Is it really that bad?
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bstephens21 — 16 years ago(March 05, 2010 02:09 PM)
The lack of characterization in the film, particularly the immigrants doesn't allow a viewer to engage with their plight on an emotional level. He gives more attention to the details of the land barons in ways that inadvertantly make them attractive. Seeing them in the grandeur of their dress, in their clubs, places of power while the immigrants are just a blob of struggling humanity, excruciatingly poor and ignorant.
But once again, I think you're completely wrong. You keep calling them a faceless mob, but the only thing I'd agree with you is the "mob" part. They clearly have a face. Once again, the film's narrative is "non-individual-oriented", and this is especially true in terms of the immigrants, who are always characterized communally. The roller skate alone "fleshes" them out more than two dozen subplots would in other filmmakers films. You seem to be asking for subplots, while I feel that would be lazy when compared with Cimino's sophisticated approach to the narrative.
You say there just struggling and toilling and it's true, but not just in the film, but in reality itself. The discrepancy you point out between the barons and the immigrants makes entire logical and dramatic sense. But you're also missing out of the pure joy and love that Cimino takes in the immigrant community as a community, even when he's disapproving of some of the behaviour. The crowd scenes, before the war comes to the county, breath with a vibrant sense of community and camraderie, once again, best typified by the roller-skate-dance scene, which has to be among the greatest scenes in the American cinema. They're not a faceless mob, they're in fact very human and very sympathetically drawn. He doesn't rely on our innate sense of morals. He shouldn't. If they were so innate, the topic he's making the film on wouldn't need dramatizing.
As for him "glorifying" the riches and grandeur of the barons, I fail to see it. If anything, the movie doesn't spend enough time with them, allowing the conflict to be too black-and-white in the immigrant's favor. Which makes your thesis all the more puzzling. I fail to see the one scene where Avery visits the clubhouse as sufficient enough to to skew our sympathies in our favor. Especially as callous as the barons are played, with John Hurt as a drunken voice of conscious, and with the camera drawing our favor clearly towards Avery.
The only other two scenes that cross the track into the world of wealth and privilege are equally balanced. The prologue is certainly a splendid and marvelous piece of filmmaking, taking as much joy in their community as it later does with the immigrants, but also ultimately reveals that there is a not-so-repressed violence seething even under "civilized" Eastern society. The epilogue goes even farther, presenting all the riches and splendour of the upper classes as nothing more than a crippling, repressive straight-jacket on Avery's soul and conscious.
The mere fact that so many people cannot even watch this film should tell you something.
It only tells me something I knew before I saw this film. That irrational mob mentality rules in film criticism, as it does in most other aspects of life, more than any rational critical judgement. Thankfully, critical opinions can be reversed over time.
Rules of the Game
,
Lola Montes
and
Peeping Tom
all attest to that. All three hated violently upon release, all three now recognized among the greatest ever made I'm sure
Heaven's Gate
will join them eventually as far as misunderstood masterpieces go. The problems is combating the irrationally violent opinion against the film at least far enough that people can watch the film unbiasedly and open a critical discussion on it. In your defense, you're at least trying to grapple with the text, although I feel you're definitely wrong in most of your points.
For if as you say,
"Heaven's Gate is one of fiercest takedowns of manifest destiny, and the inherent violence of the patriarchal-capitalist establishment made in cinema,"
then its failure for the larger movie-going audience is monumental.
On the contrary, I think
Heaven's Gate
power and aim in its goal is almost enough to have ensured its failure. America's don't love downers. They especially don't love them when they condemn the society that they benefit from. And this goes doubly in an age of "social" and "moral" recuperation such as Reagan's America. It is telling that the film was received enthusiastically in Europe (something even Steven Bach admitted). America can only stand it's dirty laundry to be aired out to an extent, and even the American Left are largely nothing more than moderate liberal capitalists. Anyways, a violent negative response is often, if not more often, as much a testament to a work of art's power than widespread acceptance (as the three films mention above can partly testify too).
By the way, what was Jeff Bridges prototype since you understand this so well?
I think there are sever -
col_rutherford — 16 years ago(March 06, 2010 12:58 PM)
In HG (rape) is a random act of violence from strangers. She comes on the scene unwittingly. Worse, because the character is a prostitute, there may be the assumption that this is less of a crime than of the virginal character in Once Upon The idea that prostitutes engage in sex all the time with strangers for money, what difference did this make? Believe me: a big difference.
The rape of Isabelle Huppert's character wasn't a random act of violence though. Her name was on the death list compiled by the Stock Growers Association because she accepted stolen cattle as payment from customers. She was targeted by the mercenaries because they would be paid for killing her. The film isn't supporting the notion that it's okay to rape a woman because she's a prostitute and accepted stolen property, but that's the attitude of the mercenaries. The Association justifies their brutal actions as an attempt to impose law and order and they have the support of the government. The rape of Huppert's character shows how legally-sanctioned violence and denying suspected criminals their rights and humanity leads to sadistic abuses of power. As Kristofferson's character says, the real tragedy is that up until the rape of the women the Association were acting within their legal rights.
I do agree though that how the rape scene was filmed is problematic. Even if Cimino's intent was to depict the act as horrific any depiction of sexual violence on screen is bound to titillate some. I would have preferred that the scene be edited so that less time is spent showing the rape. -
col_rutherford — 16 years ago(March 05, 2010 12:24 AM)
The love story triangle didn't work for me at all. There are no women in this film that we get to know even slightly other than the madam/prostitute. The rest are the faceless women in the brothel and the wives of the immigrant men. A case could be made that the only reason why these men 'loved' her was because she was the only show in town. But then. that's not love. That's just human response borne out of the need for companionship.
It's unfortunate that I missed the last hour of the movie and a few portions at the beginning. But I didn't get a sense that we ever saw a love scene with this woman and the 2 male leads. If I'm wrong and there are love scenes that I missed, I apologize. I did see her get naked jump in the bed with Kris, but that was interrupted so she could see the gift he brought her. But that was it and I don't consider that a love scene.
There are no sex scenes involving Isabelle Huppert with Kris Kristofferson or Christopher Walken, not counting the scene with Huppert and Kristofferson lying naked in bed. Huppert and Kristofferson do share a tender dance after all the others have left the roller skating rink.
The key to understanding the love triangle is that Huppert loves Kristofferson, but he won't propose to her while Walken will. Kristofferson keeps an old photo by his bedside of him and the girl he danced with in the Harvard prologue and she might be the reason why he is reluctant to commit to Huppert. Walken is a poor man trying to lift himself out of poverty, even if that requires working against the members of his own class. Kristofferson is a wealthy man with a good education who lives among the poor settlers but can't fully relate to them because he can always go back to a life of privilege if things get too hard. There's a scene later in the film where Kristofferson can't understand why Huppert refuses to leave Wyoming and everything she has built there. Kristofferson says he can always buy new things for her, but she wants to be more than just his pampered mistress. She's proud of being a good business woman.
SPOILER WARNING!
In the final act Walken turns against the Stock Growers Association after Huppert is raped and he is killed by them. Kristofferson, Huppert, and the settlers fight against the Association, with many dying on both sides, but before the settlers can win the US Cavalry arrives to rescue the cattle barons. After the battle is over Kristofferson and Watson prepare to leave Johnson County together but she is gunned down. The film ends years later on a yacht off the coast of Rhode Island. Kristofferson is older and apparently married to a spoiled and idle woman resembling his college sweetheart. Kristofferson has everything money can buy, but he's unhappy, having lost Huppert, his youth, and his ideals.
But clearly, female characters were beside the point in Heaven's Gate.
In another thread, someone relayed their father's comments calling the movie Eurocentric in its point of view of history. I'll go even further: the movie is a love song to the rugged, violent masculinity of white males in the still early days of America. the glory days of manifest destiny when white American males felt all powerful and entitled to sovereignty over land and other human beings that they considered less than human. The days of the robber barons and slave masters an era that today is Gone with the Wind, but still longed for. So it's no accident that most of those posting on this board hailing it as a masterpiece are men, white men no doubt.
Women are actually given a more active role in
Heaven's Gate
than they had in the Johnson County War, the historical event that inspired the movie. Women are shown fighting in the final battle against the cattle barons while in reality they only brought supplies to the male combatants. Huppert's character, Ella Watson, is given a prominent role while the historical person that she was based on was killed a few years before the invasion of Johnson County. The Widow Kovach is amongst the most vocal of the European immigrants. It's unfair to criticize the film for being "Eurocentric" when it's a fact that most of the people involved in the Johnson County War were of European ancestry. One of the many historical inaccuracies in the film is that the majority of settlers are depicted as recent immigrants from Europe. In reality most of the residents of Johnson County at the time were born in North America and there weren't as many Slavic settlers. Most of the settlers were of German, British, Irish, and Scandinavian ancestry. While the film does depict an age "of manifest destiny when white American males felt all powerful and entitled to sovereignty over land and other human beings that they considered less than human", it is condemning, not celebrating, it. -
smiley_b81 — 15 years ago(April 04, 2010 04:07 PM)
I'm with the group calling it a flawed masterpiece. Like "Barry Lyndon" the stars of this film are the photography and the production design. The fact that it didn't get the cinematography Oscar in 1980 (or even a nom. for it) is appalling. Vilmos Zsigmond proves with this (as well as Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller") that he's one of the greatest cameramen to ever set foot behind a lens. The golden hues and spillages of whites add a truffling surface of beauty and authenticity. The look is timeless. The look IS the West.
My big peeves with the movie are the casting of Kris Kristofferson who I've never liked as an actor (Sam Elliott has the range of Day-Lewis compared to this guy), and the overlong dances sequences which are reminicient of the indulgent wedding scenes in "The Deer Hunter". It's clear that Cinimo had no talent for pacing or editing.
Overall, its worth checking out for anyone who likes cinema or history or both.
Busey+Boll=Match made in heaven -
Emunah — 15 years ago(April 05, 2010 07:58 PM)
Its not bad. Its not a masterpiece. Its not The Deer Hunter. But its still pretty good. It has developed this notorious reputation NOT because its "bad" but because it was the follow up film to Cimino's Deer Hunter and because Cimino got unlimited resources to make this film and it flopped horribly. It flopped so bad, that the prod company went bankrupt. Yes it did get bad reviews. Every film does. Its not awful. Its an exercise in egomaniacal late 1970s directing. Coppola did it with Apocalypse Now. Kubrick did it with The Shining. Friedkin did it with Sorcerer. And Cimino did it with Heaven's Gate. The only one who ever really recovered was Kubrick. And The Shining is now regarded as one of the, if not the best horror film ever made. The other three, among others at the time, never really recovered.
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bstephens21 — 15 years ago(April 06, 2010 12:46 AM)
Its not bad. Its not a masterpiece
I disagree
Its not The Deer Hunter.
It's markedly better.
It flopped so bad, that the prod company went bankrupt.
I assume you mean the studio, not the production company, which regardless is an unsubstantiated myth.
Yes it did get bad reviews. Every film does.
It also got plenty of good, even great reviews once people outside the New York cache of critics got to see it. UA's critical mistake was cancelling the L.A. premiere (all though the fact that blood was already in the air probably meant that critical cronyism would win the day). UA's biggest strategical mistake was not opening at Cannes (Gate's belated premiere in France caused a riot and in a good way).
Its an exercise in egomaniacal late 1970s directing.
"Egomaniacal filmmaking" is something that only concerns a making of a film. It is not an aesthetic style, and as such, the ridiculous nature of the film's production is completely irrelevant to the quality of the film. That reviewers can't keep themselves from bringing this up show there intellectual bankruptcy in regards to discussing this film.
Coppola did it with Apocalypse Now. Kubrick did it with The Shining. Friedkin did it with Sorcerer. And Cimino did it with Heaven's Gate. The only one who ever really recovered was Kubrick.
Apocalypse Now
was and is a gigantic critical and commercial hit. Friedkin's career went into the doldrums as much for
Cruising
as for
Sorcerer
.
The Shining
seems actually mild for a Kubrick production. Anyways, the "Waterloos" of major filmmakers, while interesting, don't demonstrate any cohesive statement about the state of late 70's filmmaking. At most, it shows some the director's weren't perfect but could make flawed, but interesting work (
Comes a Horseman
,
Yanks
,
The Last Movie
,
Zardoz
,
A Wedding
, etc.), sometimes it shows the critics were full of ****, and didn't know greatness when it was in front of them (this film,
They All Laughed
,
Bring Me the Head of Alfred Garcia
). Occasionally, even the critics will by-omission admit being wrong by pretending they loved the movie all along (
Two-Lane Blacktop
,
Days of Heaven
,
King of Comedy
, every Cassavetes) but not often enough. I don't think a single one of those so-called "fiascos" show anything close to an excuse for what happened to Hollywood afterwards. -
HolyShackles — 15 years ago(February 04, 2011 02:59 PM)
bstephens, I just want to say how impressed I am with all of your statements in defense of this film and how much I've enjoyed reading them (I've scanned through the two dozen or so topics on this board and read them all). You've provided empirical rationales for every aspect of the film and pushed everyone who claims it's so terrible to explain why they feel so to the limit which they always give up on trying to do after you've forcefully exposed them to be knee-jerk reactions while never stooping to the lower level of insulting their intelligence or character. They are perfectly entitled to hate the film, but you said it best in another post that their "opinions are nothing without rational support" which I have seen little to none of from this film's detractors. I was also browsing through the Sorcerer message board recently and you articulated and nailed my thoughts about the film spot on by saying that it probably would've been the greatest remake of all time if Friedkin hadn't relied too heavily on Wages of Fear for the transport section of the film and "if he nailed that as well as he did the first half of the film" then the film would be truly great.
Anyways, posting this not to just sing your praises, but am wondering if you have any sort of blog or website of your own that you devote to film criticism, or if you are a writer for any actual magazine because I'd love to read any official work you have done. If not, then I think you should seriously consider doing so because I find everything you have written and debated to be completely constructive analysis, probably amongst the best I've ever read online and you'd have a regular reader with me, keep it up. -
Prismark10 — 15 years ago(March 14, 2011 09:57 AM)
Its a very well filmed epic that took risks. Its dark with some unsympathetic characters. The film rather tanked at the box office and it does have flaws. The most serious one was a cohesive narrative. You have a hard time following the story.
Its that man again!! -
Fillmore85 — 11 years ago(September 21, 2014 02:21 AM)
Ha!
You are #2 on my list of people I've seen who are so blinded by the intellectual intentions of the film-maker that you fail to actually be emotionally affected at all.
People don't like Heaven's Gate because the characters are poorly developed, scenes go on for far too long (yes, I get the point of the dancing/rollerskating scenes. They also didn't need to be 20+ minutes), and there was no real emotional core. That you think it is better than The Deer Hunter just outs you as a pretentious academic, all too concerned with what Cimino "meant" to do with one scene or another, and not at all caring whether he succeeded.
It's fine to like a flawed movie. It's okay to have guilty pleasures. We all have different tastes. But your feeble attempts to intellectually bully those who disagree are embarrassing, and trying to mask it in academic jargon doesn't help your case at all. Grow up. -
junefirst26 — 15 years ago(April 14, 2010 04:10 PM)
I just saw this film a few days ago for the first time. The 3 hour, 39 min. version. It is a very beautiful film to watch, you almost feel as though you are back there in time. Though while beautiful to see, I just wished that I cared for the characters more. I think that if the film had more little scenes that endeared you to these people, you would have felt their pain more. Scenes like you see in Lonesome Dove, or even Mc Cabe and Mrs. Miller. Little humerous scenes that show the viewer that not all is impending doom. As for the immigrants, I almost feel nothing for them, because it seems I only see them in scenes of confrontation, anger, yelling, cock fighting. Though there are sad scenes where women are pulling a plow, and the widow pulling her cart, I must admit I don
t feel their pain like I thought I should. I think there is too much focus on the female lead, and who she is going to go with. Basicaly, there isnt much charm in this film. Though Dr. Zhivago, was kind of thin on plot, I still really cared for these people and their plight, as I do for everyone in The Deer Hunter also. I should also mention that the DVD did NOT have English subtitles, because I must admit that I must have missed about 25% of the dialog trying to understand what people are saying. I`ll have to go and check out Final Cut on youtube, if its still there. Thanks. -
smiley_b81 — 15 years ago(April 19, 2010 09:07 PM)
Recently I'd compare the critical drubbing of this movie to the one bestowed on Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones" for instance. If that movie flopped huge (and its director wasn't sweating cash out his ears), would his career have gone the way of Cinimo?
Busey+Boll=Match made in heaven -
PotassiumMan — 15 years ago(June 10, 2010 02:53 PM)
The film's length is really what kills it. Its not really the acting. The film just never ends and seems sluggish. Keep in mind that when this film was released in 1980, people had high expectations for quality filmmaking. Nowadays, a film like this would probably be much less furiously panned. It would merely be dismissed as boring. But after the wealth of great films of the 1970's, it should come as no surprise that this one seemed so dreadful.
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donofthedial — 14 years ago(October 30, 2011 05:33 PM)
I saw it when it first came out. I was not a Cimino fan, nor a Kristopherson fan. I went to see it b/c I could not believe that it was as bad as people were saying. I saw it, enjoyed it and admired it. Some of the battle scenes had me looking to see who was who. And I saw a version with an ending that was apparently little seen by most audiences. Very disturbing and the next day at work I felt the need to talk about it with people. I never saw that ending again.
It has been quite a while since I have seen any version of the film and I would like to see it again. -
jmillerdp — 10 years ago(April 09, 2015 12:54 AM)
The cinematography is awful, in my opinion. I have always admired Vilmos Zsigmond's dedication to his director's vision. But, man!, movies like Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" and Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" look really bad to me.
I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! [slurp!] I DRINK IT UP! - Daniel Plainview - There Will Be Blood