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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.

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

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.

Heaven's Gate seems to attract extreme reactions: outright dismissal or unqualified admiration. It is an extreme film, in length, theme and treatment. Its faults have been well-rehearsed, but some are overstated and, equally, some extraordinary virtues seem to have been little noticed. The film is very slow, certainly in the first half, but the central plot is interesting. The Johnson County disturbances exemplify a critical moment in American history, even if the sub-plot of the alienated Harvard man, at the opening and closing of the film, is irredeemably trite. That the working out of the plot is incoherent and chaotic is not a problem - these characteristics are implicit in the term "disturbances" and are an effective metaphor for the central concern of the film. The settlers are disorderly in the conduct their lives and community affairs, they are thieves, not especially lovely people, and the moral balance is tipped in their favour only by the arrogance of power of the Stockmen's leader.

Kris Kristofferson's plays his leading role to the limit of his talent as an actor, but sadly that talent is very small. However, since the part requires him to say little, this is not a fatal flaw. John Hurt plays a decadent drunk as well as an irrelevant and ridiculous part will permit. On the other hand, Isabelle Huppert's performance is outstanding: every expression, every nuance in the tone of her voice, is convincing. The subdued photography, with its narrow palette, is highly effective in communicating the sheer colourless drudgery that life at the frontier must have involved. Most striking of all is the soundtrack, that constant bustle of noise, the rushing of trains and carts and horses and men and wind across the range. This film captures a living experience and the soundtrack does most to bring it alive.

Heaven's Gate is a strange confusion of a film, but in that confusion many good things can be found.

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