Didn't it get some award for being the worst movie? I know the critics hated it. I didn't,- but that's because I was hypnotised by Christopher Walken, who stole the whole thing - in my eyes !!

@NZer said:

Didn't it get some award for being the worst movie? I know the critics hated it. I didn't,- but that's because I was hypnotised by Christopher Walken, who stole the whole thing - in my eyes !!

At the time, it was really torn apart by critics. Might have won an early Razzie award too. Probably did, if the Razzies were around then. It was getting a lot of media attention.

In recent years, its grown in popularity. Some even have gone so far as to call it a misunderstood classic. There is a three+ hour version that the director put together that's now seen as definitive. That's the version you'll find on video now.

I haven't sat through the entire thing, myself, as I already admitted. It does have some great moments, you can see in clips that are on YouTube. Walken as the cold blooded assassin was as frightening as any horror movie monster I've ever seen.

It just takes a long time to get to them.

Obviously, many of the critics were unfairly harsh, though. I watched a doc on YT about the making of the movie (possibly more dramatic than the movie itself, IMO), and the critics were making it sound like Heaven's Gate was made nearly incompetently. A 40 million dollar Plan 9 From Outer Space.

No the pacing is pretty consistent throughout the movie. There's lots of guns in the finale but it's all pretty meaningless and numbing.

While there were some small snippets of technical flourish (Cimino's "painterly eye", Vilmos), I'd actually agree that the movie was made incompetently- on a fundamental level. Muddled dialogue, dust clouds everywhere, long pointless scenes, terrible dialogue, wooden acting, failed chemistry, delusions of grandeur and on and on.

I see people attempting to call this a misunderstood masterpiece but I really believe those trying to rediscover this are just trying so hard to be different, as if disagreeing with the majority is automatically the intellectual high ground. It really is as bad as they say. Even though I'd concede some artistry sprinkled throughout I still call this the worst movie I've ever seen. It's offensively bad. Throwing in pretty scenery doesn't rescue a movie that's ill conceived and carelessly executed. This story didn't need 4 hours. It rambled on and on and went almost nowhere at times. Shallow one dimensional characters just passing the time on screen until they finally decide to move on.

If you enjoyed the yt version of Final Cut, I'd recommend Steven Bachs book of the same name. The 2nd half of the book focuses on HG and it really is much more fascinating than the movie. Bach resists completely smearing Cimino but I think he's pretty honest and explains why the blame squarely belongs on Cimino. Sad because I really liked Deer Hunter and HG could've been great but Cimino let the success go straight to his head. He was so in love with every idea he had he didn't bother to plan out how it would fit into a movie. Believe it or not, I'd say Plan 9 is a better movie because it was a low budget movie with modest aspirations that was far more successful at telling a story while HG was just a gargantuan waste of time, money, and careers.

I see people attempting to call this a misunderstood masterpiece but I really believe those trying to rediscover this are just trying so hard to be different, as if disagreeing with the majority is automatically the intellectual high ground. It really is as bad as they say. Even though I'd concede some artistry sprinkled throughout I still call this the worst movie I've ever seen. It's offensively bad. Throwing in pretty scenery doesn't rescue a movie that's ill conceived and carelessly executed. This story didn't need 4 hours. It rambled on and on and went almost nowhere at times. Shallow one dimensional characters just passing the time on screen until they finally decide to move on.

If you enjoyed the yt version of Final Cut, I'd recommend Steven Bachs book of the same name. The 2nd half of the book focuses on HG and it really is much more fascinating than the movie. Bach resists completely smearing Cimino but I think he's pretty honest and explains why the blame squarely belongs on Cimino. Sad because I really liked Deer Hunter and HG could've been great but Cimino let the success go straight to his head. He was so in love with every idea he had he didn't bother to plan out how it would fit into a movie. Believe it or not, I'd say Plan 9 is a better movie because it was a low budget movie with modest aspirations that was far more successful at telling a story while HG was just a gargantuan waste of time, money, and careers.

Plan 9 is more entertaining. I'd rather sit through that again than Heaven's Gate for three and a half hours.

Good points.

@illnagas said:

Bach resists completely smearing Cimino but I think he's pretty honest and explains why the blame squarely belongs on Cimino. Sad because I really liked Deer Hunter and HG could've been great but Cimino let the success go straight to his head. He was so in love with every idea he had he didn't bother to plan out how it would fit into a movie. Believe it or not, I'd say Plan 9 is a better movie because it was a low budget movie with modest aspirations that was far more successful at telling a story while HG was just a gargantuan waste of time, money, and careers.

Your assessment, and reading of Bach's laying blame on Cimino, is pretty bang on.

It might be fair to say Cimino was a "two hit wonder" with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Deer Hunter (1978). Of the six movies in my movie ROI database that he directed, these were the only two that made money ($6.25 and $3.33, respectively, for each budget $1). The average return on a budget dollar for the other four is $0.40 - if, every time I asked you to invest a dollar in a movie I was directing, I gave you back only 40 cents, how likely would you be to invest in me again?

@FlyingSaucersAreReal said:

All the dancing and whatnot was nice, but did it need to go on so long?

I have Heaven's Gate on my "Watchlist" (its not currently streaming anywhere), but you better BELIEVE I'll only watch with a handy dandy 10 second fwd button...Cimino got full of himself after his Oscar for Deer Hunter and turned into a control freak for this followup...effectively bankrupting United Artists! Read he Cimino even asked the set designer to tear a whole million dollar set down because the building spacing was "all wrong", forming into a big fight! He's an a$$h0le! Or WAS, cause the ph.ucker is dead now!