Heaven's Gate (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Theatrical release: Heaven's Gate, TV releases: The Gate to Heaven, Heaven's Gate - The Gate to Heaven |
| Original title | Heaven's Gate |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1980 |
| length | Theatrical version (1980): 219 minutes. Short version (1981): 149 minutes Director’s Cut (2012): 217 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Cimino |
| script | Michael Cimino |
| production | Joann Carelli |
| music | David Mansfield |
| camera | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| cut |
Lisa Fruchtman Gerald B. Greenberg William H. Reynolds Tom Rolf |
| occupation | |
| |
Heaven's Gate ( eng . Himmelstor) is an American late Western by Michael Cimino from the year 1980 . The action takes place around 1890 in the US state Wyoming . The background to this is the historic Johnson County War , in which large American farmers tried to drive away Eastern European immigrants.
The ambitious historical epic, the production costs of which exploded during the shooting and made it one of the most expensive films of all time, was panned by critics and, above all, commercially one of the biggest flops in cinema history. Only later did the film receive a certain amount of appreciation, especially in Europe.
action
In the prologue of the film, the two young men Jim Averill and William C. "Billy" Irvine graduated from Harvard University in 1870 . During the exuberant graduate celebrations, Averill and a beautiful young woman get closer.
20 years later, Averill is sheriff of Johnson County , where the battle rages between local cattle barons and poor European immigrants. He seems to have long since lost the idealism of his student days. A photo taken together reminds of the meeting with the young woman at the time. Averill meets his old college friend Billy Irvine, who is now a member of the influential Wyoming Stock Growers Association . While drunk, this Averill tells of the existence of a death list with 125 names. These are poor immigrants who are a thorn in the side of the large landowners because of repeated cases of cattle theft and are therefore released for murder. With the approval of the governor and on instructions from the board of directors of the Ranchers Association, Frank Canton, contract killers from Texas are to carry out the murders.
Ella Watson, the boss of a brothel , is also on the death list because, in addition to money, she also accepts cattle as a means of payment for her services. She sympathizes with the immigrants and is also torn between two men: Sheriff Averill and Nathan Champion, a sniper in the service of the cattle owners. Averill manages to get hold of the death list and to warn the immigrant settlers. Meanwhile, Canton's gang of murderers arrives; Men break into Ella's brothel and rape her. Averill shoots the rapists. When Champion learns what was done to Ella, he switches sides and takes on his former boss, Canton. A short time later, Champion is killed in an exchange of fire. Eventually, Averill leads the settlers into the gun battle against Canton's men. There are heavy losses on both sides, including Billy Irvine dies on the side of the cattle owners. Only the arrival of the US Army ends the bloody fight. When Averill and Ella want to leave the area later, they get caught in an ambush staged by Canton. Ella dies in Averill's arms, but Canton is also killed.
Averill is seen in an epilogue in 1903 on his yacht in Newport . Obviously wealthy and back with his old Harvard sweetheart, he looks unhappy.
backgrounds
Director Michael Cimino had just won several Oscars for his anti-war film The Through Hell Go , which is why the producing studio United Artists gave him largely a free hand with his new project, a socially critical late western. The people in charge of the studio were “overwhelmed” by the script and Cimino's ideas. In the course of the work there were delays and budget overruns; The joke made the rounds in the industry that Cimino was five days behind after four days of shooting because of his manic perfectionism. The demolition and rebuilding of a complete street backdrop for more than a million US dollars, just because the buildings were too close to Cimino - even though the backdrop had been constructed exactly according to his plans - showed more than clearly that the production was completely out of the The oar was running. United Artists supported the filming until the end. The budget, which had already been estimated at an unusually high US $ 20 million for a Western, was more than twice as high in the end. After all, 220 hours of footage were in the can.
When Cimino, after eight months of editing, presented his film with a running time of five hours and twenty-five minutes, which was contrary to the agreement, to United Artists, the studio ordered the film to be cut to a marketable length. When it premiered on November 19, 1980, the film was still very long at three hours and 40 minutes. The reviews were devastating. The New York Times, for example, spoke of a “catastrophe” and compared the film with a “forced four-hour tour of one's own living room”. These and other tears set off an "avalanche of rejection". In addition to frequently mentioned shortcomings such as a recurring bogus and tiring action, some of the criticism was directed against the revision of the American founding myth, which was perceived as "unpatriotic". But why film critics, who were known for their differentiated and socially critical positions and who had originally been very benevolent towards the project, joined in a downright malicious, spiteful chorus of total demolition, is unclear. It seems to have played a role in the fact that many disliked the grandiose announcements of the shooting star Cimino, who during the shoot never tired of emphasizing that one was in the process of creating a masterpiece.
Cimino withdrew the current version after the storm of rejection in order to re-cut it. Half a year later, a version shortened by a further 70 minutes was brought to the cinemas, but it was only able to bring in just under a tenth of the approximately 44 million US dollars in costs. Shortly after the heavily shortened version disappeared from the cinemas, the premiere version was shown on the cable broadcaster Z Channel in Los Angeles as " Director's Cut ". This was the first time in film history that such an edited version went on sale. A restored version of Heaven's Gate was shown at the Berlinale 2005 (225 minutes at 24 frames per second). This version was only shown at festivals. In 2012 the film was completely restored by Criterion and released on Blu-ray. This version is slightly shorter than the DVD version. In 2018 Capelight released the restored Director's Cut and the shorter recut in Germany. The documentary "Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of 'Heaven's Gate'" by Michael Epstein (was shown at the Berlinale 2005) deals with the history of the making.
“As is so often the case with films that were once disabled or forbidden: When you see them today, it is difficult to understand or understand what actually triggered the scandal. [...] But what power such a work must have if it can still fully develop its pull on the small, narrow screen! [...] Brooding over possible reasons for the fiasco that has been talked about: 'Heaven's Gate' is 'unpatriotic', shows in great detail and operatic monumentality how much this country was built on brutality and sheer violence. But how many films from America before and after have shown that? "
For director Cimino, who had been predicted to have a bright future after his success with Going Through Hell , it became practically impossible in the following years to find an American producer for his film projects. With the gangster film In the Year of the Dragon , produced five years later by Dino De Laurentiis , Cimino was able to win over some of the American film critics again, but his subsequent films again fell short of expectations.
Effects on the film business
The Transamerica Corporation reacted to the failure of the film by selling the production company United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and thus withdrew completely from the film business. The board had feared that the heavy criticism of the film could damage the company's image in the long term. However, the popular belief that United Artists had to file for bankruptcy because of this failure is incorrect. The loss was a serious blow, but the studio was able to fall back on a lucrative, permanent source of money with the successful James Bond series.
Heaven's Gate marks the point in Hollywood history at which the studios again had significantly more influence on film production: "[...] the power of a director that went so far as to bankrupt an entire studio has been broken" .
Also known were allegations of animal cruelty during the shooting, so a cockfight should not have been set, but actually took place. Three horses were killed during the production of the film, one of which was torn to pieces in an explosion. The allegations meant that films with animals produced by US studios since Heaven's Gate were supervised even more intensively than before by the American Humane Association .
The failure of Heaven's Gate resulted in producers initially leaving their hands on westerns during the 1980s. In 1985 the Western with Silverado and Pale Rider - The Nameless Rider - gave a short interlude, followed in 1988 by Young Guns - They fear neither death nor the devil , but only the not only commercial success, but also the success of Der with which can be measured by seven Oscars dem Wolf tanzt (1990) briefly rehabilitated the western. The genre's revival, which some had hoped for, did not materialize, however: In the first half of the 1990s, almost a dozen more or less important westerns were produced, but for almost 10 years after that, none at all. In the years that followed, westerns returned to the cinema, most recently Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015), but these remained singular successes.
Reviews
The film has a rating of 57% on Rottentomatoes (with 42 evaluated reviews)
- Lexicon of international films : “The story of a campaign of intimidation by large American farmers against Eastern European immigrants, which ends in a bloodbath. Elaborate, imposing late-westerly who conjures up social indictment, a pessimistic critical view of history and a wistful farewell to the legends of the west. "
- Süddeutsche Zeitung : "Criticism of civilization with detail-obsessed mercilessness that is only in the pictures and hardly needs words."
- Prisma Online: "A large-scale epic after a true incident, the 'Johnson County War': In the style of Peckinpah , Cimino staged a late Western who presented a pessimistic account of the myth of the 'Golden West' in impressive and realistic images."
- The great film lexicon: “In this Late West, Cimino describes the historically documented grazing war with extremely hard and realistic pictures […] At a time when a phase of national self-renewal had begun when Ronald Reagan took office , Cimino's work had to like a slap in the face. "
- Richard Corliss in Time 2005: "with a certain suicidal grandeur, like a herd of buffalo riding into the machine-gun barrage."
- Dieter Krusche's verdict on the (almost) integral version shown in Germany at the beginning of 1985: one can see “that the great scandal was indeed caused by a great film. Cimino tells his story in a fascinating mixture of obsessive description of details and visionary power. The everyday life of people in the American West has seldom been portrayed so realistically, so close to depressing reality; but at the same time the protagonists of the film are also symbols of great ideas and visions. Social contrasts culminate in huge and violent confrontations; there are also lyrical passages of simple and natural beauty. "
- Der Spiegel 1980: Also a catastrophe film: The 40 million dollar western “Heaven's Gate” became the biggest bankruptcy of the last ten years ... The failure, long overdue confirmation of the old realization that equipment and atmosphere alone are not helping when the story is poorly built may mean the end of directorial cinema in Hollywood. After disappointments with expensive films such as Woody Allen's “Stardust Memories” (20 million) or Steven Spielberg's “1941” (40 million), the industry suspects that the studios will also cut back on the independence of star directors. In the middle of next year, “Himmelstor” is to be released again, shortened by at least an hour. Additional cost: around $ 10 million.
Awards
- Nominated for the Palme d'Or ( Cannes ) 1981
- Nominated for an Oscar 1982 in the category "Best Equipment" (Tambi Larsen, James L. Berkey)
- Nominated for the Golden Raspberry 1981 in the categories "Worst Film", "Worst Director" (Michael Cimino), "Worst Actor" (Kris Kristofferson), "Worst Screenplay" (Cimino) and "Worst Film Music" (David Mansfield). In the end, the prize for “Worst Director” was won.
- Honorary Lion (Persol Award) for Michael Cimino at the 69th Venice International Film Festival 2012 .
literature
- Steven Bach : Final Cut. Art, money, and ego in the making of Heaven's gate, the film that sank United Artists. Newmarket Press, New York 1999, ISBN 1-55704-374-4
- Norbert Grob, Bernd Kiefer: Heaven's Gate - the gateway to heaven . In: B. Kiefer u. N. Grob with the collaboration of M. Stiglegger (Ed.): Filmgenres - Westerns . Reclam junior, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-018402-9 ; Pp. 336-342
- Steadycam (Cologne), No. 49, spring 2006: Comprehensive dossier on the film with numerous film photos
- Wolfgang Limmer: Failure through the Heavenly Gate . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1981 ( online ).
Web links
- Heaven's Gate in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Heaven's Gate atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Bankruptcy with the “Himmelstor”, in: Der Spiegel from December 1, 1980
- Heaven's Gate sectional report Director's Cut (Blu-ray) - Director's Cut (old DVD)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Heaven’s Gate. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Clearance certificate for Heaven's Gate . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 55292-a / V).
- ↑ Box Office Bombs - The Biggest Flops in Film History ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Michael Epstein: Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of 'Heaven's Gate
- ↑ a b Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (eds.): The large film lexicon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. tape III . Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 1251 f .
- ^ Box Office Mojo
- ↑ a b c Michael Hanisch: To take off. Michael Cimino's “Heaven's Gate” received its deserved recognition. In: film-dienst 6, 2005, p. 59 f.
- ^ Georg Seeßlen : History and Mythology of Western Films. Marburg 1995, p. 172.
- ↑ The poor dogs of Hollywood . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 25, 1999
- ↑ Review overview on Rottentomatoes
- ^ Richard Corliss: Year of the Dragon. In: Time . April 18, 2005, accessed on February 8, 2009 : "with a certain suicidal grandeur about it, like a herd of buffalo stampeding toward a firing squad"
- ^ Dieter Krusche: Reclam's film guide . Collaborators: Jürgen Labenski and Josef Nagel. 13., rework. Ed. Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-010676-1 , p. 312f.
- ↑ American filmmaker Michael Cimino to receive the Persol 2012 award ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at labiennale.org (accessed September 3, 2012).
