A notorious flop in its day, Michael Cimino's third film has been reclaimed as a classic. But its failure had lingering effects on both its creator's career and the movie business as a whole.
I mean if you haven't seen ANY other Cimino you should probably step to YEAR OF THE DRAGON, which has a lot of problems in ideology but works as pure action cinema spectacle.
It's funny that I'm reading this on the very morning I'm about to sit down and watch Damien Chazelle's Babylon. I skipped it in theaters due to the timing of its release (my only opportunity to catch it came during the week I was at home visiting my mother, and I preferred not to take three-plus hours out of my limited time with her), as well as the fact that its reception was decidedly mixed.
Incidentally, having seen Cimino's The Year of the Dragon and Desperate Hours -- the latter of which I even reviewed for The Dissolve -- I can definitely recommend the former. I believe it's on par with Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. in terms of New Hollywood directors getting their groove back with stylish crime pictures in the mid-'80s.
The era we're in right now feels very similar to me. You have Marvel type movies (in opposed to Star Wars in the late 70s and early 80s) and you have directors being given surprisingly free rein to make whatever they want. BABYLON, as mentioned below, would be a perfect analogue for Heaven's Gate, and then you have things like NIGHTMARE ALLEY, EMPIRE OF LIGHT, ARMAGEDDON TIME, WHITE NOISE, THE IRISHMAN, etc. that seem to be made with no real audience in mind. Which then causes people to bemoan the death of independent cinema. But, man, I didn't even bother to see Babylon because it looked so unpleasant. And I've seen every Best Picture nominee before the ceremony for the last 18 years. But I didn't bother!
So as I have said before on these pages, we need a 1980s. We need Back to the Future and The Terminator and accessible, original, good mainstream entertainment
I need to revisit this one. I saw it in the 90’s at a repertory theater and while many elements were very strong, it didn’t work for me for one primary reason - Kris Kristofferson. He might be a brilliant songwriter (and person) but he had almost a negative screen presence that created a vacuum at the heart of the movie. This lack of charisma was highlighted by the rest of the incredible cast. I felt that if Cimino had cast somebody else in that role, it would have worked so much better because he’s just not bringing much to the party. But it’s been long enough that I should see how this take holds up.
I watched this for the first time (despite having read the Bach book 20+ years ago) recently on Criterion, and enjoyed it in parts (which was also how I watched it). The struggle to assemble and sustain a resistance against an implacable, capitalist foe certainly resonates today, and the film is excellent in its portrayal of all the tools, both insidious and overt, that moneyed interests employ to get what they want. Agree that the love triangle is less successful, although Walken and Huppert's first awkward scene in Walken's comparatively humble home sticks with me. I remember Huppert's performance being maligned, and searched in vain for the worst of the appraisals among contemporary reviews, but you reminded me -- it was actually Peter Bach in The Final Cut. Woof. Especially now, knowing that the attributes she imbues Ella with (her alluringly open regard for her scene partner, her surprising but inevitable willingness to choose violence) have become so indelible in her acting style and choice of roles.
I did find it clunky in parts (it's sort of amazing that so much helpful connective tissue could be absent from a movie of this length) and the commencement scene at Harvard would have benefitted from some modern de-aging technology -- Kristofferson looks more than a bit uncanny, and Hurt just looks old. However, despite its shortcomings, I'm glad I watched it.
I finally saw this a couple months ago thanks to Criterion. I think we're pretty much in agreement. It doesn't fully work and the clunky scenes and pacing hinder it, but when the great stuff happens (and it happens frequently) you are the better for it. I couldn't decide whether the protracted war scene at the end was deliberately disjointed and chaotic or a result of editing choices that could have been reconsidered. Agree that the movie would improve with Kristofferson and Bridges switching roles. IT kept hitting these peaks that I kept wishing had hit harder with all of the movie supporting it.
All that said: an early shot that starts on KK and continues until you've seen the whole street and then the town and the landscape surrounding dropped my jaw and left me with the sad knowledge that this kind of filmmaking will not be seen again, more for worse than better. Say what you like about the whole, there's a joy to being given that kind of detail and scope for no other reason than to give it to you. It's now a joke that a movie like this would end an artistic period like that. What survived of the 70s after this was brutally gunned down by the failure of THE THING and BLADE RUNNER the following year.
I feel like Huppert embodies my issues with the film. There's nothing wrong with her performance, but, in a film so bogged down in dirt and detail, the radiant French girl running a bordello sticks out like a sure thumb. (Admittedly part of it is that I'm so used to her as an actress in her 40s-60s that she looks particularly baby-faced here; I assumed she was 20 making this, but she was actually 26/27). She's just wrong for the part. And that's the film: some central cohesion is missing, and no amount of beautiful grace notes can make up for the lack of a melody.
it's not a Masterpiece, but it has so much going for it that I would still almost call it essential viewing. it's really hard to imagine how people reacted so negatively to the original cut upon release. (I never saw the shorter version, but it's easy to imagine cutting 70 min would remove a lot of it's appeal, which is to bathe you in this world)
I mean if you haven't seen ANY other Cimino you should probably step to YEAR OF THE DRAGON, which has a lot of problems in ideology but works as pure action cinema spectacle.
It's funny that I'm reading this on the very morning I'm about to sit down and watch Damien Chazelle's Babylon. I skipped it in theaters due to the timing of its release (my only opportunity to catch it came during the week I was at home visiting my mother, and I preferred not to take three-plus hours out of my limited time with her), as well as the fact that its reception was decidedly mixed.
Incidentally, having seen Cimino's The Year of the Dragon and Desperate Hours -- the latter of which I even reviewed for The Dissolve -- I can definitely recommend the former. I believe it's on par with Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. in terms of New Hollywood directors getting their groove back with stylish crime pictures in the mid-'80s.
The era we're in right now feels very similar to me. You have Marvel type movies (in opposed to Star Wars in the late 70s and early 80s) and you have directors being given surprisingly free rein to make whatever they want. BABYLON, as mentioned below, would be a perfect analogue for Heaven's Gate, and then you have things like NIGHTMARE ALLEY, EMPIRE OF LIGHT, ARMAGEDDON TIME, WHITE NOISE, THE IRISHMAN, etc. that seem to be made with no real audience in mind. Which then causes people to bemoan the death of independent cinema. But, man, I didn't even bother to see Babylon because it looked so unpleasant. And I've seen every Best Picture nominee before the ceremony for the last 18 years. But I didn't bother!
So as I have said before on these pages, we need a 1980s. We need Back to the Future and The Terminator and accessible, original, good mainstream entertainment
I need to revisit this one. I saw it in the 90’s at a repertory theater and while many elements were very strong, it didn’t work for me for one primary reason - Kris Kristofferson. He might be a brilliant songwriter (and person) but he had almost a negative screen presence that created a vacuum at the heart of the movie. This lack of charisma was highlighted by the rest of the incredible cast. I felt that if Cimino had cast somebody else in that role, it would have worked so much better because he’s just not bringing much to the party. But it’s been long enough that I should see how this take holds up.
I watched this for the first time (despite having read the Bach book 20+ years ago) recently on Criterion, and enjoyed it in parts (which was also how I watched it). The struggle to assemble and sustain a resistance against an implacable, capitalist foe certainly resonates today, and the film is excellent in its portrayal of all the tools, both insidious and overt, that moneyed interests employ to get what they want. Agree that the love triangle is less successful, although Walken and Huppert's first awkward scene in Walken's comparatively humble home sticks with me. I remember Huppert's performance being maligned, and searched in vain for the worst of the appraisals among contemporary reviews, but you reminded me -- it was actually Peter Bach in The Final Cut. Woof. Especially now, knowing that the attributes she imbues Ella with (her alluringly open regard for her scene partner, her surprising but inevitable willingness to choose violence) have become so indelible in her acting style and choice of roles.
I did find it clunky in parts (it's sort of amazing that so much helpful connective tissue could be absent from a movie of this length) and the commencement scene at Harvard would have benefitted from some modern de-aging technology -- Kristofferson looks more than a bit uncanny, and Hurt just looks old. However, despite its shortcomings, I'm glad I watched it.
I finally saw this a couple months ago thanks to Criterion. I think we're pretty much in agreement. It doesn't fully work and the clunky scenes and pacing hinder it, but when the great stuff happens (and it happens frequently) you are the better for it. I couldn't decide whether the protracted war scene at the end was deliberately disjointed and chaotic or a result of editing choices that could have been reconsidered. Agree that the movie would improve with Kristofferson and Bridges switching roles. IT kept hitting these peaks that I kept wishing had hit harder with all of the movie supporting it.
All that said: an early shot that starts on KK and continues until you've seen the whole street and then the town and the landscape surrounding dropped my jaw and left me with the sad knowledge that this kind of filmmaking will not be seen again, more for worse than better. Say what you like about the whole, there's a joy to being given that kind of detail and scope for no other reason than to give it to you. It's now a joke that a movie like this would end an artistic period like that. What survived of the 70s after this was brutally gunned down by the failure of THE THING and BLADE RUNNER the following year.
I feel like Huppert embodies my issues with the film. There's nothing wrong with her performance, but, in a film so bogged down in dirt and detail, the radiant French girl running a bordello sticks out like a sure thumb. (Admittedly part of it is that I'm so used to her as an actress in her 40s-60s that she looks particularly baby-faced here; I assumed she was 20 making this, but she was actually 26/27). She's just wrong for the part. And that's the film: some central cohesion is missing, and no amount of beautiful grace notes can make up for the lack of a melody.
This is a great series.
it's not a Masterpiece, but it has so much going for it that I would still almost call it essential viewing. it's really hard to imagine how people reacted so negatively to the original cut upon release. (I never saw the shorter version, but it's easy to imagine cutting 70 min would remove a lot of it's appeal, which is to bathe you in this world)
I have a half-baked theory that this kiiiind of was remade as "Deadwood"