Heaven's Gate (1990)

I put a question up on my feed, but I figured I’d ask here too—anyone else still obsessed with Heaven's Gate?

Rewatched it last night—probably my first time seeing it since I first got into movies decades ago—and honestly, it hits even harder than I remember.

I see people tearing it apart in reviews, but how can you stay objective when the directing, the acting, and the cinematography just pull you in that deep?
Seriously though, why does everyone hate on it? After The Godfather, isn't this easily one of the greatest epic films ever made?

Dennis Hall41 said:I posted a question on the Recommendations board, but I figured I’d ask here too—is there anyone else out there who loves Cimin's gates of heaven?

I sat down with it last night, roughly twenty years after my initial foray into cinema, and I found it even more profound than my memory suggested.

Scanning the reviews, I see people nitpicking every detail, but how can one maintain any semblance of critical distance when the sheer force of the direction, the acting, and the cinematography pulls you so deeply into the frame?
Truly, why does it face such disdain? Is it not, following The Godfather, one of the most powerful epic films ever made?

It isn't hated, per se; it was simply one of the first major cinematic flops, and that is how it became etched in the collective consciousness.
That said, the pacing is undeniably bloated, and I could never quite bring myself to tolerate Walken's face, no matter where it appeared on screen.

I haven't actually sat down to watch the movie yet, but I did some deep diving into Cimin's work a while back and read up on it. Apparently, the whole production was a total disaster zone. It ended up being such a massive flop that the studio burned through over 30 million dollars, and poor Cimin basically saw his reputation as a rising star go right down the drain.

It wasn't until thirty years later, when they released the director's cut at Venice, that people finally started looking at it differently. Some critics even went as far as calling it a masterpiece! It’s a wild 180 from those 1980 reviews where everyone was acting like it was one of the worst movies ever made...

But honestly, it's totally possible that the film just got crucified because of all that behind-the-scenes drama. Maybe everything that happened afterward was just a direct result of that initial backlash...

I haven't actually sat down to watch it, but from what I gather, that movie basically tore apart the modern Hollywood landscape or maybe just nuked the Western genre entirely. Something like that...

Fine, call it a "flop," say it "ruined the (New Hollywood) western," or claim it "wrecked Cimin's career"—we've all heard the noise.

But honestly? If the mainstream crowd is out here celebrating mediocre, borderline amateur stuff—like Dark Knight, for instance—or just decent enough flicks like those various Rings, Star Wars, or Forrest Gumps... what's actually stopping them from embracing a film this beautiful, tense, and soul-crushing?

Look, I get it, the movie isn't perfect. For me, the tonal shift between the intimate moments and the historical scale feels a bit off; John Hurt is such a powerhouse actor that making his character feel like a caricature feels wrong; and Ellino’s constant wavering between both love interests is pretty questionable. But that first point is just nitpicking—trying to find a hair in an egg. You can't force the personal and the historical to be perfectly coherent; that's just Marxist nonsense. Of course the feeling of touching a loved one's chest is going to hit differently than killing peasants.
The other two issues are minor to me, though, because they basically vanish when you're faced with Cimin's tragic, powerful vision and masterclass acting—it's no exaggeration to say Walken and Kristofferson, and maybe even Huppert, are giving performances of a lifetime.

And don't get me started on the pacing. Those little "pockets" outside the main plot are actually where Cimin shines most—just look at those atmospheric stretches and ceremonial scenes in The Deer Hunter, which, in my eyes, the gates of heaven doesn't just match, but actually surpasses.

So, I finally sat through it... it was exhausting, honestly, but I’m glad I checked it off the list. "Overblown" is probably the best word for it, because those massive crowd scenes just go on forever. That sequence where the train rolls into Casper... man, you just know they dropped millions just to pull that off. It really made me nostalgic for movies like Zhivago—those sweeping epics like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, or Lawrence of Arabia... they just don't make them like that anymore.

If I had to nitpick, my biggest gripe is that despite all this focus on the immigrant experience, the main players end up being WASPs on both sides of the coin again. Lean handled that balance so much better; in LoA or A Passage to India, his non-Anglo characters actually felt three-dimensional and stayed with you, whereas here, everything still feels centered around the Englishman. Dourif's role could have used more weight too, since his true motivations were always a bit fuzzy. All those Slavs, Germans, and Jews ended up feeling like little bits of exotic flavor rather than real people. And honestly, I’m still scratching my head over what they even produce there or why they’re all crammed into that communal housing... for all the effort put into the worldbuilding, there are just so many loose ends left hanging.

I will give credit where it's due, though; certain scenes were gorgeous, like that dance at Harvard—the editing there was top-tier. Still, you can't compare it to The Deer Hunter, which is a total masterpiece. That trio—Streep, de Niro, and Walken—was way more effective than this cast. Or even look at Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller; it shares some DNA, being atmospheric yet intimate with those classic Western themes of economic and personal conflict, but it’s a much humbler, much more successful film.

7.5/10

The whole argument about the peasants being sidelined just doesn't hold water.

First off—Cimin's treats them as a collective unit, which is super obvious during those key scenes in the tent. He isn't trying to give everyone a deep backstory—that’s just his stylistic choice. If we start nitpicking that, we’re basically just talking about personal taste—like saying, I don't know, Kristofferson should've worn glasses because they'd look better on him.

Second—and this ties back to my first point—this isn't some faceless crowd movie like an Eisenstein film or an ensemble piece like an Altman film. It’s a movie with three leads, where the most central one is clearly Kristofferson's guy. Actually, I'd go as far as to say it's really a movie about *him*—about an individual soul seeking redemption by merging with the collective, or washing away the "sin" of wealth through contact with the downtrodden—the Other.
Don't forget, he's constantly being judged because he can't truly represent the oppressed—he carries the mark of a wealthy family background.

Yeah, it's a character study—just like how in that anthology-style finale of The Godfather Part II, it becomes crystal clear the story is actually about Michael.
Sure, maybe he won at life, maybe he fulfilled his moral duty by siding with the underdog, but—and you can see this perfectly in those meaningful looks he gives his partner—he's ultimately a loser. He failed on a personal level—lost the only person he ever truly loved and settled for a pathetic compromise.

So, if I had a complaint, it would be about the potential lack of depth in his characterization. And I say "potential"—because Cimin isn't Tolstoy; he doesn't have 900 pages like Tolstoy does in Anna Karenina, he only has three and a half hours.
And honestly? What he achieved here is masterful.

Regarding the love triangle setup in both movies, I find the one in gates of heaven more interesting because of how unique her personality is—even though both are handled well. Though, going back to that critique—Ellino's hesitation isn't totally clear; was it her own fickleness or a mistake on Cimin's part? Either way, it's a flaw—in the first case because it's left hanging, and in the second, because we aren't told why.

Comparing it to McCabe & Mrs. Miller works, and I'd add that the recent Matewan is just as brilliant.

Michael Cimin's "Heaven's Gate" is likely the most significant leftist film in American cinema, perhaps alongside Sayles's "Matewan" as the only other work of its kind.

I need to dig up an old post from Vajti's archives—it’s over a decade old now—where I laid out all the essential details regarding this film.

Vajti:

Heaven's Gate (1980)
Just one week after sweeping the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for his masterpiece, *Deer Hunter*, Michael Cimino jumped straight into production on *Heaven's Gate*. At the time, he had the massive backing of United Artists—the legendary studio co-founded by Charlie Chaplin back in 1919. After the triumph of *Deer Hunter*, Cimino basically had his pick of any project in Hollywood. Instead of playing it safe, he chose to chase his own vision, aiming to craft what he believed would be the greatest Western ever put to film.

Heaven's Gate certainly wasn't the greatest Western ever put to film, and that was obvious to everyone after the very first screening. However, I’d go as far as to say it remains one of the most significant pieces of cinema in Hollywood history—not just within the Western genre, but across the board. So much transpired during and after the production of that movie that it will be etched into history forever:

After the film’s catastrophic failure at the box office, United Artists went under and was eventually swallowed up by MGM.

Despite his Oscar wins, Michael Cimin's directorial career effectively hit a dead end. He hasn't made anything since 1996, leaving him with a total of only four films to his name.

The collapse of that particular film definitely signaled the definitive end of the New Hollywood era.

The downfall of cinema was also hastened by the end of an era where studios actually gave directors any semblance of creative freedom. You can see the direct fallout today in the endless stream of teen comedies and other mindless drivel being shoved down our throats in multiplexes. These days, the studios pick the projects based on marketability rather than vision; that level of artistic liberty has essentially vanished, unless you're working in Independent film.

There are three different versions of the film on record:
The 1st version probably doesn't exist anywhere anymore; that was the cut Michael Cimin showed his bosses after finishing the edit, and it ran for about five and a half hours.
The second version currently available on DVD—which I proudly added to my own collection—was the one shown at the grand premiere and later released for a relatively brief theatrical run, clocking in at 210 minutes.
The third version clocks in at just under 150 minutes. United Artists released it theatrically at the request of Cimin himself, after he realized his film was essentially bombing at the box office and decided to trim it down even further. Finding this specific version today is incredibly difficult—nearly impossible, actually.

Back in the mid-80s, some cable network dug up a 210-minute version of Heaven's Gate, branded it "Heaven's Gate: The Uncut version," and started airing it. Looking back, you could argue that this was really the moment the term "Director's cut" entered the mainstream lexicon. Nowadays, we see it all the time with major directors who, when they can't get their full vision onto the big screen, decide to serve it up on smaller screens via DVD releases instead.

Back in 1985, Steven Bach—who was an executive at United Artists at the time and ultimately lost his job following the film's absolute disaster—published a book titled "Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate." If you're interested in the deep dive, there is also a TV documentary from 2005 called "Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate," which is available for anyone curious to watch on YouTube.

Even though the American Humane Association had been overseeing film productions since the 1940s, they weren't actually allowed on set. This lack of oversight led to direct accusations that animals were being intentionally harmed or even killed just to make certain scenes feel more realistic—claims that were actually backed up by some of the crew members involved. Ever since those scandals broke, every single movie has been required to include that standard disclaimer in the credits: "No animals were harmed during the making of this motion picture..."

- Aside from the "vegetarians" (as I like to call them), access to the set was strictly forbidden for journalists. This is widely considered one of the primary reasons the film faced such intense negative publicity even before its release. It actually led one reporter to pose as an "extra"—which worked—giving him an exclusive look behind the scenes. A few weeks after his stint ended, he published a scathing exposé in his American newspapers regarding Michael Cimin's behavior on set, his obsessive perfectionism, and the aforementioned treatment of animals;

- Legend has it (and Wikipedia corroborates this) that by the sixth day of production, the film was already five days behind schedule. In the end, Cimin shot over 200 hours of footage, with daily costs estimated at roughly $220,000. While the approved budget was $7 million, the final price tag ballooned to $44 million. At the US box office, it failed to pull in even $3.5 million.

When you factor all that in, along with Cimin's extreme perfectionism (one day, nobody was allowed to eat lunch because the entire crew had to wait for the sun to hit a specific angle for a single shot; "Lunch? There will be time for lunch—what we are doing right now will last forever!" Cimin reportedly remarked. They didn't get a single second of footage that day), and the fact that the scene where immigrants beat a drunken Kristofferson—who swings his whip at them in a stupor—was repeated 52 (fifty-two) times, it isn't hard to see why Heaven's Gate became one of the biggest box-office flops in history.

HOWEVER (here comes the big "BUT")...
...once you actually sit through the movie (I just finished the three-and-a-half-hour viewing), you truly cannot find a single fault with the technical aspects. Every frame displays that specific directorial "touch" Cimin was striving for; there is simply no room for criticism there. In fact, if one were looking for technical errors, this film would likely rank among those with the absolute fewest.
The film suffers from a different, second major issue: the screenplay. Cimin's characters are utterly hollow and empty. There is no foundation for characterization, which is a massive flaw for a 210-minute film. I don't recall ever seeing a movie with emptier characters, and I believe that fundamental void is why American critics tore it apart. Europeans were much more lenient, with some considering it a very good film, though perhaps that's because we Europeans view it through a slightly different lens than Americans (the plot itself might play a role). Regardless, it's us (Europeans) who end up suffering in the film.
The final battle at the end (one studio executive who watched the five-and-a-half-hour version remarked that the battle "lasted longer than an average movie") is indeed masterfully directed and utterly brutal. It’s a shame it occurs at the 170-minute mark, by which point more than 70% of the audience has already checked out.

To wrap things up, I can only hope that everything that transpired with Heaven's Gate will one day inspire someone to make a film about it (books and documentaries already exist) and sweep up some awards, because there is certainly enough material for it.

wiredbison82 said:Cimin's "Heaven's Gate" is probably the most important leftist film in American cinema—alongside Sayles's "Matewan," maybe even the only one of its kind.

Hey, Mom! Brian De Palma definitely makes leftist films too.

I was thinking more in terms of how the film focuses on the downtrodden, much like *Matewan*. De Palma’s work feels more like a modernist mason's manifesto—bordering on a meta-cinematic prank in many respects.

Dennis Hall41 As if I haven't heard this before... turns out wiredbison82 is back at it again with these theories...
All that whining about how the farmers are being pushed to the sidelines just doesn't hold any water...

First off, it’s pretty obvious that Cimin viewed them as a collective unit, which you can see clearly enough in those pivotal scenes inside the tent... there isn't really any talk of individual characterization, unless you count those forced moments, but that was just his stylistic choice as an auteur. If we start nitpicking that, we're basically just drifting into the territory of personal preference, kind of like saying, I don't know, that Kristofferson should have worn glasses because they would've suited him better...

Look, obviously it’s the director's call, and at the end of the day, it really just comes down to my own personal taste, but I can't help but wonder why you're nitpicking the way the working class is portrayed as this exoticized, monolithic second in film—something that should have felt like a gritty portrayal of blue-collar life—and then comparing that massive thematic critique to something as trivial as an aesthetic choice regarding a pair of glasses...
Honestly, my personal taste just leans away from that whole trope where you have to sit through yet another portrait of some WASP guy struggling with his own indecision, torn between taking action and doing nothing, all while being absolutely tortured by his own sense of class betrayal... it’s exhausting to watch how they frame this epic struggle of the oppressed as some incomprehensible Tower of Babel that only our hero—with his polished Harvard education—can somehow bring to heel. It feels so narrow. I mean, looking back at the same decade, you had leftist immigrants actually making waves and running American newspapers like Workers' Guard, though maybe a bit further east than Wyoming... anyway, I was just thinking about certain directors whose work still holds up for me today, mostly because they actually bother with nuanced portrayals of non-white characters, women, and those complex post-colonial power structures that most mainstream films just gloss over...

Dennis Hall41 said:Secondly, even regarding the first one, we aren't talking about a movie without a central protagonist here; this isn't some Eisenstein crowd piece or an Altman ensemble flick where everyone is equally important... it’s a film driven by three main characters, though the "most important" one is definitely Kristofferson's. Actually, I might be going too far, but I'd argue it's really a film about him—about the individual redemption of a soul, perhaps a self-contained one, through merging with the collective... it's about that innate "sin" of wealth that somehow gets washed away by making contact with the downtrodden, with the Other.
Let's not forget that he’s constantly dealing with all those complaints about how he can't possibly be a legitimate voice for the downtrodden just because he carries the mark of having a wealthy family background...

Yeah, I’d say it’s really just a film about an individual... sort of in the same way that by the time you hit that anthology-style finale in The Godfather Part II, it becomes crystal clear that the whole thing is actually about Michael...
Sure, maybe he won the long game, maybe he fulfilled some grand moral imperative by standing up for the underdog, but—and we can see this pretty clearly from those telling glances he shoots his partner now—he’s essentially a loser at heart... because he "failed" on an intimate level, losing the one person he truly loved just to settle for a pathetic compromise...

So, my main gripe used to be that his characterization might have fallen short... though I only say "might" because, let's face it, Cimin isn't exactly Tolstoy, and he doesn't exactly have 900 pages at his disposal like Tolstoy does in Anna Karenina when he's got just three and a half hours to work with...
And honestly, what he pulled off there... it was just masterful...

When you look at the love triangle dynamic playing out in both films, I find the one in Heaven's Gate to be way more compelling, mostly because of how uniquely shaped that character's personality is... though honestly, they’re both pretty well-drawn if you can get past my one little gripe. It’s just that Ellin’s indecisiveness feels a bit murky, and I can't quite tell if we're looking at her being flighty or if it was actually Cimin's own mistake... either way, it leaves a sour taste, since the first option feels totally unresolved and the second one leaves you wondering exactly what went wrong in the first place...

Comparing it to McCabe and Mrs. Miller makes sense, though I’d also throw in the equally brilliant and more recent Matewan into the mix...

I don't quite get what you're struggling with regarding Elle... She mentioned several times that she chooses Nate because he offers her marriage, which instantly turns her into a respectable member of society, whereas Jim—that whole silent type vibe—can only offer her love, but apparently, she just isn't enough for him, especially when she's being haunted by this image of a once-in-a-lifetime romance (like Haustor or Shane). Our indecisive hero just couldn't make up his mind, or rather, he struggled too long and ultimately retreated back into the suffocating silk comfort of his class privileges, leaving his working-class love riddled with holes right outside the cabin... In the end, capitalism and the class system won out over that fleeting, inefficient alliance between the working class and the salon intellectual who spent way too much time obsessing over his ties and vests.

Michael Vronsky might be the silent type, but it’s crystal clear he’s a man of action, so there’s really no question as to why he wins Linda over; he doesn't need fancy carriage numbers to prove himself.

What exactly is being exoticized here regarding the peasantry (though if I'm not mistaken, the working class is a different beast entirely under classic Marxist theory)?
Don't you think there's enough of a realistic linguistic and cultural backbone to ground it?
We're looking at raw, straightforward people who work themselves to death—raising kids, drinking, singing, dancing, and watching cockfights. I highly doubt a lifestyle like that leaves much room for fancy, high-brow intellectual development.

Like I said before, Cimin's goal wasn't to deliver nuanced psychological portraits of peasants.

As for the comment about Ellin's choice—yeah, that's possible, but I'm worried biology is playing a much bigger role in the whole thing. Or his. It isn't fleshed out enough, which is the issue, but he says it plain and simple: "I hate aging."

I mean, I already mentioned it, but one of those guys in the Slaven group could have actually been eloquent enough to hold a real dialogue with the lead character, you know, acting like an actual subject in the story instead of just background noise. Take that character played by Brad Dourif, even though he’s credited as Mr. Eggleston... based on how he spoke, he sounded Polish, and he could have been developed a bit more, maybe as an equal partner in this whole resistance narrative, so it didn't feel like everything was just strictly Anglo. We could make sense of the local dialect or catch bits of Polish or Russian drifting through the air, but to an American viewer watching without subtitles, it all just sounds like total gibberish, like some kind of Tower of Babel situation...
I do appreciate the effort they put into showing the visual and linguistic nuances of immigrants with distinct cultural backgrounds, though; it’s just that having one more fleshed-out character would have made it hit harder. These are American stories, sure, but somehow in Deer Hunter, the dynamic felt much more organic with the Rutens, or the Ukrainians, or whatever they were... where it’s clear that you have Americans alongside people with European roots, and they don't need some designated leader or middleman to illustrate their relationship with the world.

Honestly, I think this movie would’ve hit its full potential if Michael Mann had directed it—maybe somewhere in that sweet spot right after The Last of the Mohicans. It could’ve easily been a perfect 10, the kind of masterpiece you’d find mentioned in the same breath as The Godfather, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tracker, Scarface, or Chinatown—all those absolute peaks of Hollywood cinema.
Or—well, back to Mann again—the incomparable, beautiful Manhunter.

It was practically made for him, Maestro Mann. As it stands, I'd put it at an 8 or 9, though I actually gave it a 9 in my IMDb log.

I mean, I know Mann would've squeezed every bit of juice out of those potentially killer dynamics between Kristofferson, Hurt, and Walken. He probably would’ve leaned even harder into the atmosphere too—more night scenes, more mood—and maybe swapped Cimin's slightly manic obsession with wiping out farmers for a bunch more poetic, visual moments.

But then again—would people have even labeled this thing "leftist" if Mann had been the one behind the camera?

Take a look at this post..

😁

Dennis Hall41 said:I honestly feel like this movie would have reached its full potential if it had been directed by Michael Mann, perhaps filmed somewhere right after The Last of the Mohicans. It could have easily been a perfect ten—an absolute masterpiece that people would mention in the same breath as The Godfather, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tracker, Scarface, or Chinatown, which I consider some of the absolute peaks of American cinema.
Or, well, here we go again talking about Mann and his irreplaceable, beautiful Manhunter.

It feels almost tailor-made for him, Maestro Mann. As it stands, I’d say it sits somewhere between an 8 and a 9, though I did give it a 9 in my IMDb log.

For instance, I know Mann would have squeezed every bit of potential out of those fascinating dynamics between Kristofferson, Hurt, and Walken. He probably would have leaned even harder into the atmosphere, giving us more nighttime scenes, and maybe Cimin's somewhat manic focus on the farmers' plight would have been swapped for an even greater number of poetic moments.

Then again—who knows, maybe people would have labeled the film as leftist if Mann had been at the helm.

Maestro Mann, is that you?🤔

Dennis Hall41 said:I honestly think this movie would’ve hit its full potential if Michael Mann had directed it—like, if he’d shot it somewhere right after The Last of the Mohicans. It could’ve easily been a perfect ten, the kind of masterpiece you’d find mentioned in the same breath as The Godfather, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tracker, Scarface, or Chinatown. To me, those are basically the peaks of Hollywood filmmaking.
Or, here we go again, back to Mann and his untouchable, beautiful Manhunter.

It was practically made for him, Maestro Mann. This sits somewhere between an 8 and a 9 for me, though I gave it a 9 in my IMDb diary.

Look, I know Mann would’ve squeezed every bit of juice out of the chemistry between Kristofferson, Hurt, and Walken. He probably would’ve leaned even harder into the atmosphere too—more night scenes, more mood—and maybe swapped out Cimin's slightly manic obsession with wiping out farmers for even more poetic, visual moments.

But then again—would people even call it a leftist film if Mann had been behind the camera?

Hmm... Atmosphere and Mann? Sure, I get that, but Mann’s real superpower is actually working with actors and fleshing out characters, from the leads down to the supporting cast. You see that most clearly in The Last of the Mohicans, where you wouldn't necessarily expect deep character development, yet the side characters play such vital roles and he never lets them slip into the background.

I’d say Mann would have added that one missing dimension to this already great film, and then we’d be talking about a total masterpiece.

I can't get behind the stance taken by frozengull94 just because a certain film happens to be trending. I’m not saying, for instance, that Shawshank Redemption is the greatest ever—it isn't in my book—but it works because it hits a nerve with a massive audience. Today's youth watch it and immediately feel that connection. Some films are technical masterpieces but fail to connect with anyone outside a tiny niche. At our core, humans are genetically similar, and therefore emotionally similar too. Sure, there are variations, but the foundation is identical, which is why we gravitate toward the same things. When we see a baby, almost everyone finds it beautiful; the emotional response is universal. It's the same with mainstream cinema. If someone claims babies aren't "in style" anymore and expects you to feel disgust when you see one, they're delusional. You can't override basic human biology.

When it comes to fashion, it's a different story. You don't want to look like an idiot walking down a street in New York, so emotion and genetics don't matter there; you just follow the herd to fit in. You might publicly claim to like a specific movie or song just to blend in, but that isn't why a film or song becomes a phenomenon. It isn't about trends.

Bryan Rogers87 said:Hmm.. The vibe and Mann? Yeah, I get that—but his real strength is how he handles actors. He builds characters so well, from the leads down to the supporting cast (you can really see that in The Last of the Mohicans—it’s a movie where you wouldn't necessarily expect deep character arcs, yet the side characters play such vital roles and Mann never lets them fade into the background).

I'd say if Mann took this good movie and added that specific dimension, it would be a total masterpiece.

No way—Mann is a master of atmosphere, especially those night scenes. Just look at the nighttime shots of L. A. in Heat or the general mood in Manhunter.

Also—since you brought up working with actors, I’d add that he has this incredible knack for highlighting the beauty of his cast, or at least their unique physical presence.

Like Amy Brennemann and Diane Venora in Heat, or even Al Pacino and Robert De Niro—they never looked more sharp or glamorous than they did in the 70s. Then there's Natasha Stowe and Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, the whole Manhunter crew—especially that quirky wife and son of Willow's—and the entire cast of Miami Vice, which is such an underrated film...