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39 comments

  • By Sidney
    December 04, 2012
    06:32 PM

    1) An all-star cast of great actors, especially Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, and Isabelle Huppert. 2) The darker, deeply probing side of the American West. 3) One of the more memorable, and interesting 'failures' in Cinema history.
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  • By Screen Rant
    December 04, 2012
    11:42 PM

    This was a half-baked "3 Reasons." The examples culled from the film were strong, but the reasons were a little thin ("It's dark side.") I guess it can be hard to distill ideas into chapter headings. I think David Mansfield's score, and all instances of real people performing real tasks is 1 reason for me. Seeing that young guy skate around while playing the fiddle and knowing that he recorded all of the music on the soundtrack is a bit mind-blowing. But also seeing so many actors performing stunts on horseback helps the whole reality gel together. There's a great cast - I forgot the great 80s Mickey Rourke is in this - but so many are under-utilized. I think David Mansfield has more screen time playing his fiddle than Mickey Rourke, Tom Noonan, or Terry O'Quinn, who've all proven themselves as great actors. Vilmos Zsigmond's work is superlative. Cimino said this was his best-looking film. I could easily agree. It might be within his capability now to surpass this work by framing or exposing better-looking images, but I'm not sure there will ever be a better designed film for him to test the theory. The constructed sets and natural beauty, in concert with his artistry, and all of the excellent characters who complete the backdrops, make this one of the most beautifully photographed movies in American film. All of this being said, there were moments of the film that felt overwrought. The long trail of immigrants leading their wagons down that trail under the gorgeous sky with the Eastern European-sounding score actually rang a false note for me, beautiful as it was. (Perhaps paring back the score - great as it was - would have helped me feel less beaten-on-the-head with Michael Cimino's pride in America's immigrant history). I actually had some issues with the role of "the immigrants" as a story element. Even taken as a group, they felt somehow under-developed to me. I don't know whether the Johnson County Wars were waged specifically on Eastern European immigrants, or whether their ethnicity was added for artistic effect, but at times they felt a bit caricatured, like a subtle line had been crossed over and become too "soul-stirring" and polemical for me. It's not that I'm opposed to such politics, but I would have felt more moved by a subtler hand. It ended up ringing false. In opposition, Cimino's use of an ethnic immigrant backdrop to the Pennsylvanians in the Deer Hunter did not make me feel the same way (that felt textured and not out-of-place, which may have had to do with how the music was used in the two films). There were brilliant inserts and asides that helped me feel the immigrants' reality (the cattle rustling, the shots of so many immigrants crammed into close quarters to sleep, and the hint that Christopher Walken might himself have been a 2nd generation Slav or Russian was great), but I would have loved to have felt more why Averill was so invested in them. Because he loved a French madam? If more of the immigrants' lives and reality could have been related to me through Averill, I would have been more satisfied. But I only saw that he had some kind of principled reaction against injustice, and no personal connections to the Eastern Europeans. I would have loved to have known what happened to Averill between Harvard and 1890 to influence his decision to "drop out" from high society. I could not help comparing the film to the Godfather Part II as an American epic of immigrants and class struggle, but the Godfather never felt as though it were mining my emotions as feverishly. Both films take artistic license with historical fact, and I would argue that both have similar politics, but the Godfather seemed to free itself more completely from the burden of telling "history" and focused on the truths of its characters more fully. There is so much great detail in Heavens Gate (I love the heating stove in the skating rink - that feels completely real to me), and Cimino talks about how a film's reality can live or die by such details. But then I hear Brad Dourif (the great Brad Dourif) speaking with an accent and something breaks for me. I have to agree that this is a great film, but not a Great Film. I want to believe that it's that missed masterpiece, wronged by the studio and critics, and returned to rightful glory, but I can't commit to unreserved accolades. It was wronged for sure, and deserves the revisit, though. And more on the story behind the film would have been great for inclusion on the disc. (Such as was done with Brazil).
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    • By Cnuts
      December 05, 2012
      09:37 AM

      I viewed Averill's motivations for banding with the immigrants as coming from a need to break from his class (which of course is never truly made clear) and standing, but also from the good 'ole Western archetype of "Not on my turf!" Johnson County stands as a refuge, a place far from the halls of Harvard and the eastern elite. When those in power infringe on his escapist fantasy, he reacts, not so much after careful consideration, but after a few bottles of whiskey and a hangover... ah Kristopherson!

    • By Letrbuck
      April 08, 2013
      03:51 AM

      My husband & I worked on this movie in the stunt dept., at various times we were stuck in amongst the extras. One thing that can not be denied, the vast majority of the movie was filmed in some of the most gorgeous country on the face of the earth. Cimino worked horrific hours can't be denied, he was not a western historian for sure, the movie has a minute resemblance to the actual Johnson County War of Wyoming. I just finished reading the book "Final Cut" the authors version of what went amok with the film. One of the last things the author surmised was; "Artists work at their own pace & see their own visions which cannot be dictated by others as to speed of their work, much less the result they are seeking." I have to agree. I'm anxiously awaiting to see this longer version, if for no other reason than to appreciate what is surely God's country of Montana once again. Comparing Heavens Gate to the movies of today, there is more realism, amongst the story and for sure the sets, costumes & real life stories that most likely did take place at one place or another. The latter part of the 1800's were the years of the most influx of German immigrants to this country, many settled in Minnesota, North Dakota some moving more west. Even though Cimino's movie is mostly fiction, the hardship and struggles of those arriving in the mostly unsettled west is documented in a true story of a family who immigrated from Scotland to North Dakota in about the same time frame as the story line of Heavens Gate, early 1890's . The immigrant family from Scotland arrived in North Dakota with a family of five girls, one boy and one little girl died in Wisconsin. Two more girls and three boys were born to them in Dakota, twelve children in all the immigrant mother delivered. There was an epidemic of scarlet fever and diphtheria the first year. The family lost three girls, one 14 yrs,, another 11 yrs, and a two years old, along with the wife's mother. Two of the girls died in one night and the third one the same week. The father left the homestead for Mandan, ND to get lumber to make caskets and on the way home, a neighbor met him, telling him to go back for another casket. That was real life folks, in those bygone days, Cimino was seeking some realism and for me, not thrilled with all the digitally filmed scenes today, of ridiculous movies Hollywood is dumping on us in this time frame. I think a look back at this movie and a reminder of just how spoiled we are today in comparison to those that crossed an ocean looking for a better life, how they survived in a strange mostly uninhabited part of this country, I will be reminded; just how tough those human beings were, the beauty of Montana, the wonderful work of the set and costume designers & for sure; the awesome music scores in Heavens Gate should have received an Oscar. We were tough then too in 1979, wearing full 1890 garbs of all wool clothes from head to foot, in the heat of the summer, we did not complain, Cimino himself clothed in all wool clothes while the filming was going on toughed it out with all the principles & as well as the rest of the cast. I can't wait to hear the music score played out on my digital TV & return in memory to a great experience. I'll not be one to bash Cimino he was working with an Artsy DNA. I anticipate hearing & watching another fabulous artist; David Mansfield skate around the roller rink with his fiddle. It took me many years to discover David was not a kid hired in the roll he played but, the actual musician, his work on the film was vastly ignored by the critical bashing of the media & those that didn't appreciate the film. Can't wait for my copy to arrive, I know I'll appreciate all that went into making it.

  • By mbrake
    December 06, 2012
    12:46 PM

    Number 1: David Mansfield Number 2: Vilmos Zigmond Number 3: Christopher Walken End of story.
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  • By PNeski
    December 06, 2012
    03:41 PM

    Well that no-one should go by the taste of the Critics,Be it that Times guy who though Gostbusters 2 was better than 1
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  • By ABlack
    December 06, 2012
    04:39 PM

    Well i gotta say i received mine from the mail today and i watched a little and yes it's slow and yes maybe it's not the ideal western for story related purposes...but it's quite beautiful...the imagery is some of the best i've ever seen and i've seen alot of movies and it beats out 2001 and There Will Be Blood and even Days of Heaven in perfect imagery and very perfect detail....it's definently slow from what i watched but the imagery is treat and this is one reason i want to be a director...and i want to add the bad movie tag is probably unwarranted....come on Beethoven and The Covenant is definently worse then this!
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    • By Cinemark
      December 14, 2012
      08:37 AM

      How do you think it measures up to Lawrence of Arabia in terms of imagery?

    • By Daniel W.
      December 14, 2012
      12:39 PM

      It really doesn't measure up to Lawrence of Arabia, There will be blood, or Days of Heaven at all. Heaven's Gate is so thin on story that I could care less what the visuals looked like. If you don't have compelling drama or interesting characters in your epic, then your movie becomes boring. And I hate Heaven's Gate because of that. But if anyone out there likes it, that's fine. That does not make you a stupid person or anything. I just want to make that part clear.

  • By Jose
    December 11, 2012
    09:38 AM

    I'd like to say that this movie is still something to be appreciated. I just watched it and I loved it. Sure it had its flaws but it is a masterpiece and it deserves to be released on the Criterion Collection. It stands in line with other epic genre films like Gone With The Wind (Drama), Return Of The King (Fantasy), 2001: A Space Odyssey (SciFi), The Shining (Horror). Heaven's Gate is not the greatest but one of the best Westerns.
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    • By Jeffrey E. Ford
      December 11, 2012
      01:29 PM

      A-men to that!!!

    • By Dave
      December 20, 2012
      02:33 PM

      Yup, one of the most under-rated films in recent history. Its slow, elegant pacing is wonderful. It's the kind of film that lets the viewer breathe and reflect. The viewer is forced to become more of an active participant in the viewing, rather than just sitting back passively and having the director control the entire viewing experience. Brilliant!

  • By J. A. Czepyha
    December 13, 2012
    02:29 PM

    1-Terrible film, 2-Terrible film, 3-Terrible film. Worst Criterion ever!
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    • By Daniel T. P.
      December 13, 2012
      02:41 PM

      That was really clever, J. A.

    • By Daniel W.
      December 13, 2012
      10:18 PM

      I agree. This movie sucks.

    • By thevoid99
      December 14, 2012
      01:27 AM

      No, the worst Criterion is Armageddon.

    • By Daniel W.
      December 14, 2012
      12:31 PM

      I agree that Armageddon is a bad criterion, but I consider that movie a guilty pleasure. Heaven's Gate was built up as the next Gone with the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia. So I consider Heaven's Gate worse.

  • By Cinemark
    December 14, 2012
    08:46 AM

    The problem with the film is that despite the beautiful imagery (and it IS beautiful!), there's just not enough storytelling to warrant all of this fuss Cimino went through. If he had put as much focus on the script as he did with the production, that masterful epic he wanted would have materialized. Instead, he ended up ruining his reputation and bankrupting United Artists. A real sad waste of a great production.
    Reply

  • By aaron
    December 14, 2012
    05:52 PM

    Ultimately we are speaking in opinions, but I tend to appreciate an opinion when it is nuanced. "this movie sucks" never really cut it for me. I think it is all too easy to suggest that a spare narrative is "thin" or "insufficient." But there is another kind of narrative happening all around the central drama of johnson county and the love triangle. That narrative is the narrative of place, and space, and familiarizing so completely with environments that they are inseparable from the events that take place with them. To the contrary of boring, narratives that hinge on such seamlessly constructed realities, and that have patience in their unfolding, are all the more engaging because of one's ability to enter into them. For me, every frame of Heaven's Gate is vital and full (even with those wide open spaces). As I said in another thread, it never seems as though "nothing is happening" because I feel the volume of each space, the density of the smoke, the grit of the dirt, the gusts of wind, the flurry of languages. Vilmos Zsigmond was able to both capture and dramatize every scene, no matter what was happening, with movements sweeping and subtle. In fact, the more I watch it the richer the characterizations feel, the more complex the fabric of faces and places appears, the more interesting the existential aspects, and the graver the stakes of the town, townspeople, and the principal cast seem. Not to mention the editing of the final battle sequence is kind of a marvel. Personally, im pretty thankful Cimino went through all the fuss of perfectionism and craft, because the result is a highly transportive film. Heaven's Gate possesses material, environmental, and emotional authenticity that refuses the "ends justifies the means" amnesia about american expansionism.
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    • By Dave
      December 20, 2012
      02:38 PM

      Exactly: "what he said".

    • By Alex Black
      March 16, 2013
      09:59 AM

      I couldn't agree more, although the story lacks it makes up in art and detail.

  • By Martin
    December 20, 2012
    03:17 PM

    Great Films, oft-cited criteria: 1) Rewards repeated viewings, 2) no other film like it, and 3) involuntary immersion of the viewer. Roger Ebert STILL has a review posted in which he ridicules as silly several elements of the film, which incidents are in fact a part of the historical record. People STILL talk about the incoherent initial theatrical cut. People STILL talk about how excess was rampant in its making, and how it affected a major studio. If you missed on #1, that's your fault. If you dispute #2, I'd love to hear about a similar film. What's most troubling is that those who don't experience #3 seem to be viewing the film through a haze of irrelevant crap. I guess some automobile chase scenes/crashes might help with that, at least if the automobiles were operated by cartoon characters. That way nothing is asked of the viewer. Of course, The Rules of The Game and a lot of other great films will need to be shelved.
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    • By Daniel W.
      February 24, 2013
      12:10 PM

      Yeah. I will agree it is unfair to ridicule this film based on the 149 minute cut. It would be like continuing to hate One Upon a Time in America based on the crappy 2 1/2 hour US cut (you know, the version that put all the events in the film in chronological order. at least I think that was what happened to it. Holy crap that was bad.) This, like all films, has to be viewed on what it ultimately tries to do in the long run. There are several films (like Apocalypse Now or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) that had difficult productions and that hasn't ruined the movie for me. Heaven's Gate is a film that hasn't worked for me at all and I have seen the 216 minute cut 3 times. Still, if this movie is loved by others besides myself, I suppose that is a good thing. By the way, Roger Ebert is a bit overrated anyway. I seldom agree with him.

  • By Dana W.
    December 25, 2012
    11:23 PM

    I have to agree with Aaron's analysis. i loved this movie even in its most butchered form. For a long while I thought i was the only one that loved it. The internet finally cured me of that mistake. I have always had a fascination for the past and old things, old ways and I suppose heaven's gate fits right into that. As Aaron said, it's nearly as much about place texture as story or character. Even the intentionally grainy photography looks like a moving Autochrome, though this process came along in 1903. But there is another trait that will never allow it to be enjoyed by many a modern moviegoer. That is it has a very odd, slow rhythm that can only be entered by surrendering your expectations of even 1950's pacing. Life in the 19th century was slower than life is now on the whole, and i feel Cimino really wanted to make a film that truly felt like the 1890's. Just think, still photographs were a novelty for working people, that's why the immigrants are getting a large group photo to split the cost. No films or electronics of any kind, instead People read anything they could get their hands on, If they could read. They had time to think, when they were't working six days a week, twelve to sixteen hours a day. Read Moby Dick today and often the modern mind screams "come on, will you, pick up the pace already", but that pace was how people experienced life back then. Most of the serious criticisms of Heavens Gate stem from this i believe. I May just be strange in that I wish some passages of Heaven's Gate were longer than they are, especially the Casper sequence. It takes time to become immersed in another world and If you cannot enjoy this process you will never like Heaven's Gate.
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  • By Tim Hulsey
    January 23, 2013
    12:42 PM

    Now if we could only get a widescreen director's cut of THE SICILIAN ...
    Reply

  • By aaron
    January 31, 2013
    01:32 PM

    You heard the man, Criterion. Get on it!
    Reply

  • By gillesantoine
    February 05, 2013
    10:12 AM

    Yesterday, I presented Heaven's Gate at my school cineclub. There was almost 30 persons in the audience. I expected a controversal debate after the screening. But the main question was: "How can you hate or dislike this film? Just how?" I mean, you dont havé to love it to death, but calling it a bad movie? Nobody understood it last night. More than half of the audience, mainly film scholars, cailles it a perfect picture, a unquestionnable masterpiece.
    Reply

  • By Robert Perschmann, Minnesota
    March 12, 2013
    08:02 AM

    March 2013 Just saw it a few days ago. -Heaven's Gate is the best film that I have ever seen. I have been seeing them for a long time, old guy talking. My first accidental film viewing as a teenager that shifted me into serious mode was Bergman's the Magician. There was a celebration in my viewing room for that blu-ray. Criterion is the most important "thing" in my film viewing practice. "I am Cuba" was my first knock-out LD. Heaven's Gate is the Great Heaven's Gate. As we live through 2000 through 2013 we experience the truth of the ages that is Heaven's Gate. All of it is here in our world and our country. The movie is so painfully honest that it must be confronted with tears. Thankfully the beauty of life... and the joy are also plentiful. Mainly the movie is art. I am an art lover. I got married in the Marin County Civic Center in California because of a love for a masterpiece of architecture. At the time I lived in a stone cabin in the nearby redwood forest. Sitting in and near great buildings is a favorite pursuit. I love the work of Eero Saarinen... like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. It means so much to me. I love the movies of Fellini because every frame of film is worthy of a fine picture frame. Heaven's Gate is an experience that fits into my life of loving art and... and being a citizen anti-fascist activist. Heaven's Gate is also masterpiece of nature. All my life I have felt different when a mountain was in my view. I suppose that we all love the sky, the clouds, the grass. A rare film quality is Great timing. Right, a movie that makes you truly feel in the moment requires an acute sense of timing. Clear your calendar for Heaven's Gate. Blu-ray and your best sound devices are in order. Thanks to Criterion I have access to a gift for the best humans that I know.
    Reply

  • By Alex Black
    March 16, 2013
    09:56 AM

    Daniel i have to agree There will be blood,Days of Heaven and Lawrence of Arabia are better with imagery and story telling and Heaven's Gate i kind of watched built up like everyone else and although no terrible it isn't great in story like those three movies which will go on for decades and decades as true movie classics!
    Reply

  • By Richard Peres
    March 18, 2013
    11:55 AM

    The longueurs ruin it for me, interminable periods of time when characters do and say nothing - an inordinate amount of "dead air." There must be at least 30 minutes of it that do not in today's faster-paced films add anything dramatically to the film.
    Reply

  • By Ev7
    March 26, 2013
    07:08 PM

    1. Stunning cinematography 2. The American Dream 3. The anti-western.
    Reply

  • By DCSnyder
    April 08, 2013
    12:05 PM

    Love the new transfer and restoration, but I miss the Intermission. The new cut loses one of my favorite shots in the film: John Hurt disappearing in the smoke. The Intermission also gives a natural break in time so that when Cully is woken up by the assassin on his way to Johnson County, it feels like a new day and not like he stopped to take a nap.
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  • By Ben Armington
    April 08, 2013
    03:38 PM

    Just received and watched my copy of this the other day, and it looks excellent (and I own the not blu ray version) and the film itself gets richer with each viewing. With it's well-intentioned but strangely ineffectual hero and it's overall aura of downbeatedness, I really feel that it follows Wild Bunch and McCabe and Ms Miller and points the way to Unforgiven in the lineage of truly awesome westerns. That said, the extras on the disc feel like a missed opportunity; all the interviews are strictly complementary and even repeat information, and the essay, by Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, is nice, but short on critical insight and plays as defending the film more than exploring it. It would have been cool to have Robin Wood's lucid analysis of the film, along with Steven (Final Cut) Bach's gossipy and ridiculously enjoyable account of the making, or even some of the bloodthirsty reviews from when the film was released for context.
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