Heaven's Gate (1980)

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

HEAVENS GATE (1980) directed by: Michael Cimino starring: Kris Kristofferson, John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges cinematography by: Vilmos Zsigmond9 *s out of 10 I don't understand why this film still gets hated-on so much by audiences, even while the critics and intellectuals finally come around to embracing it as a great, important film; in my own opinion, it is just shy of a masterpiece, and, in a lot of ways, very much like Cimino's masterpiece from just a couple of years before - 'The Deer Hunter' .. that particular Vietnam-war film starring De Niro is as much of a slow-burn as HEAVEN'S GATE is, or is, at least, a l m o s t as much of a slow-burn .. I mean, Cimino definitely had his own unique style and aesthetics going on for himself, which obviously involved deliberately slow-pacing (very slow at times, albeit), immense subtlety, overwhelming intricate visual-detail (like old paintings), purposefully awkward interactions between characters, very deep characterizations, etc .. and, as with 'The Deer Hunter', patience is just required to understand and appreciate HEAVEN'S GATE - both films almost require a form of meditation for them to fully work and pay off .. HEAVEN'S GATE may be long, yes, but certain aspects are fully and obviously intended by Cimino, such as the stiffness of everything, as well as the beautifully deliberate pacing that almost creates an illusion of a narrative in real-time - he wants the viewer to have to absorb what is going on in this way, and there is often, quite awesomely, this superbly realistic and humanizing affect on the viewer because of this - this was, at least, my experience with every viewing .. .. .. what I'm saying is, in a way, I really do find it a mystery that people love 'The Deer Hunter' so much, but still can't handle HEAVEN'S GATE because of, primarily, its length and its pacing; I mean, lol, The Deer Hunter' is definitely the better of the two films, but it certainly requires patience - almost as much as this picture does .. and like I said, the patience pays off here .. the more you give to this film, the more it will give to you; it is almost like a relationship with somebody in a metaphorical way.. HEAVEN'S GATE is elegant, enormously epic, stately, rustic, ultra-realistic, thoroughly well-acted and gorgeously well-shot brilliance .. Cimino knew what he was doing, and I'm sure that, even in the '80s and '90s when this was s*** on even by the critics and film-intelligentsia. he knew deep-down that he had made a magnificent epic for the ages to appreciate .. now, I do believe this picture is just shy of a masterpiece, because it IS eccentric, and DOES require patience, and maybe does try to take on too much of a load, so to speak; basically, the way I see it, this film just has these human-like-flaws that it wears on its sleeve because of how earnest it is in so many ways, including its themes as well as its extreme ambitions on technical levels.

Copyright 1980 by Partisan Productions. Released through United Artists. U.S. release: 19 November 1980. 219 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Despite a running time of 3 hours, 39 minutes, I could not follow the plot terribly well. Cimino's powers of exposition are not good. Characters are arbitrarily introduced and the audience is forced for the most part to work out who and what they are and their relationships (if any) to each other. The fact that some of the actors tend to mumble their lines doesn't help either.NOTES: Negative cost: over $35 million. Gross world-wide box-office rentals: less than $2 million. Net loss (including print, advertising and distribution costs): around $45 million. In an effort to boost box-office appeal, the movie was re-edited to 148 minutes. This ploy was not successful on any front.COMMENT: Beautiful to look at. Ugly to look at. Well acted. Poorly acted. Superbly photographed. Self-indulgent direction. Plenty of money up there on the screen. Huge, marvelously atmosphere sets. Hundreds of costumed extras bring many of the scenes to roaring life. Hideous (even if historically justified) brutality. Motivations of the leading characters are so obscure, the movie is really a film without a hero, although there are many villains strutting across the screen. At least the evil Waterston character is easily identified, but what are we to make of Mr. Hurt? If I was re-editing the movie, his part would be the first to go. He seems to be enacting the conscience of the rich, but though he is always mouthing endless platitudes against them, he always sides with them anyway and is himself a party to the murders which he so loquaciously condemns.

I've seen a lot of movies in my time. Some of them bad, some okay, some which are masterpieces. Without a doubt, Heaven's Gate is the best film I've seen so far. It is a combination of poetry and realism,the likes of which I've never seen in a movie before. Most films I've seen are either more poetic or realistic. The story involves an association of farmers whose product is being stolen by poor and starving European immigrants in Johnson County, Wyoming. Said association decides to create a death list of 125 immigrants much to the outrage of Johnson County Marshal Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson). The stage is set for a bloody showdown between the immigrants and the association. This scenario is based on a true story called the Johnson County War. As the story goes on, a love triangle develops between the main characters and idealism and realism come to a clash that you won't forget. This film has been overshadowed by controversy due to it's extreme failure at the box office, but don't worry. Heaven's Gate is a masterpiece.

Heaven's Gate is an epic vision by Filmmaker Michael Cimino. Whether you like it or not, it's Cimino's story that he wanted to tell. The end result was a box office cancer with several finished versions that bankrupted a studio and ruined the career of many in the entertainment industry. However, we are left with a movie that Cimino continues to have critics pan and praise with its countless highs and lows. Here are my 7 ways that could have saved Heaven's Gate from what is utterly became. 1. Stopping Cimino throughout the production. The Studio had several opportunities to save money and time by not allowing Cimino to go over budget several times and going over schedule multiple times. The excessive demand in production value and countless spending could have been halted if not minimized if you reigned Cimino in on multiple occasions. Filmed mostly in Montana, scenes were also shot at Oxford. However, filming in Newport, Rhode Island for less than a 5 minute scenes could have been completely scrapped. This also would have saved money and time for the sake of the Director's vision. Whether the final product would have been drastically different, the Studio would not have faced as such a giant disaster. 2. More back story. The movie is an epic drag when it comes to the subject matter and its overall plot. Giving a narration, subtitles for the non speaking English characters along with more backstory about the immigrants could have given this beautiful film a more "understandable" story to help the audience from hating it. The confusion the audience strives is that the long-winded sequences lack the direction of story. 3. Scrapping your minor characters. If the goal is to produce and epic five hour movie, then you need to keep your characters. However, if you wanted a better story without losing site of the main story you would need to cut back on the side stories from actors like John Hurt, Jeff Bridges, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur and Mickey Rourke. This would have helped cut the final length of the movie and improved the central story line. 4. More romance. The story does lack a connection between the three main characters: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken and Isabelle Huppert. Several critics have complained that the love interest between this romantic triangle could have greatly been bettered. 5. Edits, edits and more edits. Heaven's Gate has moments of pure beauty and epic scenes. How it is edited into a movie creates a long melodramatic story that baffles and goes nowhere. Although Heaven's Gate did have several final edited versions, the idea of a total re- edit, from its opening credits, to including flashbacks and rearranging scenes by manipulating the time sequence could have helped with the pacing of the movie. 6. Make Heaven's Gate into a 2 part movie if not a Trilogy. If the Studio made their single box office bomb into a 3 part epic, they had the chance of recouping their investment and keeping Cimino's vision of a 5 1/2 hour story. Along with option #5, editing the movie into 3 parts would have given the audience more time to digest the story and the vision that Cimino wanted to tell.