Heaven's Gate

A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino ...more

The dire financial and professional consequences Heaven's Gate visited upon its director and studio can't be disputed, but the virtues of the film itself remain more open to debate. Though unwieldy, unsatisfying, and self-indulgent to a fault -- Michael Cimino appears uncomfortable shooting a scene with fewer than fifty extras -- its excesses also bring quite a bit to admire. But first the flaws: Heaven's Gate plays like an ultra-ambitious first novel in desperate need of an editor. Though it ...more