Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate (2004)
**** (out of 4)
Jeff Bridges, Brad Dourif, Kris Kristofferson and Vilmos Zsigmond are just some of the people involved with HEAVEN'S GATE who are in this documentary to discuss the making of the movie. In case you're not familiar, United Artists pretty much gave director Michael Cimino everything and anything, which ended up costing a lot of people their jobs when the budget went out of control and this was followed by some very bad press and even worse box office.
This documentary does a fantastic job at discussing one of the biggest disasters in Hollywood history. Thankfully it does feature interviews with so many people involved with the production so this gives a terrific look at what was going on behind-the-scenes and what Cimino was actually doing. It rather remarkable to hear this story because it's just shocking to think that there was a time when something like this could have happened. Various options are discussed about what the studio could have done to the director or should have done to it and the reasons why nothing happened.
If you're a film buff then you'll certainly love this documentary because it's perfect at showing what can go wrong when a director is given full control of everything on a film. There are some great archival materials dealing with the release of the picture and how everything pretty much fell apart until the studio was left with a disaster. The only negative thing is that Cimino refused to be interviewed for the film as it would have been great getting his side of everything.
**** (out of 4)
Jeff Bridges, Brad Dourif, Kris Kristofferson and Vilmos Zsigmond are just some of the people involved with HEAVEN'S GATE who are in this documentary to discuss the making of the movie. In case you're not familiar, United Artists pretty much gave director Michael Cimino everything and anything, which ended up costing a lot of people their jobs when the budget went out of control and this was followed by some very bad press and even worse box office.
This documentary does a fantastic job at discussing one of the biggest disasters in Hollywood history. Thankfully it does feature interviews with so many people involved with the production so this gives a terrific look at what was going on behind-the-scenes and what Cimino was actually doing. It rather remarkable to hear this story because it's just shocking to think that there was a time when something like this could have happened. Various options are discussed about what the studio could have done to the director or should have done to it and the reasons why nothing happened.
If you're a film buff then you'll certainly love this documentary because it's perfect at showing what can go wrong when a director is given full control of everything on a film. There are some great archival materials dealing with the release of the picture and how everything pretty much fell apart until the studio was left with a disaster. The only negative thing is that Cimino refused to be interviewed for the film as it would have been great getting his side of everything.