Wyoming, 1890. James Averill is the Sherriff of Johnson County, a county largely inhabited by foreign immigrants. The wealthy cattle owners view the immigrant farmers as a nuisance and hindrance to them enlarging their own land. The cattlemen's association, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, effectively declares war on the immigrant farmers, and gets the state government's blessing. They assemble an army of guns-for-hire, and, backed by the U.S. Cavalry, set out to rid the state of the immigrants. James Averill's heart is with the immigrants, but he is not sure they have a chance of winning the inevitable war.Written by
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Isabelle Huppert plays on this film a character named "Ella" ("she" in Spanish). Later she would be the main character in the 2016 French-speaking movie called "Elle"("she" in French). See more »
Goofs
When Canton shoots the immigrant point-blank in the back of the head, there is no blood, bone or hair shown coming off the head. In fact, after the immigrant's head is lifted to show his face then dropped down again, there is no sign on the back of his head that he's been shot at all. See more »
The heavily edited 149 minute version contains too many changes to name, but some of the more notable ones include the deletion of Billy's valedictorian address in the prologue, the addition of a narration at the end of the prologue by Averill, a restructuring of the early Wyoming scenes so that Nate is fully introduced earlier (several scenes are moved around, including a re-cut version of Nate's first scene with Ella, so that their relationship is established early on), additional dialogue here and there (especially about "philosophy" between Averill and Bridges in the cock fighting scene), a discussion between Nate and Averill before it is revealed that Ella is on the death list is deleted, and the ending is completely restructured-right after the cavalry leaves the battle, it cuts to the yacht, and the scenes of Ella and Averill packing and the subsequent ambush are intercut with the scenes on the yacht (with the beautiful woman on the yacht deleted entirely), with voiceovers of earlier lines between Averill and Ella dubbed over it. Very few scenes are deleted altogether, but most scenes are trimmed. Many lines of dialogue are re-dubbed (or re-written), or consist of alternate takes. See more »
I'm only one of a very few people who has actually seen BOTH versions of "Heaven's Gate". A frequently asked question is "Why was it ripped apart so badly?" The answer lies in this story here:
In 1984 I rented "Heaven's Gate" in order to show a friend of mine who had wanted to know if the film was as bad as he had heard. About 50 or so minutes into the film, Averill walks into Casper, Wyoming, which at the time this scene takes place is 1890. The town is filled with many meticulously dressed pedestrians, and the streets are filled with horses and buggies. My friend starts laughing uncontrollably. I asked, "Did I miss something?" He pulls himself together and says, "You gotta be kidding. There ain't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW."
That in a nutshell can easily describe what went wrong. The film reeks of a director desperately trying to convince us that this movie is very important and cries for us to think he's an absolute genius. Actors take long breaths between sentences as though they were going to choke on what they are saying (man, just wait till you get to the scene where the deathlist is read out - you truly believe he'll read all 125 names), while every shot is filled with either smoke or dust in order to give us the feeling that this is ART. Camino's intentions were honorable as I truly believed that he believed he was making a masterpiece. This is what happens when you go out to make a masterpiece. I had only wished he tried to go out and make a good western. Then this film might have worked.
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I'm only one of a very few people who has actually seen BOTH versions of "Heaven's Gate". A frequently asked question is "Why was it ripped apart so badly?" The answer lies in this story here:
In 1984 I rented "Heaven's Gate" in order to show a friend of mine who had wanted to know if the film was as bad as he had heard. About 50 or so minutes into the film, Averill walks into Casper, Wyoming, which at the time this scene takes place is 1890. The town is filled with many meticulously dressed pedestrians, and the streets are filled with horses and buggies. My friend starts laughing uncontrollably. I asked, "Did I miss something?" He pulls himself together and says, "You gotta be kidding. There ain't even that many people in Casper, Wyoming NOW."
That in a nutshell can easily describe what went wrong. The film reeks of a director desperately trying to convince us that this movie is very important and cries for us to think he's an absolute genius. Actors take long breaths between sentences as though they were going to choke on what they are saying (man, just wait till you get to the scene where the deathlist is read out - you truly believe he'll read all 125 names), while every shot is filled with either smoke or dust in order to give us the feeling that this is ART. Camino's intentions were honorable as I truly believed that he believed he was making a masterpiece. This is what happens when you go out to make a masterpiece. I had only wished he tried to go out and make a good western. Then this film might have worked.