STACK #145 Nov 2016

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EXTRAS

Hence they were basically left with two options: close down the production and swallow the then $12 million cost, or run with the movie the way Cimino wanted to make it and hope it turned out to be the cinematic masterpiece he kept professing it would be. They reluctantly chose the latter. By now the media had got hold of the extravagance, waste and mismanagement that was rampant on the Heaven’s Gate  set. Headlines of “Hell’s Gate in Montana” now regularly appeared on US TV news channels and in Hollywood’s trade papers. Finally, almost an entire year after he was originally scheduled to, Cimino presented the first screening of Heaven’s Gate  to the UA executive. The film’s running time was five hours and 25 minutes long. David Bach, UA’s Vice President in Charge of Production, memorably described it as “unendingly beautiful and totally unwatchable.” Cimino was forced to cut the film to a more manageable three hours and 34 minutes, and it was this version that premiered in New York on November 18, 1980. Virtually no one attended the aftershow party; a portent of the next day's reviews, which were devastating. The New York Times film critic, Vincent Canby, wrote, “ Heaven’s Gate  fails so completely, you might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of  The Deer Hunter , and the Devil has now come around to collect”. The LA premiere was immediately cancelled and the picture was cut by a further 70 minutes and re-released. Only a few curious movie diehards went to see it. When all the finances were finally calculated, Cimino’s movie had cost a staggering $44 million ($135 million in today's money) but only grossed $1.3 million in the 800 theatres it was shown in. UA was now a busted flush and all of its executive heads rolled. The parent company, Transamerica, swiftly acted and sold the name UA to MGM which became MGM/UA. United Artists as an independent film company was

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speak broken English and had absolutely no marquee clout within the US. UA said, “No way”. A seemingly besotted Cimino then threatened the executive: “It’s either her or I take my film elsewhere”. He got his leading lady. Cimino’s post-Oscar arrogance and apparent contempt for UA’s inexperienced executive continued apace on location in Montana. A whole town had been constructed on the plains but after filming for four days, Cimino decided against the skyline. It was dismantled and then completely rebuilt just a few hundred feet further south. A log cabin was rigged up by the special effects team with that he did not like the position of the buildings resulted in multiple takes – up to 50 takes for various scenes was not uncommon throughout the shoot. Consequently, one week into production, Cimino was five days behind schedule and had spent $900,000 for a minute and a half of usable film. Two weeks in, he was 10 days and 15 pages behind. By then he had exposed and developed over two hours of film, less than three minutes of which he was willing to approve; all at a rough cost of $1 million 24,000 bullet hits, which had taken two days to complete. Cimino demanded the effects be fired off so he could see what it looked like before filming the scene. His obsession for achieving absolute perfection ...one week into production, Cimino was five days behind schedule and had spent $900,000 for a minute and a half of usable film

Christopher Walken in a scene from Heaven's Gate

per usable minute of film. Alarm bells went off at United Artists. The problem for UA was the disastrous contract they had eagerly and hastily waved through, which stated that the director would not be penalised

for any cost overruns incurred in completing

and delivering the film for its Christmas 1979 release date. Therefore, Cimino was protected from any breach-of-contract lawsuits. Sacking and replacing a recent five haul Academy Award winning director would be PR suicide for the new UA executive.

no more, and now became the symbol of a discredited, director-centric system. Michael Cimino, however, remained unrepentant, firmly believing that his film was a misjudged masterpiece. But the unmitigated failure of Heaven’s Gate  stuck to him for the rest of his career. He would direct a further four forgettable

Cimino and his producer, Joann Carelli (standing on the step ladder), set up a scene for shooting on location in Montana

motion pictures, and not one of them recovered their production costs.

NOVEMBER 2016

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