Heaven's Gate

Saturday June 4, 1:30pm Egyptian Theater

There was some expectation that SIFF might reward audience members surviving the entire 219 minutes of this film some sort of medal but that did not happen. I was surprised to discover the film kept my full attention the entire time. That said, the original director’s cut of Heaven’s Gate remains as the 149-minute version did a great lumbering monstrosity of unrestrained excess filmed through a murky haze with a largely inaudible soundtrack. A great fan of the genre I was anxious to see this version. Would my mind be completely changed with the reinsertion of seventy previously edited minutes? I actually think this version might be better, but that’s not saying much. It’s a shame that Cimino didn’t have an Irving Thalberg to reign him in, holding him to creation of the modest western originally planned. The entire catastrophe was set in motion when the director was given carte blanche due to the overwhelming success of The Deerhunter, a film which in fact had little or nothing to do with Cimino’s abilities but rather select acting performances and, as in Heaven’s Gate, the breathtaking cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond aided by an audience ripe with anti-Viet Nam War sentiment. The right place at the right time, this film was an opportunity of circumstance. Worthy of note is Cimino’s ability to master the scope of enormous crowds and create spectacle in this film as he had done previously. There are many flashes of brilliance, the dizzying waltz at the beginning of the picture, the panorama of the roller-skating fiddler in the immigrant’s meeting hall, the introduction of Christopher Walkin’s character, Nathan Champion, through the hole in a sheet made by his shotgun blast as he kills a cattle thief and an excess of wonderful tracking, crane and aerial shots. The musical score is richly detailed with period pieces and original composition. Casting gave this film profuse talent, much of which was wasted. At the point in which Isabelle Huppert’s character, Ella Watson, is introduced the momentum of the range war story escapes like the air from a giant burst balloon and the audience is left to flounder in the excess of a lovers frolic followed by unending and countless details each in themselves interesting but pointless and destructive to the overall story. There are scenes of great brutality performed without consideration for the reckless use of actors or animals that in fact was a result. I was also aware of several breaks in continuity with the addition of the previously edited footage. There are also long stretches of dialogue in several different languages without the benefit of subtitles. This film is a great curiosity, like looking at a train wreck. But the sum of the parts fails to sustain the whole and the bloated excess of the film cancels out any positive qualities. Much has been said with regard to the moral ambiguity of the story. I would be more than willing to overlook that aspect had Heaven’s Gate in reality been the tight little scenic piece it was originally planned as. It’s also a shame the making of documentary screened Friday night was not grouped with the actual film itself. I did enjoy it. It wasn’t the dose of medicine I thought I was in for, but definitely not for everyone or most anyone.