Heaven's Gate a classic

Over at David Lowery's blog he talks about Heaven's Gate, and its director Michael Cimino. There is a link to a documentary on the movie narrated by William Dafoe. It's a good documentary, and after seeing it I had to post some of it here. I remember when this came out. It was 1980, and I was still in high school. I was enmeshed in film making back then. I started watching movies differently. It was also the height of the VCR, and believe it or not movies on videotape was the coolest thing. Only thing was that there wasn't much product yet. So the movies was where you still went to to study them. Heck! I remember sitting in theaters from afternoon till evening watching movies over and over again. I do remeber seeing a re-release of this movie.  Not it's two and half hour version, but the original 219 minute version.   By the time they released this I was in college I believe.  I saw it somewhere in Manhattan, and seeing it blew me away.  It's ironic that for a class in school I was required to read Final Cut.  But I was always on the side that the original version is a classic, and seeing it now in wide-screen does the picture justice.  I really do think that this film will become a major re-discoved classic.  I'm not alone either TMC ran it one night too in it's original cut.  Now that people are replacing their TV's with flat screens, and giving film presentations worthy of theater like viewing in their living room.  I think there will be a lot of films that get re-discovered, but I believe "Heaven's Gate" will be one of them.

If you have time check out the documentary on YouTube.  It really is interesting.

Comments

Pete Bauer said…
Great stuff. I'll have to track down the original long version. I've never seen the movie.
8/13/2010 4:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Yeah, HEAVEN'S GATE is one of those movies that got a bad rep and just never escaped it. It always amazes me how many people have told me it's a terrible movie but have to admit they've never seen it.

I remember seeing it on TRIO years ago and praise be that TCM now airs it occasionally and they show the full length version which I think is simply a great epic western. I do admit that the ending is a let down but HEAVEN'S GATE is a movie worth watching.
8/23/2010 12:39 AM
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