La puerta del cielo

I have no intention of going "revisionist" here and heralding "Heaven's Gate" as some kind of murdered classic -- frankly, much of the film is too formless to rank it with the classics (and another reviewer on this site is thoroughly off the mark by comparing it to Griffith's "Intolerance.") However, this is a film that was just a little too brutally reviewed when it came out -- much of the film and its attention to detail, its awesome cinematography, its social commentary, and a surprisingly strong performance by Kris Kristofferson, make it a very watchable and powerful film. It seems that much of the prejudice against the film was based upon its price tag (small by today's standards, when one thinks of the overrated "Titanic" and the deservedly hated "Waterworld") and some sort of animosity toward Cimono, certainly an imperfect person. I would, however, recommend the film -- it is certainly better than its reputation and is, if not a classic, certainly an honorable achievement.

The text on the back of the videobox when I rented this dirge implied that Heaven's Gate is notorious as one of the worst films ever made because the cruel studio took a masterpiece and slashed and burned it, and the critics never got to see the original, which (oh hooray!) is now available for home viewing. Actually, the critics saw the original, hated it, and then the studio tried to edit it into something watchable, which of course was impossible because the problem was not only that the film was far too long, but much of the dialogue was unintelligible, the characters were undeveloped, and the plot was tedious. Why anybody would waste any tears mourning the fate of this dreadful film and Cimino's wounded feelings is beyond my comprehension.

HEAVEN'S GATE will always be remembered for at least three things: destroying United Artists, wrecking director Michael Cimino's career, and ending the last golden age of Hollywood, when the directors could make the types of films they wanted to make. To this day we are still living through the effects from HEAVEN'S GATE. Although the film was made for only $36 million, back in 1980 that was a fortune. Many films since have lost more money, but this one wrecked a respected studio. There is no question as to where all the money went, for it is on the screen to see. Everything was carefully detailed exquisitely down the extras' clothing. An entire town was built in a remote area of Montana. The film opens with a graduation sequence that takes place at Harvard in 1870, which is nicely shot and choreographed, but is completely unnecessary. Many such scenes are scattered throughout, and the film is more than halfway over before the plot finally starts to move forward. The actors all play characters who are one-dimensional and/or irrelevant, especially the John Hurt character. Why Cimino needed so many extras to play the immigrants is unclear, because we never get to know any of them and they are so annoying when they gather together to plot strategies against the rich bad guys who want to kill them off. The editing is pretty bad, but that's to be expected because there really isn't much of a story here, just a series of vignettes. Vilmos Zsigmond's photography is good, but too often there is too much dust and smoke everywhere that obscures the characters and locations. Also, the colors in the film are all washed out; it looks like the filmstock was left out in sun. For example, in the middle of the roller-skating scene, the color simply vanishes, leaving only light brown and black! Granted, there are a few things in the film that I admire, like David Mansfield's score. Isabelle Huppert always looks sexy even without makeup. The battle scenes are pretty exciting, although I could swear that I saw one particular wagon blow up four times. The film has a rather odd denoument that takes place on board a ship, but everything else in this movie is pretty odd. Why the studio didn't bring in another writer or two to rewrite the script is a mystery because inside this mess there was a good movie trying to get out. It's a shame that Michael Cimino still hasn't recovered from this debacle. I sure hope he makes a comeback.

An infamous disaster, often cited as the end of the auteur era in Hollywood. Yet it has its fans. I'm not one of them. This is the story of the Johnson County War of 1890, where cattle barons decided to kill off a community of European immigrants, some of whom are suspected of poaching cattle. Kris Kristofferson plays a sheriff who attempts to rally the immigrants into protecting themselves from the would-be assassins. Isabelle Huppert plays Kristofferson's girlfriend, a madame, and Christopher Walken his romantic rival, who initially works as a bounty hunter for the cattle barons. There's a great story here, but Cimino, fresh off his Best Picture winner The Deer Hunter, gets lost up his own ass. The ridiculous sums of money are often cited when panning this film, but, honestly, the real reason it fails is that it's just boring. This just didn't need to be three and a half hours long. Every sequence is stretched out far past its breaking point, and there are tons of worthless bits that could easily have been cut (the prologue and the epilogue, honestly, add nothing). The actors mostly get lost, with the one exception of Walken, who had won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter and is excellent again here. I can't say I hated this, though. It's almost worth watching just for Vilmos Zsigmond's gorgeous photography. David Mansfield's musical score is also excellent, and, of course, the sets and art design are quite good (it did garner a single Oscar nomination for the art direction). It's kind of hypnotic. I watched it over a couple of days, and it wasn't too much of a chore. Still, I don't know if I'd ever give it a second chance.

Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" is certainly not without its problems, but it's hard to believe, now that the historical context in which the film was released is long past, that it received such a rough drubbing when it came out 25 years ago. It's quite an interesting film and even a very well made one. It bears many similarities to Cimino's earlier success, "The Deer Hunter": a focus on male solidarity and conflict, man returning to a more primitive state, a narrative structure that has the protagonist moving from civilization to a barbaric world and then back to a civilization that will be changed forever by preceding events. Like "The Deer Hunter," this films deals in images more than words. Unlike "The Deer Hunter," however, and this film's biggest failing, is the lack of a cast of the same strength that graced Cimino's earlier film. "The Deer Hunter" had Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. "Heaven's Gate" gets Christopher Walken, but in a role for which he is ill suited, and instead of De Niro and Streep we get Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert. I don't know what possessed Cimino to think Kristofferson could carry a film of this magnitude, but it's a dire miscalculation on his part. Kristofferson isn't necessarily a horrible actor, but he's certainly not strong enough to retain an audience's interest over the course of a 219 minute film. Isabelle Huppert is bland as well. The result is long scenes with little or no dialogue, in which feelings are supposedly being expressed in the faces of the actors; but since the actors aren't very strong, nothing is getting expressed. That's what makes "Heaven's Gate" much longer than it needs to be. There's really only a wisp of a story, so if we're not fully engaged in the characters, what exactly are we supposed to be engaged in? However, the weak cast and writing aside, "Heaven's Gate" is still a remarkable achievement in its own way, and a much better film than a new generation of movie lovers has been led to believe. Cimino may stumble with actors, but he's got a iron-clad grasp of visuals, and puts some stunning and memorable images on the screen. The film feels much more like a 70's film than it does an 80's film. At various times, it reminded me of "Little Big Man," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," and "The Wild Bunch." If that esteemed company doesn't serve as an endorsement of this film, I don't know what does.

Grade: B