soundproofed room to re-voice their lines while watching the footage so that the lips will match. Sometimes this is done to fix dialogue that was rewritten after people saw a rough edit. Sometimes this is done to entirely replace the voice of an actor if there's a problem with accent or intelligibility. Most times I've seen it done, it's used to clean up dialogue that was partly or completely drowned out by location noise or special effects Ritter fans or a pile of other things. The Apocalypse Now example I gave comes from Walter Murch discussing that he completely replaced all the location dialogue recorded in the Phillipines, using the on-set mix as a scratch track.

Richard is correct that Les Gapay's article soured a lot of people, but we should also remember (and I think Bach's book says the same) that there was a building murmur of bad news about the production long before the LA Times article. There had already been plenty of coverage of the overruns and it was clear that a lot of people were waiting to see the movie founder.

 

[Richard V]

I would add "John Carpenter's" before any movie of his, and I believe that Alfred Hitchcock did the same many times.
The director's name before the title isn't necessarily an indulgence, even in this case.  Granted, there are many screenwriters who would disagree with me, and about ten years ago, this was a bone of contention for the WGA in negotiations with the whole "A Film By" argument.   But that kind of thing doesn't even register as far as indulgences on this movie.  Now, if we were talking about Harlem Nights, then we can have the discussion.  I remember people talking about the audience seeing the credits read:  Paramount and Eddie Murphy Productions present, An Eddy Murphy Film, Starring Eddie Murphy - at which point the laughing was no longer about the movie's content and became about how many times one name was going to be plastered on the credits.
ADR, by the way, stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement.  The slang term is "Looping".  What we're talking about is the re-recording of dialogue in post production, where the actors are brought into a soundproofed room to re-voice their lines while watching the footage so that the lips will match.  Sometimes this is done to fix dialogue that was rewritten after people saw a rough edit.   Sometimes this is done to entirely replace the voice of an actor if there's a problem with accent or intelligibility.  Most times I've seen it done, it's used to clean up dialogue that was partly or completely drowned out by location noise or special effects Ritter fans or a pile of other things.  The Apocalypse Now example I gave comes from Walter Murch discussing that he completely replaced all the location dialogue recorded in the Phillipines, using the on-set mix as a scratch track.
Richard is correct that Les Gapay's article soured a lot of people, but we should also remember (and I think Bach's book says the same) that there was a building murmur of bad news about the production long before the LA Times article.   There had already been plenty of coverage of the overruns and it was clear that a lot of people were waiting to see the movie founder.

I famously remember this being the instance in the opening scene of Scarface where Al Pacino is being interrogated by the Immigration Officials. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it not Charles Durning's voice looped over one of the interrogators?

 

[Matt Hough]

Entire leading performances have been looped by other actors. The three most famous that come to my mind instantly were the leading ladies in both Greystoke and the remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as well as the leading actor in The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

 

[Richard V]

Entire leading performances have been looped by other actors. The three most famous that come to my mind instantly were the leading ladies in both Greystoke and the remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as well as the leading actor in The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

Ah yes, the immortal Klinton Spillsbury.

 

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by Richard V /t/325361/a-few-words-about-heavens-gate-in-blu-ray/90#post_4011777
Ah yes, the immortal Klinton Spillsbury.

The one and only.

 

[Robin9]

Entire leading performances have been looped by other actors. The three most famous that come to my mind instantly were the leading ladies in both Greystoke and the remake of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as well as the leading actor in The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

Wasn't Ursula Andress dubbed in Dr. No?

 

[TonyD]

OK Looping.
Leone' did that and I think I saw that Romeo & Juliet due to the camera being so noisy.

 

[Peter Neski]

Goldfinger is dubbed too

 

[Worth]

Wasn't Ursula Andress dubbed in Dr. No?

Almost all of the early Bond girls were dubbed, a practice they should have continued with Tanya Roberts and Denise Richards.

 

[TonyD]

The man who played Goldfinger didn't speak English I think.
So is there a lot of dubbing in Gate and why was there dubbing?

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Tony, the problem is that there SHOULD have been a lot of dubbing in this film that wasn't done, therefore you can't understand the movie without subtitles.

 

[Kevin EK]

There's a lot of ADR in Scarface. The opening scene has several of Pacino's lines looped. Two of the interrogators have been completely replaced in voice by Charles Durning ("Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy?") and Dennis Franz ("What do they call you? Como se lllama?")

 

[Matt Hough]

I guess the point I was making about the looping in the three cases I mentioned is that famous actors did the dub work for leading roles: Glenn Close in Greystoke, Angela Lansbury in Four Horsemen, and James Keach in Lone Ranger.

I knew Gert Frobe was dubbed in Goldfinger, but wasn't that his own voice in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines? If so, the dubber they got for Goldfinger did a VERY accurate job of voice matching.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Having seen MCHG that first week I can attest most of the confusion was in the dialogue track. Cimino has fixed this with this new print. However I prefer the original look (more sepia/aged) of the film as seen in its premiere week.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Via Twitter:
"Michael Cimino‏@Cimino1939
I have now decided to add the gunshot sound to the suicide at the end of HEAVEN'S GATE / so the Criterion Blu-ray is not the final cut."
I must say from his tweets he comes off as a bit of a nut, but also fairly funny and even a bit self-deprecating.

 

[Vincent_P]

Via Twitter:
"Michael Cimino‏@Cimino1939
I have now decided to add the gunshot sound to the suicide at the end of HEAVEN'S GATE / so the Criterion Blu-ray is not the final cut."
I must say from his tweets he comes off as a bit of a nut, but also fairly funny and even a bit self-deprecating.

This "Cimino twitter account" that has gotten a lot of attention in recent days has been said to be a fake.
Vincent

 

[Scott Calvert]

This "Cimino twitter account" that has gotten a lot of attention in recent days has been said to be a fake.
Vincent

Jeffrey Wells says it's real. I don't put much stock in Wells' opinions, but I don't really see a reason to doubt him about this. I dunno, it looks real enough to me.