Heaven's Gate [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs] [Blu-ray]

Director: Michael Cimino Michael Cimino

Overview

A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino used the historical Johnson County War incident in Wyoming to create an impressionistic tapestry of Western conflict between poor immigrant settlers and rich cattle barons led by Canton (Sam Waterston) and his hired gun Nate Champion (Christopher Walken). Attempting to mediate is idealistic Harvard graduate and county marshal Averill (Kris Kristofferson), who is both Nate's friend and his romantic rival for the affections of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). However, war erupts, at great cost to all involved. Flush from his success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Cimino demanded creative control, and his insistence on shooting on location and building historically accurate sets and props multiplied the film's original budget to a then-astronomical $36 million. When United Artists premiered the original 219-minute version (sight unseen), they discovered that Cimino had produced an elliptical epic, compounding the box-office difficulties of making a Western without any major stars. Critics howled about Cimino's incomprehensible self-indulgence, and United Artists pulled the film after several days. Re-released five months later, 70 minutes shorter, Heaven's Gate bombed again, and MGM bought out the financially crippled United Artists. The ailing Western genre virtually vanished during the 1980s, Cimino's career never recovered, and Hollywood studios had had enough of bankrolling financially risky ventures by "auteur" directors. Heaven's Gate's reputation recovered somewhat after its video release, as it garnered praise from some viewers for such visually remarkable sequences as the Harvard dance and the final battle, as well as for David Mansfield's haunting score. Steven Bach's book Final Cut provides a full production history.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/20/2012
UPC:	0715515101110
Original Release:	1981
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	3:36:00
Sales rank:	9,025

Special Features

Director-approved two-disc Blu-ray special edition features:; Disc one: ; New, restored transfer of part I of director Michael Cimino's cut of the film, supervised by Cimino; New restoration of the 5.1 surround soundtrack, supervised by Cimino and presented in DTS-HD master audio; ; Disc two:; New illustrated audio interview with Cimino and producer Joann Carelli; New interviews with actor Kris Kristofferson, soundtrack arranger and performer David Mansfield, and second assistant director Michael Stevenson; Restoration demonstration; Teaser and TV spot; ; Plus:; A booklet featuring an essay by critic and programmer Guilia D'Agnolo Vallan and a 1980 interview with Cimino

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Kris Kristofferson	Actor
Christopher Walken	Actor,Actor,Actor
John Hurt	Actor
Sam Waterston	Actor
Isabelle Huppert	Ella Watson
Jeff Bridges	John H. Bridges
Joseph Cotten	`The Reverend Doctor'
Roseanne Vela	Beautiful Girl,Actor
Ronnie Hawkins	Wolcott
Geoffrey Lewis	Trapper
Paul Koslo	Mayor Lezak
Richard Masur	Cully
Mary C. Wright	Nell,Nell
Nicholas Woodeson	Small Man
Willem Dafoe	Actor
Stefan Scherby	Large Man
Waldemar Kalinowski	Photographer
Terry O'Quinn	Capt. Minardi
John Conley	Morrison,Actor
Margaret Benczak	Mrs. Eggleston
Tom Noonan	Jake
Elizabeth McGovern	Actor
James Knobeloch	Kopestonsky,George Kopestansky
Erika Petersen	Mrs. Kopestonsky
Robin Bartlett	Mrs. Lezak
Marat Yusim	Russian Merchant
Aivars Smits	Mr. Kovach
Gordana Rashovich	Mrs. Kovach
Jarlath Conroy	Mercenary in New Suit,Actor
Allen Keller	Dudley
Caroline Kava	Steeka
Mady Kaplan	Kathia
Anna Levine	Little Dot
Pat Hodges	Jessie
Mickey Rourke	Nick Ray
Kevin McClarnon	Brown
Kai Wulff	German Merchant
Steve Majstorovic	Czech Merchant
Gabriel Walsh	Zindel's Clerk
Judi Trott	Actor
Norton Buffalo	Private
T-Bone Burnett	Member of the Heaven's Gate Band
Jack Blessing	Emigrant Boy
Stephen Bruton	Member of the Heaven's Gate Band
Jerry Sullivan	Governor of Wyoming
David Cass	Moustached Mercenary
Paul D'Amato	Bearded Mercenary
Peter Osusky	Peter
Ivan Kormanik	Ivan
Michael Christensen	Juggler
Anatoly Davidov	Fighting Bulgarian Emigrant
Nina Gaidarova	Bulgarian Emigrant's Wife
Wally McCleskey	Chicken Fighter
Gary 'Buzz' Vezane	Canton's Bodyguard
H.P. Evetts	Wolcott's Bodyguard
Bruce Morgan	Miner Mercenary
Bobby Faber	Harvard Class Marshal
Judy Trot	Irvine's Girlfriend
Brad Dourif	Actor
David Mansfield	Composer

Technical Credits

Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino	Director,Screenwriter
Jim Camomile	Special Effects
Joann Carelli	Producer,Sound Effects
Cis Corman	Casting
Jane Halloran	Casting
Dennis O'Dell	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Charles Okun	Executive Producer
Stan Parks	Special Effects
Ken Pepiot	Special Effects
Sam Price	Special Effects
Kevin Quibell	Special Effects
William Reynolds	Executive Producer
Paul Stewart	Special Effects
Buddy Van Horn	Stunts
Richard Adams	Sound Effects
Donald A. Bolger	Sound Effects
Charles J. Bond	Sound Effects
Ken Dufva	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

The dire financial and professional consequences Heaven's Gate visited upon its director and studio can't be disputed, but the virtues of the film itself remain more open to debate. Though unwieldy, unsatisfying, and self-indulgent to a fault -- Michael Cimino appears uncomfortable shooting a scene with fewer than fifty extras -- its excesses also bring quite a bit to admire. But first the flaws: Heaven's Gate plays like an ultra-ambitious first novel in desperate need of an editor. Though it prominently features a love triangle between Kris Kristoferson, Christopher Walken, and Isabelle Huppert, for instance, it not only takes over 90 minutes to establish this relationship, it takes that long to establish that all three characters know each other. By that point, Cimino has already made clear that muscular storytelling will not be a priority, and while that approach suited Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Deer Hunter just fine, it fails him here. What's more, for a film about the struggle of the common man against a system of capitalist oppression, it rather hypocritically reduces its poor immigrant farmers into an undifferentiated mass. But for those willing to stick with the 219 minute film (the version to which this review refers and the one most widely available on video and at revival screenings) through those flaws, Heaven's Gate offers considerable rewards. If nothing else, it's a masterful work of cinematography from first shot to last, thanks to the work of Vilmos Zsigmond. More directly to Cimino's credit as a director, he uses Zsigmond's imagery to convey his grandiose themes about the West and America in a way his screenplay only suggests. Where Heaven's Gate fails as a film, it sometimes works as a symbolic pageant, and while that may not be enough to redeem it entirely, it certainly rescues it from charges of artistic disaster.

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