Heaven's Gate

Do not believe ratings for this truly amazing movie and go watch the Michael Cimino-approved version of 219 minutes. It is one of the best films ever made and a true masterpiece (that has cruelly been bashed or overlooked for too long). Photography is breathtaking, music is astounding, the actors are great, the narrative technique is close to a literary feat with the very effective use of ellipses (used perfectly by Cimino in The Deer Hunter as well) and the overall story is really human, touching and down to earth. It is a grandiose American epic with a philosophical spirit. It is one of the best proofs that cinema is Art.

It is hard for me to understand why this movie was such a disaster at its release that it brought down the United Artists Studios. It is for sure not the best movie ever, but it is also far from terrible. The story does at times go into irrelevant side storylines that break the flow and the ending is not a clear black and white classic Hollywood ending. But the ending is one of the elements that I find excellent in the movie, as it feels more like real life. The main characters portrayed by Kristofferson, Bridges, Walken and Huppert namely deliver solid performances. I also like the portrayal of the multicultural, multilingual community of poor and often naive settlers fresh from Europe who are confronted to the realities of their American dream. I believe that one problem of the movie is that it say itself to be “based on true events” while the story is 99% fictional. If you can ignore this, it is a solid western that breaks with the white hat/black hat narratives of many earlier Hollywood Westerns. Worth the watch.