I agree with Jack Landman. Twenty years ago I saw a butchered version of Heaven's Gate on a 23 inch TV screen. In retrospect, it was pointless. Despite being a film buff I don't remember if the film was shown on the big screens here in Blighty. Finally, thirty-seven years after its release, I've seen the 217 minutes version on Blu-Ray on a 56 inch Cinemascope TV screen with digital sound. It's a magnificent achievement and I salute the late Cimino for having the guts and persistence to hold out for his personal vision and artistic creation.
I'm not sure where to begin. Yes, there are longeurs, in the roller-skating scenes, for example, and yes, some dialogue is difficult to pick up. Nevertheless, the set design, acting, particularly by Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken, and landscape photography by Vilmos Zsigmond and Cimino's directing are flawless. The film is beautiful, moving, disturbing and sometimes exciting. Cimino makes us care about his characters and shows us something of what frontier life must have been like in the final years of the 19th century. There's a backbone of fact in the grim events of the Johnson County War that makes a reading of contemporary historical accounts essential.
Heaven's Gate is all a great film should be. It has the sweep of David Lean and touches of Sam Peckinpah in the final battle scenes. They rank with those at the end of The Wild Bunch. Praise doesn't come much higher than that!
I'm not sure where to begin. Yes, there are longeurs, in the roller-skating scenes, for example, and yes, some dialogue is difficult to pick up. Nevertheless, the set design, acting, particularly by Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken, and landscape photography by Vilmos Zsigmond and Cimino's directing are flawless. The film is beautiful, moving, disturbing and sometimes exciting. Cimino makes us care about his characters and shows us something of what frontier life must have been like in the final years of the 19th century. There's a backbone of fact in the grim events of the Johnson County War that makes a reading of contemporary historical accounts essential.
Heaven's Gate is all a great film should be. It has the sweep of David Lean and touches of Sam Peckinpah in the final battle scenes. They rank with those at the end of The Wild Bunch. Praise doesn't come much higher than that!