Heaven's Gate (1980)

A dramatization of the real-life Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, in which a sheriff born into wealth attempts to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.

Director:

Michael Cimino

Writer:

Michael Cimino

Stars:

Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kris Kristofferson	...	James Averill
Christopher Walken	...	Nathan D. Champion (as Chris Walken)
John Hurt	...	Billy Irvine
Sam Waterston	...	Frank Canton
Brad Dourif	...	Mr. Eggleston
Isabelle Huppert	...	Ella Watson
Joseph Cotten	...	The Reverend Doctor
Jeff Bridges	...	John L. Bridges
Ronnie Hawkins	...	Major Wolcott
Paul Koslo	...	Mayor Charlie Lezak
Geoffrey Lewis	...	Trapper Fred
Richard Masur	...	Cully
Rosie Vela	...	Beautiful girl (as Roseanne Vela)
Mary Catherine Wright	...	Nell (as Mary C. Wright)
Nicholas Woodeson	...	Small man

Storyline

Michael Cimino's bleak anti-western based on events in 1890s Wyoming. Sheriff James Averill attempts to protect immigrant farmers from wealthy cattle interests, and also clashes with a hired gun, Nathan Champion, over the woman they both love, Ella Watson. Both men find themselves questioning their roles in the furious conflict between wealthy landowners and European immigrants attempting to build new lives on the American frontier, which culminates in a brutal pitched battle.

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Plot Keywords:

immigrant | battle | frontier | 1890s | love | 

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Taglines:

The only thing greater than their passion for America...was their passion for each other.

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Genres:

Drama | History | Romance | Western

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian French

Release Date:

19 November 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate

Filming Locations:

Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$44,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$1,500,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Partisan Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

219 min 149 min (re-cut) 219 min (original cut) 216 min (2012 director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby (35 mm prints) 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In addition to Christopher Walken also co-starring in it, two other elements that ;Gates' shares with Cimino's The Deer Hunter are a love triangle and a focus on Ukraininan/Russian immigrants in the U.S.

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Goofs

Despite music and a yard full of waltzing couples, several 360-degree panning shots at the Harvard commencement ball show that there is no orchestra.

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Quotes

Ella Watson: I never cheated on you. I always made Nate pay.

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Connections

Referenced in St. Elsewhere: Heaven's Skate (1988)

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Soundtracks

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
(uncredited)
Music by William Steffe
Played by the marching band

User Reviews

If Cecil B. DeMille made art films...

...they'd probably be better than this.

Towards the end of "Heaven's Gate", it dawned upon me that Michael Ciminio has no idea what his movie is about. Is it an epic adventure, a revisionist western, a character study, a snapshot of a historical period, a love story, a dramatic expose of corruption, an artful meditation on humanity? Cimino has no idea. He tries to make "Heaven's Gate" into all of these things, more or less failing.

It's not as if he was concerned about the damage this incoherence would do to the plot, characters, pacing, etc. The bottom line is SPECTACLE. The audience is supposed to be overwhelmed; by the epic subtext, cast of thousands, artistic lighting, the sheer money apparent on the screen. But any self-respecting viewer will tell you that being overwhelmed is not the same as being entertained.

Every scene presents a bare minimum of information to tell the story: There's a guy. We saw him before, I think. Now he's on a train. Now he's talking to somebody. Now he's mad. And so on. We get the gist of what's going on, with little clue why or how. Not that we care anyway, the characters are all constructed as supporting players to spectacle.

To make matters worse, every shot, scene, sequence, and subplot is about four times too long. There is one exception: the roller skating scene, filled with such energy and cinematic prowess that it seems tacked on from another picture. That alone was worth the price of admission. Almost.

Cimino has a relatively unimaginative style of direction, which appears standard on prime time TV. Yet Ciminio constantly gets lost in "fetishes", which apparently are dust, trains and horses. Dust is everywhere. Everywhere. Indoors, outdoors, in the middle of grassy fields. Sometimes there's so much dust you can't even see what's going on. Whenever a train appears, we are treated to beautiful, laborious shots that clog up the storyline. There are apparently less people in Johnson County than horses, who repeatedly hog the foreground. Even in the battle sequences. In fact, the dramatic scene at the end of Part I consists of horses riding off a train, obscured by dust. I'm serious.

This would be a film forgotten by time if it weren't for the titanic production misadventure that bankrupted an established movie studio, bringing the New Hollywood era down with it. Of course, "JAWS" and "Star Wars" are guilty too, but only in the best possible ways.

But "Heaven's Gate" is a sheer mess. Not a disaster, or an ostracized masterpiece. An unguided, absolute, sheer mess. Like T.S. Elliot, "This is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper." It would feel a lot better if the age of the auteur that included "The Graduate", "Bonnie and Clyde", "2001", "The Godfather", "Taxi Driver", and "Apocalypse Now" had ended with a spectacular bomb.

But no. "Heaven's Gate" is Hollywood's whimper.