Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10725 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 219 minutes

From Amazon.com
Not many movies can take credit for bringing about the demise of a movie studio--but Michael Cimino's ego-driven, overblown Western is one of them. These days, its $40 million budget would barely cover the cost of an Adam Sandler film--but in 1981, it virtually put United Artists out of business. Cimino, fresh from an Oscar for The Deer Hunter, spent months assembling this ultimately gorgeous and confusing story of the Johnson County cattle wars of 1881, with a cast that included Kris Kristofferson, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, and many more. Almost four hours in its original form, the film was cut to less than three for an abortive commercial release, then restored for video. Anyway you look at it, this is a mess better viewed as a curiosity than anything else. --Marshall Fine

Review
The dire financial and professional consequences Heaven's Gate visited upon its director and studio can't be disputed, but the virtues of the film itself remain more open to debate. Though unwieldy, unsatisfying, and self-indulgent to a fault -- Michael Cimino appears uncomfortable shooting a scene with fewer than fifty extras -- its excesses also bring quite a bit to admire. But first the flaws: Heaven's Gate plays like an ultra-ambitious first novel in desperate need of an editor. Though it prominently features a love triangle between Kris Kristoferson, Christopher Walken, and Isabelle Huppert, for instance, it not only takes over 90 minutes to establish this relationship, it takes that long to establish that all three characters know each other. By that point, Cimino has already made clear that muscular storytelling will not be a priority, and while that approach suited Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Deer Hunter just fine, it fails him here. What's more, for a film about the struggle of the common man against a system of capitalist oppression, it rather hypocritically reduces its poor immigrant farmers into an undifferentiated mass. But for those willing to stick with the 219 minute film (the version to which this review refers and the one most widely available on video and at revival screenings) through those flaws, Heaven's Gate offers considerable rewards. If nothing else, it's a masterful work of cinematography from first shot to last, thanks to the work of Vilmos Zsigmond. More directly to Cimino's credit as a director, he uses Zsigmond's imagery to convey his grandiose themes about the West and America in a way his screenplay only suggests. Where Heaven's Gate fails as a film, it sometimes works as a symbolic pageant, and while that may not be enough to redeem it entirely, it certainly rescues it from charges of artistic disaster. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide

On the DVD
Collectible booklet
Original theatrical trailer

Customer Reviews

A unique movie (You have been warned)
Some people might like this movie for its anti-western and realistic view of the Far West. Others might just hate or won't stand its long sequences, its 220 minutes (while Once upon a time in America by Sergio Leone is 229 minutes, and The lord of the Rings 683 minutes), or the truthful exposition of the internal conflicts between the immigrants settlers and the americans. But if you take the time to shut yourself from the press' critics, take an unbiased attitude, and let yourself get engulf by this movie, you will live an adventure; whether or not you will hate it, or love it like I did.

You have been warned. And if you can't stand watching the whole movie in one ride, try watching it like a novel; take a break from time to time.

Quite Possibly the Most Maligned Picture Ever Made
When self-appointed film experts talk about the worst movies of all time, Heaven's Gate invariably enters the conversation. Until the release of Ishtar, this depiction of the Johnson County War in the late 19th Century enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the biggest box office flop of all time. In my view, however, a box office flop doesn't necessarily denote a bad movie. A bad movie is one with low production values, bad effects, and/or muddled script, like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate. Heaven's Gate, though it may have been a box office flop, is actually a very good movie that got it's undeserved reputation due to director Michael Cimino's obsession with perfection. This resulted in multiple takes of scenes that most directors could have shot in one or two. Ultimately, the picture cost three or four times its original budget to make. Negative pre-release publicity from a reporter who managed to get into the film as an extra after Cimino refused to grant him an interview, and the critical shellacking that it received from the critics when released, conspired with the well reported cost overruns to doom Heaven's Gate before it was even out of the starting gate.

Personally, I like this movie. And while I appreciate Cimino's insistence on period authenticity in such things as trains, costuming and sets but I have a problem reconciling it to a script that takes such artistic liberties with recorded history. The real Jim Averill was a cattle ruster who along with his wife was hanged. He was not the noble sheriff with an Ivy League background as portrayed in the film by Kris Kristofferson. Nevertheless, Heaven's Gate is a superb motion picture in many respects. The cinematography by Villnos Zsigmond is nothing short of magnificent, and the acting performances are all good, especially those of Kristofferson, John Hurt, and Christopher Walken. Although many previous reviewers have criticized the sound quality, I found nothing wrong with it. I also didn't find the plot all that hard to follow, as others claim. Perhaps they expected the movie to give them a clue without any sort of thinking on their own. Of all the complaints that have been levelled against Heaven's Gate, the only one I think that has any merit to it is that the pacing is painfully slow. That said, I don't believe it distracts significantly from the enjoyment of the movie. Incidentally, have I mentioned that David Mansfield's score (sadly, not in print) is beautiful?

Sure, Heaven's Gate is considered to be a flop. But I would suggest to anyone reading this review that you watch it for yourself and decide. It's really not as bad a movie as others have led you to believe it is.

Check it out for the camerawork; there's nothing else there
"Heaven's Gate" is one of the most beautifully photographed films ever made. Every frame seems almost antique, a dazzling combination of sunlit exteriors and naturally lit interiors with candles and oil lamps that give the film a burnish unlike any other.

And there's several brillantly directed sequences that are unlike anything in any other film. A hyper-active rollerskating dance that transforms into a waltz between the romantic leads. A massive graduation dance on the lawn of Harvard (actually shot at Oxford) that is breathtaking in its scope.

However, all this camerawork and virtuoso editing is wrapped around one of the dullest screenplays ever written. The story is so simple, it could have been covered in 90 minutes instead of 3 hours and 40 minutes, and most of the movie consists of long pensive silences between the actors that lack any kind of dramatic interest or narrative thrust. The movie meanders, wanders, stops dead in its tracks, only occasionally remembering to pick up the storyline and go somewhere with it.

Kristofferson is utterly passive and uninteresting.

The film spends its first half-hour setting up a friendship between Kristofferson and John Hurt that has no bearing or meaning to to the storyline.

The love triangle aspect is contrived and dull.

And the victimized immigrants in the film are so shrill, panicky, and annoying that you almost wish they'd get killed.

Pictorially, the film is a masterpiece. But as a narrative film, it utterly fails on every level.....never before has so much care gone into making a film with so little substance.

As you can tell, this is a very ambivelent review. I think "Heaven's Gate" is worth a viewing just for those lovely images and sequences.....pure eye candy. Just don't expect to be entertained past that level.