Heaven's Gate

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.

I've been a fan of Heaven's Gate since its first release. I've seen it at least half-a-dozen times and have long thought of it as a masterpiece. So, it was with excitement and a sense of anticipation that I took myself off to see the restored director's cut.

To my surprise, I was disappointed on seeing it again and have since revised my estimation of the film. Heaven's Gate touches upon greatness in parts, but overall, lacks the thematic and narrative consistency and the passionate urgency characteristic of a truly great film.

Firstly, two technical problems: The sound quality is diffuse throughout the film, verging on inaudibility at times. Some of this, perhaps, is intentional - a way to mimic the chaos and confusion of history as it is unfolding. But at key points, one is unable to register what it is the characters are saying.

The cinematography is similarly diffuse. The images lack sharpness and particularity of detail. The result is a certain graininess and lack of pictorial sharpness which succeeds in blurring foreground and background.

Structurally, the narrative is off-key throughout, as if Cimino can't quite make up his mind as to the effect he is after. He wanted an epic, for sure. But a pastoral or dramatic epic? The film sits uneasily and unconvincingly between styles, and perhaps even genres. At times it reminded me of Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' or even 'Elvira Madigan' in its languid pace and elegant scene painting. At other times it threatens to turn into a robust 'western' more akin to 'The Wild Bunch'. In fact the latter film offers an instructive reference point for an assessment of 'Heaven's Gate' as it shares the same period concern and employs a similar tone of ambivalent nostalgia for a darker yet more heroic America.

This structural and thematic uncertainty isn't helped by the poor-quality script which often sounds forced and jarring to the ear. The result is an inauthentic sense of period speech.

The near-greatness of Heaven's Gate resides in its set pieces. The roller skating sequence, in particular, is astoundingly beautiful, one of the most evocative scenes ever put to film.

Another set piece which works very well in terms of unifying theme, mood, and setting occurs when Kristofferson and Huppert go riding in the new rig to the lake and she washes herself while he naps in the shade. The languid pacing, evocative music and monumental scenery combine in this scene to convincingly portray the love story which might just lie at the heart of the film - and which could have been its saving grace if pursued more convincingly.

Some critics have complained about the length of the film. This in itself doesn't bother me. A good film can't be long enough. The restored minutes are critical in restoring the motivation and characterization absent from the cut version, and they are full of pictorial interest.

Perhaps the chief glory of Heaven's Gate lies in the achingly evocative soundtrack. The repeated waltz motif and its different scorings throughout(full band, guitar, solo fiddle etc,)lends a haunting quality to the foreground action and establishes a thematic consistency lacking in the narrative itself.

Despite its obvious flaws, most notably the absence of a compelling narrative, there is a sense of grandeur about the film. One leaves the cinema with a rueful sense of missed greatness and a wish that Cimino could revisit the film -with the wisdom of time and hindsight, to put right what is so badly amiss.

i have anticipated the viewing of this film for quite some time. its legend, being as infamous as it is, required me to see it, no matter how awful. i was also eager to see it based not only on my love for The Deer Hunter, which is tremendous, but also on my even greater love for the western genre in general. when i saw that IFC was playing the film this afternoon, i almost soiled myself with glee. however, i must admit that my eagerness was coupled with the bias of reviewers labeling the work as self-indulgent. i had no idea. the film is remarkably similar to the work of Terrence Malick on Days of Heaven. both films are image-heavy, but light on dialogue and plot. however, Days of Heaven succeeds in transporting the viewer to a world of transcendence and naturalistic beauty where HG succeeds only in forcing the viewer to act as surrogate editor since none of the five persons credited with the responsibility were able to do their job correctly. this is not to say that the film is bad. not in the least. it is, however, quite necessary for enjoyment that the viewer either be a student of film and its history, or at least have a lot time on your hands with no real concern about whether a story is being told, or simply hinted at. it would also help for the viewer to carry with her/him a sense of idealistic nostalgia bordering on naiveté, since the film seems to be resplendent with said qualities. i happen to possess all of the above and was therefore able to thoroughly enjoy myself for the entire 3hrs and 45min. of the film. i find myself wanting to watch it again. i think some of the muddled characters bare repeat viewing for complete understanding, while others are archetypal and without dimension. Sam Waterston's character does everything short of twirling a handlebar mustache in order to leave us without doubt of his villainy. in contrast, Walken, Kristofferson, and Hurt all have multi-faceted characters not easily recognizable in the realm of Hollywood caricatures. David Mansfield's score is exquisitely complimentary of the majestic cinematography helm-ed by Vilmos Zsigmond. the battle scene, while confusing, is more true-to-life than most of the overly choreographed "epics" of that period or any other. i submit that this film is essential viewing for aspiring film makers. its viewing, if not ownership, is also necessary for the exhaustive collection of all true cinemaphiles. did i mention it's a little long?

I'm only one of a very few people who has actually seen BOTH versions of "Heaven's Gate". A frequently asked question is "Why was it ripped apart so badly?" The answer lies in this story here:

In 1984 I rented "Heaven's Gate" in order to show a friend of mine who had wanted to know if the film was as bad as he had heard. About 50 or so minutes into the film, Averill walks into Casper, Wyoming, which at the time this scene takes place is 1890. The town is filled with many meticulously dressed pedestrians, and the streets are filled with horses and buggies. My friend starts laughing uncontrollably. I asked, "Did I miss something?" He pulls himself together and says, "You gotta be kidding. There ain't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW."

That in a nutshell can easily describe what went wrong. The film reeks of a director desperately trying to convince us that this movie is very important and cries for us to think he's an absolute genius. Actors take long breaths between sentences as though they were going to choke on what they are saying (man, just wait till you get to the scene where the deathlist is read out - you truly believe he'll read all 125 names), while every shot is filled with either smoke or dust in order to give us the feeling that this is ART. Camino's intentions were honorable as I truly believed that he believed he was making a masterpiece. This is what happens when you go out to make a masterpiece. I had only wished he tried to go out and make a good western. Then this film might have worked.

What ? You expect me to review HEAVEN'S GATE a movie that destroyed the Hollywood studio system and bankrupted United Artists ! Okay then , but mind if I ask where do I begin ?

I've seen this movie twice . The original cut in 1986 and the short version ( Amazing to think a movie that has a 149 minute run time qualifies as a short version ) last night and I must say that it's a much better movie than Michael Cimino's Oscar winning THE DEER HUNTER if only because it has a much clearer plot : An association of cattle barons hire a mercenary army to kick immigrants out of Wyoming . There that's the plot perfectly explained and I doubt if anyone can clearly explain the plot of THE DEER HUNTER in one sentence . By a bitter irony Cimino then decides to muddy the waters by throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the movie and the film starts with a character set up in Harvard where friends James Averill and Billy Irvine have the party of their life . These scenes are very cinematic and epic as boys and girls waltz on the lawn but as for introducing the characters they become totally redundant later in the film . It's interesting to note that in the shortened version much of this has been edited out and replaced with a voice over where Averill travels to Wyoming on a train . This could easily have been the opening scene without any detriment to the narrative

HEAVEN'S GATE has four credited editors a ridiculous amount for a movie and while watching the short version you can't help noticing how badly edited it all is . For example we see Averill and Irvine talking in a billiard room . Averill walks away into another room and confronts the association heads and receives applause from Irvine who is now sitting in a chair in the same room which gives the impression that he can teleport ! Even if you have no knowledge about film editing you can't fail to notice that many , many scenes start or finish in a completely unnatural manner but one can't help thinking it's not the fault of the editors since so many scenes should have been discarded from the script at first draft stage which would have led to a better and much more compact screenplay without it losing any epic quality . Having said that it wouldn't have stopped the sound editing being so awful and many sequences are ruined because the background noise drowns out the duologue

Where the film works best is when it concentrates on the hatred the association has for the immigrants and when it does it is a great film at portraying man's callous inhumanity to man . It also contains some very shocking violence and epic battle scenes and it's a pity that HEAVEN'S GATE is known only for the behind the scenes fiasco than what takes place on screen . So if you watch this movie please forgot that it caused studio bosses to be the driving force on a movie instead of the director or that its production costs ballooned from two million dollars to forty million . Enjoy it for what it is - A flawed epic