Heaven's Gate (film)
Encyclopedia
Heaven's Gate is a 1980 American epic
Western film
based on the Johnson County War
, a dispute between land barons and European immigrants in Wyoming
in the 1890s. The cast included Kris Kristofferson
, Christopher Walken
(credited as Chris Walken), Isabelle Huppert
, Jeff Bridges
, John Hurt
, Sam Waterston
, Brad Dourif
, Joseph Cotten
, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur
, Terry O'Quinn
, Mickey Rourke
, and Willem Dafoe
, in his first film role.
There were major setbacks in the film's production due to cost and time overruns, negative press, and rumors about director Michael Cimino
's allegedly overbearing directorial style. It is generally considered one of the biggest box office bomb
s of all time. It opened to poor reviews and earned less than $3 million domestically (from an estimated budget of $44 million), eventually contributing to the collapse of its studio, United Artists
, and effectively destroying the reputation of Cimino, previously one of the ascendant directors of Hollywood owing to his celebrated 1978 film The Deer Hunter
, which had won Academy Awards
for Best Picture and Best Director in 1979.
Cimino had an expansive and ambitious vision for the film and pushed the film far over its planned budget. The film's financial problems and United Artists
' subsequent demise led to a move away from director-driven film production
in the American film industry
and a shift toward greater studio
control of films.
) and Billy Irvine (John Hurt
), are graduating from Harvard University
. The Reverend Doctor (Joseph Cotten
) speaks to the graduates on the association of "the cultivated mind with the uncultivated," and the importance of "the education of a nation." Irvine, brilliant but obviously intoxicated, follows this with his opposing, irreverent views. A celebration is then held after which the male students serenade the women present, including Averill's girlfriend.
20 years later, Averill is now a Marshal
in the booming region of Johnson County, Wyoming, where European immigrants are in conflict with wealthy ranch owners belonging to the Wyoming Stock Growers Association
, sometimes stealing their cattle
for food. Nate Champion
(Christopher Walken
) – a friend of Averill and an enforcer for the landowners – kills a settler for suspected rustling and dissuades another from stealing a cow. At a meeting, the head of the Association, Frank Canton
(Sam Waterston
), tells members, including a drunk Billy, of their plans to kill 125 named settlers, or "thieves and anarchists" as Canton calls them. Irvine leaves the meeting and encounters Averill, telling him of the Stock Growers' "Death List". As Averill leaves, he exchanges bitter words with Canton. The Association begins hiring men to kill the settlers named on the list.
Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert
), a bordello madam who accepts stolen cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes, is in love with both Averill and Champion. Averill gets a copy of the Association's death list from a U.S. Army Captain and later reads the names on the list to the settlers, who argue about what to do, one becoming enraged enough to shoot the mayor in the ear. Cully (Richard Masur
), a station master
and friend of Averill's, sees the train containing Canton's posse and rides off to warn the settlers, but is murdered by the posse. Later, a group of men come to Ella's bordello and rape her. All but one are shot and killed by Averill. Champion, realizing that his landowner bosses seek to eliminate Ella, goes to Canton's camp and shoots the remaining rapist, then refuses to participate in the slaughter.
Canton and his men encounter one of Champion's friends (Geoffrey Lewis) leaving a cabin with Champion and his friend Nick (Mickey Rourke
) inside, and a gun battle ensues. Attempting to save Nate, Ella arrives in her wagon and shoots one of the hired guns before escaping on horseback. Champion and his two friends are killed, while Ella warns the settlers of Canton's approach. They decide to fight back, with local leader John Bridges (Jeff Bridges
) leading the attack on Canton's gang. Both sides suffer casualties (including a drunken Billy Irvine) as Canton leaves to bring the army to relieve them. Ella and Averill return to the cabin and discover Nate's body.
The next day, Averill leads the settlers, with cobbled-together siege machines and explosive charges, in their attack against Canton's men and their makeshift fortifications. Again there are heavy casualties on both sides, before the U.S. Army, with Canton in the lead, arrives to stop the fighting and save the remaining besieged mercenaries. Later, at Ella's cabin, Bridges, Ella and Averill prepare to leave for good. They are ambushed by Canton and two others who shoot and kill Bridges and Ella. After killing Canton and his men, a grief-stricken Averill holds Ella's body in his arms.
Thirteen years later, a well-dressed, mustachioed Averill walks on the deck of his yacht in Newport, Rhode Island. He goes below, where an attractive middle-aged woman is sleeping. Averill looks at her, saying nothing. The woman, Averill's old Harvard girlfriend, awakens and asks him for a cigarette. Silently he gives her one, lights it, and leaves.
submitted the original script for Heaven's Gate, then called The Johnson County War, to United Artists
executives; the project was shelved when it failed to attract big name talent. In 1979, on the eve of winning two Academy Awards
(Best Director and Best Picture
) for The Deer Hunter
, Cimino convinced UA to resurrect the project with Kris Kristofferson
, Isabelle Huppert
, and Christopher Walken
as the leads. The film began shooting on April 16, 1979, in Glacier National Park, east of Kalispell, Montana
, with the majority of the town scenes filmed in the Two Medicine
area, north of the village of East Glacier Park. The film had a projected December 14 release date, and a budget of $11.6 million.
The project promptly fell behind schedule. According to legend, by day six of filming it was already five days behind schedule. As an example of his fanatical attention to detail, a street built to Cimino's precise specifications had to be torn down and rebuilt because it reportedly "didn't look right." The street in question needed to be six feet wider; the set construction boss said it would be cheaper to tear down one side and move it back six feet, but Cimino insisted that both sides be dismantled and moved back three feet, then reassembled. An entire tree was cut down, moved in pieces, and relocated to the courtyard where the Harvard 1870 graduation scene was shot. Cimino shot more than 1.3 million feet (nearly 220 hours) of footage, costing approximately $200,000 per day. (Cimino had expressed his wish to surpass Francis Ford Coppola's mark of shooting one million feet of footage for "Apocalypse Now".) Despite going over budget, Cimino was not financially penalized because he had a contract with United Artists
to the effect that all money spent "to complete and deliver the picture in time for a Christmas 1979 release shall not be treated as overbudget expenditures." In the book "The Hollywood Hall of Shame," it is alleged that drug use on the set may have contributed to the excessive demands of the shoot. According to an unnamed production insider, "People wonder how a movie like Heaven's Gate could cost forty million dollars. I'll tell you. Twenty million for the actual film, and another twenty million, you can bet, for all that cocaine for the cast and crew." Cimino's obsessive behavior soon earned him the nickname "The Ayatollah." The film finished shooting in March 1980, having cost nearly $30 million. Production fell behind schedule as rumors spread of Cimino demanding up to 50 takes of individual scenes and delaying filming until a cloud that he liked rolled into the frame. As a result of the numerous delays, several of the musicians that were originally brought to Montana for three weeks ended up stranded there for six months; the experience, as the Associated Press put it, "was both stunningly boring and a raucous good time, full of jam sessions, strange adventures and curiously little actual shooting." The jam sessions served as the beginning of numerous musical collaborations between Bridges and Kristofferson; they would later reunite for the 2009 film Crazy Heart
and for Bridges's eponymous album
in 2011.
As production staggered forward, United Artists seriously considered firing Cimino and replacing him with another director. Norman Jewison
was reportedly asked if he would take over, but he rejected the job. It is also heavily implied in the book Final Cut that David Lean
was also approached to take over directorial duties.
During post-production, Cimino changed the lock to the studio's editing room, prohibiting studio executives from seeing the film until he completed the editing. Working with Oscar-winning editor William Reynolds, Cimino slaved over his project. Reynolds complained how much of his work would later be undone by the director, convinced that his Western epic would be a masterpiece. According to an anonymous studio insider, "The level of pretension in that editing room was only matched by the level of disaster later on." Finally, after months of delays, last-minute changes, and cost overruns, Cimino delivered his version which ran 5 hours and 25 minutes (325 minutes); UA executives forced Cimino to edit the film to 3 hours and 39 minutes (219 minutes). Cimino pulled that version from release after its premiere in New York City
on November 19, 1980. That cut of the film ran for one week at New York's Cinema 1 theater.
.
A subsequent review by The New York Times
critic Vincent Canby
called Heaven's Gate "an unqualified disaster," famously comparing it to "a forced four-hour walking tour of one's own living room." Canby went even further by stating that "It fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter and the Devil has just come around to collect." Roger Ebert
quipped in The Chicago Sun-Times: "The most scandalous cinematic waste I have ever seen, and remember, I've seen Paint Your Wagon
." In 2008, film critic Joe Queenan
of The Guardian
named Heaven's Gate the worst film ever made.
Heaven's Gate resurfaced six months later in a 2 hour and 29 minute (149-minute) version attempting to recoup some of its losses. But negative publicity had already damaged the film's reputation and this version quickly disappeared from theatres.
Some European film critics were less harsh toward the film, with one calling it a "tainted masterpiece". Critic Robin Wood ranked Heaven's Gate at number three of his ten favorite films of all time. David Thomson calls the film "a wounded monster" and argues that the film takes part in "a rich American tradition (Melville, James, Ives, Pollock, Parker) that seeks a mighty dispersal of what has gone before. In America, there are great innovations in art that suddenly create fields of apparent emptiness. They may seem like omissions or mistakes at first. Yet in time we come to see them as meant for our exploration." Martin Scorsese
has said that the film had many overlooked virtues.
The film has a 45% 'rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes
.
In February 2010, the readers of Empire
voted Heaven's Gate the 6th worst film of all time. In April 2011, the staff of Time Out London selected Heaven's Gate as the 12th greatest Western.
than actual financial damage, causing Transamerica Corporation
, United Artists' corporate owner, to become anxious over its own public image and withdraw from film production altogether.
Transamerica then sold United Artists to MGM, which effectively ended the existence of the studio. MGM would later revive the name "United Artists" as a subsidiary division. While the money loss due to Heaven's Gate was considerable, United Artists was still a thriving studio with a steady income provided by the James Bond
, Pink Panther and Rocky
franchises. Many movie insiders have argued that United Artists was already struggling at the time with the box office flops of Cruising
and Foxes, both released earlier in 1980 (the former film was not even produced by UA).
The fracas had a wider effect on the American film industry. During the 1970s, relatively young directors such as Francis Ford Coppola
, Peter Bogdanovich
, and William Friedkin
were given unprecedentedly large budgets with very little studio control (see New Hollywood
). The studio largesse eventually led to the new paradigm of the high concept
feature, epitomized by Jaws
and Star Wars
. But it also led to less successful films as Friedkin's Sorcerer
(1977), and Cruising
(1980), and culminating in Coppola's One from the Heart
and Cimino's Heaven's Gate, among other money-losers. As the new high-concept paradigm of film-making became more entrenched, studio control of budgets and productions became tighter, ending the free-wheeling excesses that begat Heaven's Gate.
The very poor box office performance of the film had an impact on Western films, which had enjoyed a revival in the late 1960s. From this point on, very few Western films were released by major studios, save for a brief revival thanks to the Oscar-winning hits Dances with Wolves
and Unforgiven
.
during production. One assertion was that live horses were bled
from the neck without giving them pain-killers so that their blood could be collected and smeared upon the actors in a scene. The American Humane Association (AHA)
asserted that four horses were killed and many more injured during a battle scene. One of the horses, who was allegedly killed, and its rider (Ronnie Hawkins, who survived), were claimed to have been blown up by dynamite
, the footage
of which appears in the final cut
.
The AHA
was barred from monitoring the animal action on the set. According to the AHA, the owner of an abused horse filed a lawsuit
against the producers, director, Partisan Productions, and the horse wrangler
. The owner cited wrongful injury and breach of contract
for willfully depriving her Arabian gelding
of proper care. The suit
cited "the severe physical and behavioral trauma
and disfigurement
" of the horse. The case was settled out of court.
There were accusations of actual cockfight
s, decapitated
chickens, and a group of cows disemboweled
to provide "fake intestines" for the actors. The outcry prompted the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)
to contractually authorize the AHA to monitor the use of all animals in all filmed media
.
Heaven's Gate is listed on AHA's list of unacceptable films. The AHA protested the film by distributing an international press release
detailing the assertions of animal cruelty and asking people to boycott
it. AHA organized picket lines outside movie theaters in Hollywood while local humane societies did the same across the USA. Though Heaven's Gate was not the first film to have animals killed during its production, it is believed that the film was largely responsible for sparking the now common use of the "No animals were harmed..." disclaimer
and more rigorous supervision of animal acts by the AHA
, which had been inspecting film production since the 1940s.
in the 1980s, they released Cimino's 219-minute cut, using the tagline "Heaven's Gate… The Legendary Uncut Version." Subsequent releases on laserdisc
and DVD
have been the 219-minute cut. The 149-minute cut, released in 1981, has never been released on home video in the United States and is now very difficult to see or get access to. This cut of the film is not just shorter but differs in placement of scenes and selection of takes.
"The whole idea of a director's cut being something you could actually market came out of Jerry Harvey's rescue of Heaven's Gate," notes F.X. Feeney
, a film critic who contributed heavily to Z Channel
's programming guide. "It's an important measure, because home video, home viewing via pay TV, these things have really revolutionized how we perceive movies."
In October 2004, an uncut version of the film was again shown in selected art-house cinemas in the U.S. and Australia, along with Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
, a documentary
about Z Channel. In 2005, the original uncut version of Heaven's Gate was re-released in Paris
. It was shown to a sold out audience at New York's Museum of Modern Art
with a live introduction by Isabelle Huppert
.
Epic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...
Western film
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
based on the Johnson County War
Johnson County War
The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River, was a range war which took place in April 1892 in Johnson County, Natrona County and Converse County in the U.S. state of Wyoming...
, a dispute between land barons and European immigrants in Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
in the 1890s. The cast included Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
, Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
(credited as Chris Walken), Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
, Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
, John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
, Brad Dourif
Brad Dourif
Bradford Claude "Brad" Dourif is an American film and television actor who gained early fame for his portrayal of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and has since appeared in a number of memorable roles, including the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise, Younger Brother in...
, Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur
Richard Masur
Richard Masur is an American actor who has appeared in more than 80 movies during his career. From 1995-1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild . Masur sits on the Corporate Board of the Motion Picture & Television Fund.-Biography:Masur was born in New York City to a...
, Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
, Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
, and Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, in his first film role.
There were major setbacks in the film's production due to cost and time overruns, negative press, and rumors about director Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
's allegedly overbearing directorial style. It is generally considered one of the biggest box office bomb
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
s of all time. It opened to poor reviews and earned less than $3 million domestically (from an estimated budget of $44 million), eventually contributing to the collapse of its studio, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, and effectively destroying the reputation of Cimino, previously one of the ascendant directors of Hollywood owing to his celebrated 1978 film The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...
, which had won Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Picture and Best Director in 1979.
Cimino had an expansive and ambitious vision for the film and pushed the film far over its planned budget. The film's financial problems and United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
' subsequent demise led to a move away from director-driven film production
Auteur theory
In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur"...
in the American film industry
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
and a shift toward greater studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
control of films.
Plot
In 1870, two young men, Jim Averill (Kris KristoffersonKris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
) and Billy Irvine (John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
), are graduating from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. The Reverend Doctor (Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
) speaks to the graduates on the association of "the cultivated mind with the uncultivated," and the importance of "the education of a nation." Irvine, brilliant but obviously intoxicated, follows this with his opposing, irreverent views. A celebration is then held after which the male students serenade the women present, including Averill's girlfriend.
20 years later, Averill is now a Marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
in the booming region of Johnson County, Wyoming, where European immigrants are in conflict with wealthy ranch owners belonging to the Wyoming Stock Growers Association
Wyoming Stock Growers Association
The Wyoming Stock Growers Association is a historic American cattle organization created in 1873. The Association was started among Wyoming cattle ranchers to standardize and organize the cattle industry, but quickly grew into a political force that has been called "the de facto territorial...
, sometimes stealing their cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
for food. Nate Champion
Nate Champion
Nathan "Nate" D. Champion was a key figure in the Johnson County War. Labeled falsely by the wealthy cattlemens association in Wyoming as a rustler, Champion was the first person murdered by a band of hit men hired by the cattlemen...
(Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
) – a friend of Averill and an enforcer for the landowners – kills a settler for suspected rustling and dissuades another from stealing a cow. At a meeting, the head of the Association, Frank Canton
Frank M. Canton
Josiah Horner , better known as Frank M. Canton, was a famous American Old West lawman, gunslinger, cowboy and at one point in his life, an outlaw.-Early life:...
(Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
), tells members, including a drunk Billy, of their plans to kill 125 named settlers, or "thieves and anarchists" as Canton calls them. Irvine leaves the meeting and encounters Averill, telling him of the Stock Growers' "Death List". As Averill leaves, he exchanges bitter words with Canton. The Association begins hiring men to kill the settlers named on the list.
Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
), a bordello madam who accepts stolen cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes, is in love with both Averill and Champion. Averill gets a copy of the Association's death list from a U.S. Army Captain and later reads the names on the list to the settlers, who argue about what to do, one becoming enraged enough to shoot the mayor in the ear. Cully (Richard Masur
Richard Masur
Richard Masur is an American actor who has appeared in more than 80 movies during his career. From 1995-1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild . Masur sits on the Corporate Board of the Motion Picture & Television Fund.-Biography:Masur was born in New York City to a...
), a station master
Station master
The station master was the person in charge of railway stations, in the United Kingdom and some other countries, before the modern age. He would manage the other station employees and would have responsibility for safety and the efficient running of the station...
and friend of Averill's, sees the train containing Canton's posse and rides off to warn the settlers, but is murdered by the posse. Later, a group of men come to Ella's bordello and rape her. All but one are shot and killed by Averill. Champion, realizing that his landowner bosses seek to eliminate Ella, goes to Canton's camp and shoots the remaining rapist, then refuses to participate in the slaughter.
Canton and his men encounter one of Champion's friends (Geoffrey Lewis) leaving a cabin with Champion and his friend Nick (Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
) inside, and a gun battle ensues. Attempting to save Nate, Ella arrives in her wagon and shoots one of the hired guns before escaping on horseback. Champion and his two friends are killed, while Ella warns the settlers of Canton's approach. They decide to fight back, with local leader John Bridges (Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
) leading the attack on Canton's gang. Both sides suffer casualties (including a drunken Billy Irvine) as Canton leaves to bring the army to relieve them. Ella and Averill return to the cabin and discover Nate's body.
The next day, Averill leads the settlers, with cobbled-together siege machines and explosive charges, in their attack against Canton's men and their makeshift fortifications. Again there are heavy casualties on both sides, before the U.S. Army, with Canton in the lead, arrives to stop the fighting and save the remaining besieged mercenaries. Later, at Ella's cabin, Bridges, Ella and Averill prepare to leave for good. They are ambushed by Canton and two others who shoot and kill Bridges and Ella. After killing Canton and his men, a grief-stricken Averill holds Ella's body in his arms.
Thirteen years later, a well-dressed, mustachioed Averill walks on the deck of his yacht in Newport, Rhode Island. He goes below, where an attractive middle-aged woman is sleeping. Averill looks at her, saying nothing. The woman, Averill's old Harvard girlfriend, awakens and asks him for a cigarette. Silently he gives her one, lights it, and leaves.
Cast
- Kris KristoffersonKris KristoffersonKristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
as James Averill - Christopher WalkenChristopher WalkenChristopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
as Nathan D. Champion - Isabelle HuppertIsabelle HuppertIsabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
as Ella Watson - Jeff BridgesJeff BridgesJeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
as John L. Bridges - John HurtJohn HurtJohn Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
as William C. "Billy" Irvine - Sam WaterstonSam WaterstonSamuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
as Frank Canton - Brad DourifBrad DourifBradford Claude "Brad" Dourif is an American film and television actor who gained early fame for his portrayal of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and has since appeared in a number of memorable roles, including the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise, Younger Brother in...
as Mr. Eggleston - Joseph CottenJoseph CottenJoseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
as The Reverend Doctor - Paul KosloPaul KosloPaul Koslo is a German-Canadian actor.-Career:Koslo started his career in such 1970's cult films as Nam's Angels a.k.a. The Losers, , Mr. Majestyk, Vanishing Point, Joe Kidd and The Stone Killer...
as Mayor Charlie Lezak - Geoffrey Lewis as Trapper Fred
- Richard MasurRichard MasurRichard Masur is an American actor who has appeared in more than 80 movies during his career. From 1995-1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild . Masur sits on the Corporate Board of the Motion Picture & Television Fund.-Biography:Masur was born in New York City to a...
as Cully - Ronnie HawkinsRonnie HawkinsRonald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...
as Major Wolcott - Terry O'QuinnTerry O'QuinnTerry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
as Captain Minardi - Mickey RourkeMickey RourkePhilip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
as Nick Ray - Tom NoonanTom NoonanTom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
as Jake - Willem DafoeWillem DafoeWillem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
(uncredited)
Production
In 1971, Michael CiminoMichael Cimino
Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
submitted the original script for Heaven's Gate, then called The Johnson County War, to United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
executives; the project was shelved when it failed to attract big name talent. In 1979, on the eve of winning two Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
(Best Director and Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
) for The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...
, Cimino convinced UA to resurrect the project with Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
, Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
, and Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
as the leads. The film began shooting on April 16, 1979, in Glacier National Park, east of Kalispell, Montana
Kalispell, Montana
Kalispell is a city in and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2010 census put Kalispell's population at 19,927 up 5,704 over 2000. At 40.1% this is the largest percentage of growth of any incorporated city in Montana. Kalispell is the largest city and commercial center...
, with the majority of the town scenes filmed in the Two Medicine
Two Medicine
Two Medicine is the collective name of a region located in the southeastern section of Glacier National Park, in the U.S. state of Montana. It has a campground alongside Two Medicine Lake. From the period starting in the late 1890s until the completion of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in 1932, Two...
area, north of the village of East Glacier Park. The film had a projected December 14 release date, and a budget of $11.6 million.
The project promptly fell behind schedule. According to legend, by day six of filming it was already five days behind schedule. As an example of his fanatical attention to detail, a street built to Cimino's precise specifications had to be torn down and rebuilt because it reportedly "didn't look right." The street in question needed to be six feet wider; the set construction boss said it would be cheaper to tear down one side and move it back six feet, but Cimino insisted that both sides be dismantled and moved back three feet, then reassembled. An entire tree was cut down, moved in pieces, and relocated to the courtyard where the Harvard 1870 graduation scene was shot. Cimino shot more than 1.3 million feet (nearly 220 hours) of footage, costing approximately $200,000 per day. (Cimino had expressed his wish to surpass Francis Ford Coppola's mark of shooting one million feet of footage for "Apocalypse Now".) Despite going over budget, Cimino was not financially penalized because he had a contract with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
to the effect that all money spent "to complete and deliver the picture in time for a Christmas 1979 release shall not be treated as overbudget expenditures." In the book "The Hollywood Hall of Shame," it is alleged that drug use on the set may have contributed to the excessive demands of the shoot. According to an unnamed production insider, "People wonder how a movie like Heaven's Gate could cost forty million dollars. I'll tell you. Twenty million for the actual film, and another twenty million, you can bet, for all that cocaine for the cast and crew." Cimino's obsessive behavior soon earned him the nickname "The Ayatollah." The film finished shooting in March 1980, having cost nearly $30 million. Production fell behind schedule as rumors spread of Cimino demanding up to 50 takes of individual scenes and delaying filming until a cloud that he liked rolled into the frame. As a result of the numerous delays, several of the musicians that were originally brought to Montana for three weeks ended up stranded there for six months; the experience, as the Associated Press put it, "was both stunningly boring and a raucous good time, full of jam sessions, strange adventures and curiously little actual shooting." The jam sessions served as the beginning of numerous musical collaborations between Bridges and Kristofferson; they would later reunite for the 2009 film Crazy Heart
Crazy Heart
Crazy Heart is a 2009 American musical-drama film, written and directed by Scott Cooper and based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Thomas Cobb. Jeff Bridges plays a down-and-out country music singer-songwriter who tries to turn his life around after beginning a relationship with a young...
and for Bridges's eponymous album
Jeff Bridges (album)
Sam Gazdziak, of Engine145, reviewed the album and gave the album three-and-a-half stars out of five. Gazdziak praised the album for its custom sound, along with each songwriter and guest vocalists. He described the album as "slow", noting that Bridges "growls" through the slower songs...
in 2011.
As production staggered forward, United Artists seriously considered firing Cimino and replacing him with another director. Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
was reportedly asked if he would take over, but he rejected the job. It is also heavily implied in the book Final Cut that David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
was also approached to take over directorial duties.
During post-production, Cimino changed the lock to the studio's editing room, prohibiting studio executives from seeing the film until he completed the editing. Working with Oscar-winning editor William Reynolds, Cimino slaved over his project. Reynolds complained how much of his work would later be undone by the director, convinced that his Western epic would be a masterpiece. According to an anonymous studio insider, "The level of pretension in that editing room was only matched by the level of disaster later on." Finally, after months of delays, last-minute changes, and cost overruns, Cimino delivered his version which ran 5 hours and 25 minutes (325 minutes); UA executives forced Cimino to edit the film to 3 hours and 39 minutes (219 minutes). Cimino pulled that version from release after its premiere in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on November 19, 1980. That cut of the film ran for one week at New York's Cinema 1 theater.
Reception
The premiere was, by all accounts, a disaster. During the intermission, the audience was so subdued that Cimino is said to have asked why no one was drinking the champagne. He was reportedly told, "Because they hate the movie, Michael," according to the book Final Cut, authored by one of the studio's executives, Steven BachSteven Bach
Steven Bach was senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists studios.In 1990, he was a member of the jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival....
.
A subsequent review by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
called Heaven's Gate "an unqualified disaster," famously comparing it to "a forced four-hour walking tour of one's own living room." Canby went even further by stating that "It fails so completely that you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter and the Devil has just come around to collect." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
quipped in The Chicago Sun-Times: "The most scandalous cinematic waste I have ever seen, and remember, I've seen Paint Your Wagon
Paint Your Wagon (film)
Paint Your Wagon is a 1969 American musical film starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. The movie was adapted by Paddy Chayefsky from the 1951 stage musical by Lerner and Loewe, set in a mining camp in Gold Rush-era California.-Plot:...
." In 2008, film critic Joe Queenan
Joe Queenan
Joe Queenan is a humorist, critic and author from Philadelphia who graduated from Saint Joseph's University. He has written for numerous publications, such as Spy Magazine, TV Guide, Movieline, The Guardian and the New York Times Book Review...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
named Heaven's Gate the worst film ever made.
Heaven's Gate resurfaced six months later in a 2 hour and 29 minute (149-minute) version attempting to recoup some of its losses. But negative publicity had already damaged the film's reputation and this version quickly disappeared from theatres.
Some European film critics were less harsh toward the film, with one calling it a "tainted masterpiece". Critic Robin Wood ranked Heaven's Gate at number three of his ten favorite films of all time. David Thomson calls the film "a wounded monster" and argues that the film takes part in "a rich American tradition (Melville, James, Ives, Pollock, Parker) that seeks a mighty dispersal of what has gone before. In America, there are great innovations in art that suddenly create fields of apparent emptiness. They may seem like omissions or mistakes at first. Yet in time we come to see them as meant for our exploration." Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
has said that the film had many overlooked virtues.
The film has a 45% 'rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
In February 2010, the readers of Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
voted Heaven's Gate the 6th worst film of all time. In April 2011, the staff of Time Out London selected Heaven's Gate as the 12th greatest Western.
Accolades
- Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
- Nominated: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Tambi LarsenTambi LarsenTambi Larsen was a Dane born in Bangalore, India. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 20, where he attended Yale Drama School. He married Barbara Dole in 1941 and became an American citizen in 1943. Tambi struggled to make a living as a set designer for Broadway shows...
, James L. BerkeyJames L. BerkeyJames Lysander Berkey was an American set decorator. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Heaven's Gate.-Selected filmography:-External links:...
)
- Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film FestivalThe Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, 1981
- Nominated: Palme D'OrPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
(Michael CiminoMichael CiminoMichael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
)
- Golden Raspberry Awards
- Won: Worst DirectorRazzie Award for Worst DirectorThe Razzie Award for Worst Director is an award presented at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst director of the previous year. The following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, along with the film for which they were nominated....
- Michael Cimino - Nominated: Worst PictureRazzie Award for Worst PictureThe Razzie Award for Worst Picture is an award given out at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst film of the past year. Following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, including each film's distribution company and producer.-1980s:...
- Nominated: Worst ScreenplayRazzie Award for Worst ScreenplayThe Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay is an award presented at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards for the worst film screenplay of the past year. The following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, including each screenplay's author...
- Nominated: Worst Musical Score
- Nominated: Worst ActorRazzie Award for Worst ActorThe Razzie Award for Worst Actor is an award presented at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst actor of the previous year. The following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, along with the film for which they were nominated....
- Kris KristoffersonKris KristoffersonKristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
Impact on the U.S. film industry
The film's unprecedented $44-million cost (equivalent to about $120 million as of 2006) and poor performance at the box office ($3,484,331 gross in the United States) generated more negative publicityPublicity
Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
than actual financial damage, causing Transamerica Corporation
Transamerica Corporation
Transamerica Corporation is a holding company for various life insurance companies and investment firms doing business primarily in the United States. It was acquired by the Dutch financial services conglomerate AEGON in 1999.-History:...
, United Artists' corporate owner, to become anxious over its own public image and withdraw from film production altogether.
Transamerica then sold United Artists to MGM, which effectively ended the existence of the studio. MGM would later revive the name "United Artists" as a subsidiary division. While the money loss due to Heaven's Gate was considerable, United Artists was still a thriving studio with a steady income provided by the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
, Pink Panther and Rocky
Rocky
Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
franchises. Many movie insiders have argued that United Artists was already struggling at the time with the box office flops of Cruising
Cruising (film)
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.Poorly reviewed by critics,...
and Foxes, both released earlier in 1980 (the former film was not even produced by UA).
The fracas had a wider effect on the American film industry. During the 1970s, relatively young directors such as Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
, and William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
were given unprecedentedly large budgets with very little studio control (see New Hollywood
New Hollywood
New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", refers to the time from roughly the late-1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced, their production and...
). The studio largesse eventually led to the new paradigm of the high concept
High concept
High concept is a term used to refer to an artistic work that can be easily described by a succinctly stated premise.-Terminology:High concept narratives are typically characterised by an over-arching "what if?" scenario that acts as a catalyst for the following events...
feature, epitomized by Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
and Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
. But it also led to less successful films as Friedkin's Sorcerer
Sorcerer (film)
Sorcerer is a 1977 thriller adventure film, produced and directed by William Friedkin, starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal and Amidou. It is the second remake of the 1953 French film Le Salaire de la Peur ....
(1977), and Cruising
Cruising (film)
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.Poorly reviewed by critics,...
(1980), and culminating in Coppola's One from the Heart
One from the Heart
One from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The characters themselves do not actually sing but the powerful score dominates the movie. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city...
and Cimino's Heaven's Gate, among other money-losers. As the new high-concept paradigm of film-making became more entrenched, studio control of budgets and productions became tighter, ending the free-wheeling excesses that begat Heaven's Gate.
The very poor box office performance of the film had an impact on Western films, which had enjoyed a revival in the late 1960s. From this point on, very few Western films were released by major studios, save for a brief revival thanks to the Oscar-winning hits Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
and Unforgiven
Unforgiven
Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with a screenplay written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job years after he had hung up his guns and turned to farming...
.
Accusations of animal rights abuse
Heaven's Gate was marred by accusations of animal rights abuseCruelty to animals
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse or animal neglect, is the infliction of suffering or harm upon non-human animals, for purposes other than self-defense. More narrowly, it can be harm for specific gain, such as killing animals for food or for their fur, although opinions differ with...
during production. One assertion was that live horses were bled
Bleeding
Bleeding, technically known as hemorrhaging or haemorrhaging is the loss of blood or blood escape from the circulatory system...
from the neck without giving them pain-killers so that their blood could be collected and smeared upon the actors in a scene. The American Humane Association (AHA)
American Humane Association
The American Humane Association is an organization founded in 1877 dedicated to the welfare of animals and children.The AHA's Film and Television Unit has monitored the welfare of animals during the production of films and television programs since 1940. They are the source of the familiar...
asserted that four horses were killed and many more injured during a battle scene. One of the horses, who was allegedly killed, and its rider (Ronnie Hawkins, who survived), were claimed to have been blown up by dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
, the footage
Footage
In filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...
of which appears in the final cut
Final cut privilege
Final cut privilege is a film industry term, usually used when a director has contractual authority over how a film is ultimately released for public viewing.- Condition :...
.
The AHA
American Humane Association
The American Humane Association is an organization founded in 1877 dedicated to the welfare of animals and children.The AHA's Film and Television Unit has monitored the welfare of animals during the production of films and television programs since 1940. They are the source of the familiar...
was barred from monitoring the animal action on the set. According to the AHA, the owner of an abused horse filed a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against the producers, director, Partisan Productions, and the horse wrangler
Wrangler (profession)
In North America, a wrangler is someone employed to handle animals professionally, especially horses, but also other types of animals. Wranglers also handle the horses and other animals during the making of motion pictures...
. The owner cited wrongful injury and breach of contract
Breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....
for willfully depriving her Arabian gelding
Gelding
A gelding is a castrated horse or other equine such as a donkey or a mule. Castration, and the elimination of hormonally driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male horse to be calmer and better-behaved, making the animal quieter, gentler and potentially more suitable as an everyday...
of proper care. The suit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
cited "the severe physical and behavioral trauma
Physical trauma
Trauma refers to "a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident." It can also be described as "a physical wound or injury, such as a fracture or blow." Major trauma can result in secondary complications such as circulatory shock, respiratory failure and death...
and disfigurement
Disfigurement
Disfigurement is the state of having one's appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically, as from a disease, birth defect, or wound.Disfigurement, whether caused by a benign or malignant condition, often leads to severe psychosocial problems such as negative body image; depression;...
" of the horse. The case was settled out of court.
There were accusations of actual cockfight
Cockfight
A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters , held in a ring called a cockpit. Cockfighting is now illegal throughout all states in the United States, Brazil, Australia and in most of Europe. It is still legal in several U.S. territories....
s, decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
chickens, and a group of cows disemboweled
Disembowelment
Disembowelment is the removal of some or all of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract , usually through a horizontal incision made across the abdominal area. Disembowelment may result from an accident, but has also been used as a method of torture and execution...
to provide "fake intestines" for the actors. The outcry prompted the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is a trade association based in Encino, California that represents over 350 American film production companies and studios in negotiations with entertainment industry trade unions in collective bargaining...
to contractually authorize the AHA to monitor the use of all animals in all filmed media
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
.
Heaven's Gate is listed on AHA's list of unacceptable films. The AHA protested the film by distributing an international press release
News release
A press release, news release, media release, press statement or video release is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something ostensibly newsworthy...
detailing the assertions of animal cruelty and asking people to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
it. AHA organized picket lines outside movie theaters in Hollywood while local humane societies did the same across the USA. Though Heaven's Gate was not the first film to have animals killed during its production, it is believed that the film was largely responsible for sparking the now common use of the "No animals were harmed..." disclaimer
Disclaimer
A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship...
and more rigorous supervision of animal acts by the AHA
American Humane Association
The American Humane Association is an organization founded in 1877 dedicated to the welfare of animals and children.The AHA's Film and Television Unit has monitored the welfare of animals during the production of films and television programs since 1940. They are the source of the familiar...
, which had been inspecting film production since the 1940s.
Director's cut
When MGM released the film on VHS and videodiscVideodisc
Videodisc is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access circular disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form...
in the 1980s, they released Cimino's 219-minute cut, using the tagline "Heaven's Gate… The Legendary Uncut Version." Subsequent releases on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
have been the 219-minute cut. The 149-minute cut, released in 1981, has never been released on home video in the United States and is now very difficult to see or get access to. This cut of the film is not just shorter but differs in placement of scenes and selection of takes.
"The whole idea of a director's cut being something you could actually market came out of Jerry Harvey's rescue of Heaven's Gate," notes F.X. Feeney
F.X. Feeney
-Education and early career:After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts in 1976, Feeney worked for several years as an inker and painter at Hanna-Barbera Studios. By 1980 he became a film and book critic for L.A. Weekly. Jerry Harvey, chief programmer for the pay TV service Z...
, a film critic who contributed heavily to Z Channel
Z Channel
The Z Channel was one of the first pay cable stations in the United States. Launched in 1974 from Los Angeles, California, this station was known for its devotion to the art of cinema due to the eclectic choice of films by the programming chief, Jerry Harvey...
's programming guide. "It's an important measure, because home video, home viewing via pay TV, these things have really revolutionized how we perceive movies."
In October 2004, an uncut version of the film was again shown in selected art-house cinemas in the U.S. and Australia, along with Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession is a documentary about Los Angeles pay cable channel Z Channel that accompanied the DVD release of uncut version of Heaven's Gate...
, a documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about Z Channel. In 2005, the original uncut version of Heaven's Gate was re-released in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. It was shown to a sold out audience at New York's Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
with a live introduction by Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
.
In popular culture
Since the film's debut, the term Heaven's Gate has become synonymous with complete failure, financially and critically. Examples include:- The financial and on-set troubles of the films Dances with WolvesDances with WolvesDances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
and WaterworldWaterworldWaterworld is a 1995 post-apocalyptic science fiction film. The film was directed by Kevin Reynolds and co-written by Peter Rader and David Twohy. It is based on Rader's original 1986 screenplay and stars Kevin Costner, who also produced it. It was distributed by Universal Pictures...
, which both starred Kevin CostnerKevin CostnerKevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
, somewhat mirrored those of Heaven's Gate; they were also referred to by critics as "Kevin's GateKevin's GateThe humorous epithet "Kevin's Gate" has been applied to two films by Kevin Costner:*Dances with Wolves*Waterworld...
". Dances with Wolves was a critical and commercial success, while Waterworld eventually broke even at the box-office. - In Albert BrooksAlbert BrooksAlbert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
's 1981 film Modern RomanceModern Romance-Cast:* Albert Brooks .... Robert Cole* Kathryn Harrold .... Mary Harvard* Bruno Kirby .... Jay-Plot:Robert Cole is a Hollywood film editor right in the middle of cutting a new science fiction film with George Kennedy. His relationship with very patient bank executive Mary Harvard is caught...
, after foleying a scene on the film Brooks' character is editing, the sound engineers mention that, later, they will be working on "the short version" of Heaven's Gate. - Former UA executive Steven BachSteven BachSteven Bach was senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists studios.In 1990, he was a member of the jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival....
wrote Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists chronicling his involvement in the film's production, which became a 2005 documentary. - In an episode of AnimaniacsAnimaniacsSteven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as simply Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. Television and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven...
titled "Video Review", a video copy of Heaven's Gate is used as a weapon, an exploding "bomb" (along with fellow "bombs" DuneDune (film)Dune is a 1984 science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. The film stars Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and includes an ensemble of well-known American and European actors in supporting roles. It was filmed at the Churubusco...
, Leonard Part 6Leonard Part 6Leonard Part 6 is a 1987 comedy film that parodies spy movies. It was directed by Paul Weiland and starred Bill Cosby, who also produced the film and wrote its story. The movie also starred Joe Don Baker and Gloria Foster, the latter of whom played the villain. The movie was filmed in the San...
, Mac and MeMac and MeMac and Me is a 1988 sci-fi fantasy film co-written and directed by Stewart Raffill about a "Mysterious Alien Creature" escapes from nefarious NASA agents and is befriended by a young boy who uses a wheelchair. Together, they try to find MAC's family, from whom he has been separated...
, IshtarIshtar (film)Ishtar is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Elaine May and starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as "Rogers and Clarke" – a duo of incredibly untalented lounge singers who travel to Morocco looking for work, and stumble into a four-party Cold War standoff.It also starred Isabelle Adjani...
, and Howard the DuckHoward the Duck (film)Howard the Duck is a 1986 American science fiction comedy film directed by Willard Huyck and produced by George Lucas. It is loosely based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, created by Steve Gerber and quoting scripts by Bill Mantlo, the film focuses on Howard, an alien from a planet...
). This is a tribute to the early Warner Bros. CartoonsWarner Bros. CartoonsWarner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
such as Book RevueBook RevueBook Revue is a 1945 Looney Tunes cartoon short featuring Daffy Duck, released in 1946, with a plotline essentially similar to 1938's Have You Got Any Castles?. It is directed by Bob Clampett, written by Warren Foster and scored by Carl Stalling. An uncredited Mel Blanc and Sara Berner provided...
in which the inventory of a store spring to life. - In an episode of Spitting ImageSpitting ImageSpitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
, Steven SpielbergSteven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
is wondering what to do with all his "extra money." He has a flash of insight and suggests Heaven's Gate II. - In 1982, the BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
panel gamePanel gameA panel game or panel show is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by guest contestants, such as on Match Game/Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait.....
I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
had a game called "Heaven's Gate" in which the panelists had to come up with ideas for films which would be an even bigger flop than Heaven's Gate. - In the 2011 ESPNESPNEntertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
based book These Guys Have All the Fun, Pardon the InterruptionPardon the InterruptionPardon the Interruption is a sports television show that airs weekdays on various ESPN TV channels, TSN, ESPN America, XM, and Sirius satellite radio services, and as a downloadable podcast. It is hosted by Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, who discuss, and frequently argue over, the top stories...
host Tony KornheiserTony KornheiserAnthony Irwin "Tony" Kornheiser is an American sportswriter and former columnist for The Washington Post, as well as a radio and television talk show host...
, objecting to Mark Shapiro's desire to make the show an hour long, calls Shapiro and says, "We're not doing an hour! We're doing half an hour on the first show! If we do an hour, you're like Michael Cimino making fucking Heaven's Gate!" Similarly, on an episode of PTI dated August 6, 2010, Kornheiser, while wishing director M. Night Shymalan "Happy Birthday," compared the director's career after The Sixth SenseThe Sixth SenseThe Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear , a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him...
to Cimino "making The Deer Hunter, and then making Heaven's Gate"- a comparison noted by many others.
See also
- CleopatraCleopatra (1963 film)Cleopatra is a 1963 British-American-Swiss epic drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Maria Franzero. The film starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy...
- Cutthroat IslandCutthroat IslandCutthroat Island is a 1995 action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin. The film stars Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Frank Langella. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a major box office bomb: listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest box office flop of...
- CaligulaCaligula (film)Caligula is a 1979 American-produced Italian biographical film directed by Tinto Brass, with additional scenes filmed by Giancarlo Lui and Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. The film concerns the rise and fall of Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus, better known as Caligula...
- Isabelle Huppert filmographyIsabelle Huppert filmographyIsabelle Huppert is a French film actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971, with approximately three quarters of them as starring roles...
- List of biggest box office bombs
External links
- Review of Heaven's Gate at TVGuide.com
- Trailer for Heaven's Gate on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....