Heaven's Gate (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

“Heaven’s Gate” kind of makes you wonder what could have been. If Cimino had managed to get his ego under control, if the studio had assigned someone ruthless to ride herd on the production, if the stars weren’t so miscast, if anyone had been able to just say “No!” to him.What then could have been? Probably, not much. A forgettable western, that by now would be forgotten. The actual plot of “Heaven’s Gate” is so routine, it could have been disposed of in ninety minutes, tops. And it has been disposed of in other westerns. Ruthless greedy cattle barons led by Sam Waterston, who should have grown his mustache out a little more so he could twirl it while villainizing, conspire to drive noble farmer sheepherding peasants off the open range. Goons are hired. Shootings follow. The noble peasants unite to fight back. There’s nothing original about the story. This one is very slightly based on historical events, changing the characters without changing the names in this case. But, you don’t need three hours and change to tell that tale.Nor, however, do you need five minutes of black screen, twenty minutes of The Blue Danube, a half hour or so of roller skating, and endless, endless scenes of Kristofferson and Walken and Huppert staring blankly/soulfully at each other.Yet, that’s where all the pleasure is to be found. The roller skating sequence is bravura filmmaking such as one rarely sees. The Harvard grads dancing on the Quad is beautiful. It has nothing whatever to do with the narrative, but it is a marvelous vision. Did we need a steam yacht at the end? We did not. Wasted time, wasted money, wasted opportunities? Sure. But without these things, would anyone bother to see “Heaven’s Gate” today?Not for the actors, for sure. Or the plot.It’s hard to say which of the triangle is most miscast; Walken just looks uncomfortable behind his mustache. Kristofferson mumbles and swallows his dialog and thinks, or was instructed to think, that taciturn glumness is the same as acting. But Huppert….beautiful, but totally unconvincing as the madam with the heart of gold, who everybody in town seems (save a few devout peasants) to regard as their best and brightest and most deserving of a glorious new carriage on her birthday. Even without her struggles with the English language, her character is so inexplicable that even Meryl Streep couldn’t have pulled it off.Torn between two lovers, one a homicidal serial murderer for hire and the other an alcoholic rich boy who can’t be troubled to fulfill even the simplest parts of his supposed job. Huppert’s madam/entrepreneur, informed that she’s on a list of potential assassinees, can’t be troubled to get on a train or stagecoach. Nor give a pass to entering her house even though the Association men have helpfully left their horses outside as a tipoff.Walken, having shot down some Association rando, then goes back to his squalid shack to await his own appointment with fate. Rather than hide out or do some sniping or whatever.And Kristofferson is so intent on “The Law” that he passes on every chance but one to do something that might help the situation. Because the Association has “The Law” on their side. And fifty inept gunslingers.I say inept, because they somehow get themselves pinned down by a bunch of rubes using the silliest siege engines outside of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Seriously, you cannot watch these armored wagons with a straight face.I should mention John Hurt, but his place in this story is so inconsequential that it’s hard to figure just why he was cast as the town drunk in the first place. Comic relief? He’s not a funny drunk. To throw Kristofferson’s own drunkenness into sharper relief? Because he looks dissipated and Cimino liked dissipation? Who can say?But that’s all carping about a bad script and bad casting. Without the endless discursions and ornamentations, “Heaven’s Gate” would be a routine late western. What makes it worth seeing is just how in love Cimino was with the possibilities of cinema. The camera swirling and circling around the waltzing couples and the wheeling skaters is sheer exuberance in movement for its own sake. A little vertigo-inducing, and it goes on far too long, but there’s joy in it. Look at what I can do! Move the camera on a dance through the muddy streets. Linger on the majestic mountains. Use candles and kerosene lamps to pierce the gloom. Even the silly climactic fight has action and lighting and explosions better than many a Marvel movie.And the long, long drawn out significant looks and wordless carriage rides, muddy streets, elaborate sets, there’s grandeur that may have doomed the movie but is still high moviemaking. Terrence Malick mined the western, too, with the amazing “Days of Heaven”, another glacially slow, narrative-impaired picture. But Malick can get away with it because he produced image after image that’s achingly beautiful, worthy of being framed and mounted in a gallery. Cimino doesn’t have that eye. He strains for it, but it’s just out of reach.But look at that steam locomotive! Again, completely unnecessary to the story, and acquired at great expense. But lovely. The immigrants clinging to the top of the cars, the sepia interiors, the chuffing and clanging and venting of steam, it’s the kind of thing that’d be done with CGI now, if it were done at all. In “Heaven’s Gate” it does nothing to advance the plot, true, but it’s still a wonderful sequence.Michael Cimino….I wonder what movies he could have gone on to make if only he’d been able to bring in “Heaven’s Gate” with more modest budget overruns, with more bankable stars, with a little less ambition and a little more prudence. Would he have gone on to become a great director? Or was he a flash in the pan of cinema, a creature of that one brief moment of auteur cinema? The movie that made his mark, “The Deer Hunter” has a lot of the tell-tale signs of his self-indulgence that came to full flower in “Heaven’s Gate”. That wedding was endless; the deer hunting just went on and on. But Walken was as magnetic in “Deer Hunter” as he was adrift in “Heaven’s Gate”. De Niro was astonishing. Meryl Streep showed why she was Meryl Streep. “Deer Hunter” is an undeniable masterpiece for all its faults. “Heaven’s Gate” is more of a self-involved masterwork, Cimino demonstrating his love for the camera (and his own legend) without worrying about what his patron was paying him for.None of the various edits of “Heaven’s Gate” have ever worked to produce a flowing narrative. Cimino wasn’t interested in just telling a story. He was making an epic, or thought he was. But it’s worth seeing the fullest cut of the movie, if only to get some idea of what his vision might have accomplished, if he’d only had the discipline to match his ambition.Faulkner is supposed to have said that “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Meaning, that when the author is in love with a sentence, even if he thinks it’s clever and precious and beautiful, especially if it’s the best line he ever wrote, if it doesn’t serve its place in the story, he has to edit it ruthlessly. Michael Cimino kept all of his darlings in “Heaven’s Gate.”

I had never seen it, though wanted to in 1980. Then the reviews and the media. It is a good example of how great work can go unrecognized due to critics or propaganda. I didn't expect too much. I was concerned that the prologue went on and on. I thought, uh oh, the critics may be right. It could have been done in half the time, but now I see it as one of Cimino's scenes that must have moved him, and it has later significance in the film. Once it shifts to Kristofferson heading west it becomes a great adventure. Scenes that critics lambasted are the greatest scenes in the movie or any movie. The Waltz in the prologue and the roller skating scene can be watched again and again. The pace of the movie was how it should unfold, as a real look at the west. The cinematography is was moving and beautiful. So many shots looks like you would want to hang them on your wall. The length of the movie lets you relax and watch things unfold. The dialogue which Roger Ebert called long scenes of people staring aimlessly into space is the way real people talk. Their words are measured. The phony dialogue in many tv shows and movies is cookie cutter fast talk with all the latest cultural buzz words thrown in. Sometimes I say, "do the makers of these films even know how real people talk?" Text messaging dialogue I guess.Lastly I say that I am sad for Cimino and for the several others. It killed or slowed Kristofferson's acting career, even though his performance was very good. It ended Cimino's career to a great extent. The most tragic may be the 24 year old prodigy, David Mansfield, who wrote the mesmerizing score and other pieces, most notably the Heaven's Gate Waltz. He had been touring with Bob Dylan for 5 years. He submitted pieces for the film to use until it could get the real score. They had hired John Williams, who had done Star Wars 3 years prior. He decided to do a Boston Pops show instead. So they chose Mansfield. If the film had been given time to get edited as it is now, the film would have been much more popular, and Mansfield may have easily walked off the Oscar for best score. It gets in your head and stays. I compare it to Lawrence of Arabia in that regard. BTW, Mansfield is the "kid" that plays the violin and skates! Such talent! It is impossible to know how any of their careers would have gone if the movie was given a chance to be finished before it premiered.Christopher Walken survived well and has thrived. His performance is brilliant. His scene the bedroom with Isabelle Hubbert is just perfect. His tragic character, Nate Champion, who is really a good man turned bad. His ongoing angst in the presence of Hubbert is one of the saddest depiction of unrequited love, ever. He would easily been nominated for best supporting actor. Jeff Bridges who plays kind of a drunk buffoon, does it perfectly and is great here.I am surprised this is seen as some big political statement. There are no heroes or victims here. The immigrants were in a tough situation and we don't know why they chose or got placed there. But, they are not innocent by any means. They ARE stealing cattle. They trade cattle for sex, they get drunk and bet on cock fights rather than buy food for their families. And the cattlemen justify murder rather than a better solution. Both are despicable. But the immigrants did not have to be murdered that is why the good guys are on their side. So, I don't see it as a political statement at all.Mix that all together with some of the greatest scenery in Hollywood history it does truly become a masterpiece.

La Puerta del Cielo fue el tercer filme de Cimino y uno de los más golpeados por la prensa estadounidense por una sencilla razón: Cimino no era amigo de periodistas ni de productores ni de nadie, Cimino no estaba para complacer a nadie y en represália tundieron la película a palos.Pero Cimino tampoco es inocente, La Puerta del Cielo es una película compleja y abstracta que por momentos puede llegar a parecer confusa hasta para el cinéfilo más recalcitrante. La edición de Criterion entrega la versión final aprobada por el director antes de su fallecimiento en 2016, por lo tanto, solo queda sentarse y aahogar la melancolía con la obra incomprendida de Michael Cimino.

Ok

Should have been in description that subtitles are ONLY in German.

No existen indios conflictivos.La tension es entre blancos que ocupan tierra i ganado i recientes inmigrantes europeos que vienen sin nada, y que apenas hablan ingles.Muy buena interpretación de la francesa Isabelle Huppert al lado de los sin tierra.Kris Kristopherson, con titulo de Harvard, como alcalde acaba apoyando a los nuevos inmigrantes, aunque represente "traicionar" a los de su casta i algunos amigos

Merci