Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert,
Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Jeff Bridges
Plot: Set in 1890’s, the movie tells the
story of Johnson’s County Wars in Wyoming, a conflict involving the rich cattle
owners and the immigrant settlers. Between them lies Sheriff James Averill, a
renegade privileged man who sets out to defend the European immigrants and
fight for the values he believes in.
Along the long line of great American cinema
epics arrives “Heaven’s Gate” (1980), Michael Cimino’s very own take on the Old
West. With the ambition set on creating the next “Gone With the Wind” (1939),
Cimino set out to implement every single step mentioned on the “How to Create Your
Own Epic” rulebook (to the point of even including an “Intermission”).
Unfortunately, he appears to have engaged in that myth called “speed reading”
and ended up missing a step or two. The result is an infamous reel of film,
whose process of making is more notorious than the movie itself. From the
delayed schedules, the excessive number of takes, to the “screened for a few” 5
hour long version of the movie which included a battle sequence that lasted the
same as your average movie, and the overall stubborn and megalomanous behavior
that puts Cimino a grey suit and cat away from becoming a quintessential
1960’s James Bond villain.
Until this day, “Heaven’s Gate” is a movie that
polarizes critics: from the trashy remarks voiced by the American critics to
the somewhat pedantic approach taken by European reviewers who state that the
movie is a misunderstood piece of art.
But let’s start from the beginning…
“The truth and nothing
but the truth”: Fresh from his two hits “Thunderbolt and
Lightfoot” (1974) and the Academy Award winning “The Deer Hunter” (1978), Cimino
had the credibility to pursue his most personal and most ambitious project
yet. United Artists executives lay down
the terms: the movie had to premiere at Christmas 1979 (As if…). When an
additional extension on the budget was required those very same executives were
copasetic with the request. After this single action, things started to get out
of hand, with Cimino indulging himself and playing with the studio, leading
them believe that they had a potential “Apocalypse Now” on their hands: a
costly but worthwhile labor of love. This couldn’t be further from the truth…
Without going too much into detail on the
production process, I must state that I’m not a movie intellectual (The fact
that I can get a couple of laughs at “Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol”
(1987), immediately disables me from belonging in such a category). With that
being said, I can safely write that a considerable share of sequences that
comprise Cimino’s third outing as a director are simply boring. (See Exhibit
A).
Exhibit A
The movie is a result of the director’s very
own vision, and that same vision insists up on itself for the whole 3 hours and
40 minutes, or what he calls “The Directors Cut”. The cinematography is
outstanding, but it appears that the notion “nothing exceeds like excess” is
taken too seriously. The clearest example that immediately comes to my mind to
illustrate my point is that of a lengthy trip I took in Norway to the fjords
near Bergen: the first few are truly amazing and are an impressive
landscape…after that it’s more of the same. That’s exactly what happens with
this movie. In addition, the sepia tone adopted in key moments of the movie
somewhat misses its purpose and contributes for a set of poorly executed
scenes, an aspect I find strange given Cimino’s perfectionism. The bottom-line
feeling I got from this movie was that the first hour could easily be trimmed
down to half an hour, without any loss of storytelling effect.
But besides length and an uneven space, I
hereby point the additional two main problems I have with the movie: Kris Kristofferson
and Isabelle Huppert. I have only seen two movies starring Kristofferson, and
coincidence or not both got him nominated for a Razzie (“Heaven’s Gate” (1980)
and “Rollover” (1981)). He delivers a wooden performance and he’s simply
unconvincing. While the negative impact of his acting his is minimized on the
latter, he causes some serious damage on the former. Either De Niro or Beatty
would have been suitable alternatives, both being able to carry a cast of such
extension on their very own shoulders.
Isabelle Huppert is also a major flaw, both on
acting (at least on this movie) and as a key component of the storyline: the
notion that a heavy French accent actress can portray a non-French character is
simply laughable. She chews the scenery with an excess of emotions and
Huppert’s Ella Watson simply fails to interact with either of the main
characters.
David Mansfield soundtrack is uneven at best.
Sometimes, it just feel straight out of place.
But there are some redeeming aspects towards
this film. Deep within this mess there’s a good story to be told. As you
probably picked up from the resumed plot, this is not your traditional Western.
The label of “Anti-Western” is usually associated to this movie. Never have
John Wayne or Clint Eastwood starred on something like this. The political tone
and message conveyed in this movie are a portrayal of something we still see
today: Kristofferson’s James “Jim” Averill, is a rich and privileged Harvard
graduate and somewhat of an authority figure in Johnson’s County, Wyoming.
Unlike his peers, he attempts to use his influence to improve the situation of
the poor European immigrants who have settled on the land. He’s a flawed person
but one with strong and high morals and a defender of the values in which he
believes. In his character I find similar traits to the ones found in several
Democrat figures such as John F. Kennedy, Gary Hart and John Kerry (Ironically,
John Wayne, a hard core Republican, was the first choice for the role of Jim
Averill during the early stages of the project in the 1970’s). Diametrically
opposed to Averill, we have Christopher Walken’s Nate Champion, an aspiring and
ambitious gunmen hired by the Cattle Owners Association elite to eliminate
those who occupy the land. Champion is the sort of self-made man, and
represents an excessive and biased portrayal that liberals make of a
Republican. Their social aspirations and personal agendas conflict, a conflict
which is extended on their common interest, the whorehouse madam, Ella Watson.
The main action is complemented by the backdrop
story: The class struggle between the aforementioned elite and the poor who
fall victim of injustice and termination, which transforms this wanna-be epic
in what I personally call “Karl Marx’s Wild Wild West”. Still, a very
interesting story (with great potential, if told correctly) even for
non-socialist viewers such as myself.
Picking up on this particular point, critics
and viewers alike have blamed, in recent years, the timing of this release,
using it as a scapegoat to justify both its flop 32 years ago and their recent
reappraisal. While this is a compelling argument, one must take into account
the release of another epic “Reds” (1981): a mix between documentary and biopic
about the life of John Reed, the American Communist and author of the book “Ten
Days That Shook The World”. Directed by Warren Beatty and nominated for 10
Academy Awards, this controversial movie was met with excellent reviews and
strong box-office revenues. Come to think of it, this was far more
controversial than “Heaven’s Gate”. The success of “Reds” is a tool that allows
to dismantle the previously written argument.
Speculating that releasing this movie several
years before or after is…well…just pure speculation.
Another strong point that saves this movie’s
grace is the supporting cast: Billy Irvine (Hurt), the physical representation
of wasted potential, a lush and former Harvard valedictorian, who idly sits by
and condemns the actions of his counterparts without doing nothing to prevent
them, Frank Canton (Waterston), Averill main antagonist and the true source of
power behind the Cattle Owners Association, John Bridges (Bridges), the sheriff’s
main communication channel with the people. Three strong performances that make
this movie worth watching.
With the potential to be a powerful story,
“Heaven’s Gate” stands, for better and for worse, as a monument to the
excesses, partly represented by the ballooning budget which went from $7.5 M to
reportedly $50 M (some sources say $44 M), around $ 148 M in 2012 USD, and as a
movie whose failure drove United Artists into bankruptcy and ended once and for
all the “New Hollywood” era: The loonies no longer controlled and managed the
asylum (By the way, for those of you interested I recommend Peter Biskind’s
“Easy Riders and Raging Bulls”, a book that chronicles this particular period
of movie history).
For those of you who cannot relate to classic
epics produced by Hollywood, just think of “Heaven’s Gate” as a less artificial
and a more “should-have-worked” feeling than that awful Baz Lurhmann’s “Australia”
(2008).
Despite being a hit in Europe, it was Cimino’s
last act as a Hollywood A-List director.
Perhaps, it was for the best: Had “Heaven’s Gate” been a hit, Michael
Cimino had already a couple of projects on the pipeline, each of them more
ambitious and riskier than what was his last attempt to make an epic. Among
them a remake of the adaption of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”, which
ironically would have been suitable for the director as the book deals with the
principles of Objectivism, one of them being the praise for the individual and
his vision and also an Indian Western titled “Conquering Horse”, a movie that
would have been filmed in Sioux language with subtitles.
Althought his career was over he was still able
to produce a crime classic that has aged well and overcame the criticism it was
subjected to at the time of its release, “The Year of the Dragon” (1985)
starring Mickey Rourke, who has a cameo in “Heaven’s Gate”, a movie superior to
this one and personal favorite of mine (Oh…and a guy named Quentin Tarantino
also thinks it’s awesome).
“Money-Shot”: Without doubt a sequence that was still
perfect clearly in my mind after the movie ended was the first killing carried
out by Nate Champion. Impressive to say the least. The depressing message delivered
in the final scene of the movie, resorting to minimal dialogue and strongly
depending on image remains a sample of what the movie could have been.
Bottom-Line: 7/10. A missed out epic that will
forever remain part of cinema history. There is a great story beneath the
somewhat messy collection of frames that compose this work that embodies Cimino’s
vision of the real West. Worth a shot for all of those who enjoy bold epics and
who are willing to give this movie a shot (pardon the pun).
But of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong...
But of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong...
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