5 hr 20 min version???
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TrevorAclea — 17 years ago(March 18, 2009 10:06 AM)
You hold
Four Flies on Grey Velvet- one of Argento's worst, laziest and most tedious movies (and I say that as a fan of the director) in inexplicably high regard, yet can't understand why people might be similarly enthusiastic about
Heaven's Gate
? Compared to
Four Flies - a real chore of a movie if ever there was one -
Heaven's Gate
positively flies by.
"Security - release the badgers."
- one of Argento's worst, laziest and most tedious movies (and I say that as a fan of the director) in inexplicably high regard, yet can't understand why people might be similarly enthusiastic about
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gayspiritwarrior — 16 years ago(March 03, 2010 10:28 PM)
I'm responding to your previous posting solely because I don't want people to experience what I had to go through. I read postings online by people like you who hold HEAVEN'S GATE in the highest possible regard, and I opted to take a chance on it, despite the negative public and critical response to it upon its release. Whoops. I just want to inform those who may be curious about the film that it's a terrible movie on all fronts (excepting, admittedly, the aesthetics, which don't justify a screening of this yawner) and that it's very unlikely that YOU, the potential viewer, will enjoy any of it. Avoid HEAVEN'S GATE at any and all costs.<<
It's curious that, knowing there are people who disagree with you about this movie, you attempt to discourage people from seeing it in order to "spare" them. Doesn't it occur to you that you might just as well be depriving them of something they'd enjoy, even if you can't?
"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."Oscar Wilde -
coachromano22 — 13 years ago(March 04, 2013 01:32 AM)
There are basically 3 types of adult filmgoers. 1-The ones who go for escapism only, and just want to be entertained. Whether it be comedy, drama , action-adventure, western-does not matter. The second- are people who are art-film freaks. Those who go for the art of filmmaking, and care far more about the substance and vision of the film and its creators', then being entertained by funny scenes, or explosions, or a gunfight. In fact, they are entertained more by discussing a complex story, expensive cinematography, and the like. Then there are the rare few-like myself-that like both. And if a film can manage to do both-that is the rarest of the rare. And while, I wasn't highly entertained by Heaven's Gate-I was entertained. Both by the realism of the story, and the characters, and the famous actors, and the cinematography-and the locale and time period. Cimino really wanted to show the way things were back then. The movie was far too gritty for that time period in which it was made. However, I love the fact that he showed us so much. The types of people involved, why the conflict, and of course, the typical but real love triangle-The kind of triangle that has been going on for thousands of years. I think it is necessary to try and show modern day society how difficult life was just a century ago. It has really only been since the modern industrial age, that things began to change. And then finally w the advent of modern medicine and transportation. This allowed people to spread out over the entire US in mass numbers, preventing what happened in the movie from continuing to take place. I think people that have commented on how horrible this movie is, are far too narrow minded. It's pretty obvious that Heaven's Gate is a time capsule of a rarely talked about time and place in the history of our country. He felt that story had not yet been told. And I think he was right. If you look at a movie like The Outlaw Josey Wales, for example-There is not a whole lot of entertainment going on in that movie either. Clint Eastwood saves the movie, because he is Clint-simple as that. He has his usual witty banter scenes thrown in to divert us from the very real revenge horse opera that is taking place on the screen. Lets' face it Clint is a rare breed-putting him in a movie like Heaven's Gate would have only ruined its realism. I think that type one movie goers should refrain from commenting on these types of movies. They really have no idea how the process of storytelling or moviemaking, works. All they know is that they were bored, and thats it. I realize that hollywood is a business, but moviemaking is also an art form, and should be treated as such. You know there are people who will go to the Louvre and stare at the Mona Lisa for hours, trying to figure out what it means, and the significance of it. If an inanimate object can be treated in that manner, then so can a film.
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osopestoso — 17 years ago(January 11, 2009 01:25 AM)
The reason REAL westerners hate immigrants is that the immigrants bring all thier cultural crap with them and, over the years, have DESTROYED the west. It's happening to this day.
Go to Tombstone AZ and read some of the articles in the Tombstone Epitaph in the courthouse museum. It's why California is now as lame as New York. -
kohntarkosz — 16 years ago(November 03, 2009 11:45 PM)
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Ironically, this is why a lot of people in other countries have issues with the US: because American pop culture is replacing THEIR culture. When I went to Amsterdam a couple years ago, I took a train ride down to Paris for three days, and you know what I saw on every single bridge that we passed under? Graffiti. Young musicians attempt to emulate American and Anglo musical styles. And the kids dress in American style fashions. And American television and movies are very big over there. I guess what it comes down to is the older people are afraid that their culture is being supplanted by this homogenized American thing, and that the old ways will vanish forever. -
eddie-267 — 15 years ago(April 28, 2010 06:59 AM)
My local library had this on videotape; it ran for 3:26:44 from the UA symbol to the final line of text (approximately). I enjoyed watching it but thought I probably wouldn't bother again, though the music they danced to in the middle attracted me enough to record it. It is on TV tonight and they give it a 4-hour slot, but that would include ads. (UK on TCM). I might record it. I am keen to watch the ending again as my memory of it doesn't match Wikipedia's.
fleapit -
ridge-m-1 — 11 years ago(December 01, 2014 03:01 PM)
Who are the REAL westerners? Are they the American Indians whom the European immigrants committed genocide against? Are they the Mexicans whose country once encompassed what is now the vast southwest of the United States along with California until the spawn of the original European immigrants instigated a war in order to conquer that territory for the imperialistic politicians governing the United States?
Or, are REAL westerners the Waspish offspring of the original European colonists? The wonderful trait exhibited by the existing upper class descendants of the first wave of European immigrants in the film is how they valued money over the lives of more recent European immigrants in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
What destroyed the West is the concept,right or wrong of "Manifest Destiny".
There was no longer a Western Frontier for individuals that were so inclined to live a completely free life. -
Vagabear — 17 years ago(January 04, 2009 10:58 PM)
The 5+ hour version is referred to in Bach's book, FINAL CUT. Indeed, I would love to see it and would be the first in line.
I love the film as it stands - but find the shorter re-cut fascinating, as it contains a different order of sequences as well as unique ones that do NOT appear in the longer cut.
I truly wish that Cimino would/could revisit this work and construct a version that includes footage from both versions. -
gayspiritwarrior — 9 years ago(July 14, 2016 06:08 PM)
Cimino revisited the 219-minute cut, removed the sepia filter, made a couple of sound edits and slightly changed the end sequence on the boat. Other than that, it remains his preferred version.
The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.-Oscar Wilde -
szath — 17 years ago(January 29, 2009 11:46 AM)
My VHS tape is 220 minutes, which, allowing as well for the intermission, probably compares to the version which I saw on Manhattan's Upper East Side during the film's disastrous one-week original release. I doubt very much there is any other "expanded" version, whatever the legends swirling claim.
More importantly, the movie is crap. And it is wildly, slantedly deceitful crap, Cimino's attempt to make a sort of Russian-influenced "socialist realism" western or something like that. But in the original events, there were no huge gun battles, no starving immigrants, etc. Cimino made all that up, to better to attempt to make his political case. In fact, there weren't even a James Averell (the proper spelling) and an Ella Watson at the time, since both had been lynched, for unclear reasons, by (mainly) unidentified assailants in July, 1889. Averell wasn't even, as the film claims, a Harvard man, but, rather, a mere saloonkeeper who'd recently completed a 10-year hitch in the Army, finishihg as a private.
All that Cimino took from genuine, recorded history is the issue of rustling, which oddly enough is never actually shown in "Heaven's Gate," and the character of Nate Champion, although Cimino, in his striving to make a politicized movie, naturally shows no sympathy whatsoever for the cattlemen of circa 1892 Wyoming (who were hard-pressed economically by that point, especially after three fierce winters in a row). And not even the villainous Frank Canton in the movie bears any relationship to his real-life counterpart, who was a hired "stock detective" who actually died in bed many years afterward. He was certainly not the would-be plutocrat Sam Waterston plays, nor was Frank Canton een his real name.
Some of the evidence hints that quite a few of the Johnson County
"invaders" (even though most were in fact from Wyoming themselves, not, as the film holds, mercenaries recruited in Texas) ended up 6 years later serving in the Spanish-American War, particularly as Roosevelt and Wood's "Rough Riders." The best available historical look at the Johnson County War remains "War On The Powder River" by Helena Huntington Smith, which was published by the University of Nebraska Press but may now be out of print. There is also an admirably concise summary in one chapter of Mari Sandoz's "The Cattlemen." Both books go into some detail on the frontier economy of 1892 Wyoming, which is nothing like Cimino's version, and Smith also covers the questionable constitutionality of the private army which rode into Johnson County in '92. -
pchalmers-1 — 17 years ago(March 06, 2009 07:36 PM)
Cimino never intended the 5 hour 20 minute version to be his final cut. He intended to shorten it, though only by 15 minutes according to Steven Bach in Final Cut. Also, Bach said that the battle sequence in the orignal version was about 90 minutes (!), as compared to the 20-30 minutes in the 3 hour 40 minute version. So more than 50% of the reduction came in the battle sequence (which is frankly still too long).
I'd be curious to hear what Cimino believes to be "his" version of the movie, or if that version even exists. If the latter is the case, I'd also be curious to see what he could come up with. That assumes that the original footage still exists; Cimino printed more than 1.3 million feet of film, which is the equivalent to 220 hours of film. I don't know if that amount could be stored practically. More importantly, that assumes that Cimino could be trusted to work with any degree of efficiency, which he never did on Heaven's Gate except under duress. -
eddie-267 — 15 years ago(April 28, 2010 06:23 PM)
It is just gone 2 in the morning in England and I have just watched the film on TCM. It ran for 3 hours 57 minutes including ads (TCM is a commercial station). Four groups at 3 minutes makes the film 3 hours 39. And I have to tell you I am shattered. How anyone watching this could look away for a moment is beyond me. Mind you I am sure people are right - it is totally preposterous, but boy, is it stylish.
PS my earlier posting got shuffled in up above somewhere; my incompetence I suppose. And I'm still not sure how the film ends. It looks as though Wikipedia is right but that makes no sense. I'll watch it again after I've had a good night's sleep.
fleapit -
donofthedial — 14 years ago(October 30, 2011 05:41 PM)
eddie-267:
Which ending did you see? "Shattered" is a good word to describe the effect the film had on me when I first saw it soon after its initial release. It was at an art house theater here in Los Angeles.
Powerful film.