Nonureva Really Surprised!

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

jeff-41910 I encourage all to watch this film for educational purposes. Anyone who believes this is good film I have simple test for you - did you really feel strong empathy for either side? For a film about two competing factions to work you have to have an emotional investment in one side in some cases both sides.I don't know if there was character development lost in the 100 minutes cut from Cimino's original working print or it was bad writing or bad directing. I strongly suspect it is a combination of all three. Two major issues. First the film does not provide a reasonable background on the behavior of the "Rustlers and Anarchists" - leading to the question did the ranchers have a legitimate set of grievances or were the ranchers just doing a land grab. Without that you can't become strongly invested in either side. Second the characters fly into unexplained rage or conflict. Was there some backstory that caused a trigger reaction causing conflict?Cimino should have cut the extravagant dance scenes which waste about 15 minutes of the film and used that time to draw us into the characters background.So what is the educational lesson here? You need a really good villain or a really good hero for a film like this to work - and preferably both. Cimino's two dimensional cardboard cutout heroes and villains just don't draw us in.It is not the length of the film - want to see how to do this on film watch Once Upon A Time In The West after watching Heaven's Gate. Same basic plot of both film - Once Upon A Time In The West it is the evil Morton railroad taking the little guy's land - Heaven's Gate it the cattleman's association...

daveharrisonb-73861 A violent movie, my only quible. It is wonderfullly filmed, well acted, and surprisingly relevant in today's world. Long yes, but sometimes it takes a while to tell an important tale. I believe it it is Chris Chistopherson's main contribution to the entertainment world notwithstanding his musical contributions

grantss Wyoming, 1890. Frank Averill is the Sherriff of Johnson County, a county largely inhabited by foreign immigrants. The wealthy cattle owners view the immigrant farmers as a nuisance and hindrance to them enlarging their own land. The cattlemen's association, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, effectively declares war on the immigrant farmers, and gets the state government's blessing. They assemble an army of guns-for-hire, and, backed by US cavalry, set out to rid the state of the immigrants. Frank Averill's heart is with the immigrants but he is not sure they have a chance of winning the inevitable war.Loosely based on true events and written and directed by Michael Cimino, whose previous movie was The Deer Hunter, the movie had heaps of potential. A noble sentiment, highlighting the rights of the downtrodden, with the promise of some good action scenes - what could go wrong? Well, a lot. The movie is one of the most padded in history. The story could easily have been told in two hours, even less, but Cimino stretches it out to more than 3½ hours. Heaps of scenes that don't add much, if anything, and many scenes that go too long. The opening scenes, set at Harvard University, say it all - all they are there for is to show the friendship between James Averill and Billy Irvine, and this relationship has very little bearing on the story, ultimately! All the Harvard scenes, taking about 20 minutes, could have been removed and the movie would have been no worse for it. It gets worse - Cimino also made a 5½ version of the movie!In between all the padding, there is some good plot development, but this is often a false dawn. Just when something significant happens and you think the movie is about to click into top gear, you then have 20-30 minutes of stagnation and dullness - more padding.Eventually things do come together, but it takes more than three hours to get there. Even then the conclusion is a bit anti-climactic and not entirely satisfying.Okayish performance by Kris Kristofferson in the lead role - could have done without his excessive mumbling though. Best performances goes to Christopher Walken and Jeff Bridges. John Hurt and Sam Waterston are okay in their roles, though Hurt overdoes the drunkenness aspect of his character. On the downside, Isabelle Huppert is atrocious as Ella and Richard Masur as the station-master, Cully, is not much better.The movie also includes Mickey Rourke in a minor role - it was only his third movie. Willem Dafoe made his movie debut in Heaven's Gate, in an uncredited role.More interesting than the movie itself is the infamy and history surrounding it. Cimino was fresh from the success of The Deer Hunter, so had a large amount of free rein with production. The length of the movie (especially the fact that there is a 5½ hour version out there) will tell you that production was not cheap - Cimino eventually went four times over budget! The film was one of the worst box office bombs of all time, generating $3.5m in revenue in the US after costing $44m to make (in 1980 terms). The losses on the movie effectively bankrupted United Artists - they were sold and the name disappeared. After Cimino's free-spending, studios were loathe to give directors free rein anymore, starting a period of tighter corporate control of movies. The movie also put westerns on the outer with audiences and studios, making the 80s a lean period for westerns. It also effectively ended the career of Michael Cimino. His next movie was Year of the Dragon, released five years later and which wasn't that great. Since 1985 he has only directed three movies, none of which were any good. Nobody is willing to risk him with a potentially-A-grade movie.Worth watching just to see what all the fuss is about but, beware, it's a bit of an ordeal.

Peter Kettle Heaven's Gate… William Shakespeare, in Sonnet 29, expresses much about human nature in fourteen lines. Heaven's Gate, the Michael Cimino movie, takes what seems like fourteen hours to express nothing with any clarity. Ostensibly based upon 'real events' in 1890 - the conflict in Jackson County, Wyoming, between poverty-stricken immigrants and wealthy cattle farmers - it lasts a very long 219 minutes in the Director's cut. We watched the entire bewildering chaotic brilliant epic, and I could not take my attention away from it, even though I wanted to slash whole chunks of it out. It is difficult, too long, challenging, and exasperating; and that made me think it is like many great works of fiction. Set pieces of real wonder were interspersed with longueurs which made me want to hit Cimino in the face for allowing such self indulgence. But then along comes another unforgettable image, another astounding realisation of visionary genius, and you will forgive Cimino anything. Almost.I will have to sit through this film again. Which is how I felt after reading Ulysses, Moby Dick, and Wolf Solent the first time. Greatness and banality can so often become mired together. Heaven's Gate is a great curate's egg of a movie that, because of the good parts, I will revisit because I must. It is undoubtedly a bloody but glorious mess, and a seriously loving edit would get it running faster over a shorter distance. The opening college sequence, for instance, is obviously in need of a very large but affectionate trim. Far too much dancing and huddling, many more caps in the air than necessary, hurtling along ancient streets shown far too much, and so many unfunny giggling japes; if it is not an hour too much it seems like it. The movie launches itself at the audience exultantly, but then reveals a cinematic disregard without engagement or character involvement. Good actors are wasted. We get tantalising shots that need fleshing out. Vast sequences are filled with hordes of people, every one of them too anonymous to grab our sympathy or attention. It is a pageant of multitudes without illumination, a coarse quantity rather than a telling focus. It is constantly beguiling and frustrating. And it is undoubtedly a masterpiece.