Uli Cain, Cinefidel¹³
23Jan13
I disagree with you on many levels
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Displaying wall posts 1 - 30 of 41 in total
Uli Cain, Cinefidel¹³
23Mar13
Okay, rewatched it and while seeing the beautiful cinematography in the finely restored Criterion edition helped, I still have huge issues with the clever-like editing. I added one star to my rating.
Fernando Nikolić
21Feb13
A masterpiece in its own right - a timely, meditative film that is far from the work of poignant arrogance it is accused of being.
lukasbicho
10Jan13
Un western inusual y bellísimo, una absoluta obra maestra, que en sus tres horas y cuarenta minutos se despliega ante nosotros como un perturbador cuento sobre las vueltas y revueltas de una nación. Cimino se centra en cada uno de los personajes, y en cierto momento se nos dice: esto no es la típica película del Oeste... Excelente Isabelle Huppert (y sus dos partenaires masculinos) así como la fotografía.
joey Noodles
21Dec12
This is an obvious masterpiece, probably the most beautiful film I have ever seen (and I have seen some Malick!), it is brilliantly directed and the story flows wonderfully well. I love the prologue.
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Uli Cain, Cinefidel¹³
19Feb13
The story does not flow wonderfully well, because the editing is extremely chopping and inconsistent, then when it actually comes to the story aspects of it, just look at how Cimino handles the love story; he feels the need to keep going back to reiterate that instead of giving us the info and moving on, he lingered to the point that he felt the audience was not intelligent enough to understand the love story. While I feel most everyone can agree about the high quality of the cinematography, the editing leaves very, very much to be desired, the writing is lumpy, and the direction is dry.
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Jake Cole
10Dec12
A modernist masterpiece, in which nothing is ever given but instead falls into place upon inspection. A film of beautiful, humble moments. Nate's mannishly literal "wallpaper," the dances, the epic ride to battle undone by a family drowning on the way. And yet it is clearly ordered, not only by Cimino's obsessive direction but in the same mirroring symmetry that defined THE DEER HUNTER's narrative movement.
Howard Orr
1Dec12
A victim of overexpectation and over-budget, "Heaven's Gate" is a case study in the calamity that can ensue when a young director is given a free hand to make a follow-up to a huge hit. It's never shed its reputation of being the turkey that almost wrecked UA, but to me it has the most beautiful photography in any film of its era, and it stands up as a devastating indictment of the perversion of justice in the U.S.
chanandre likes this
SUMAN CHATTERJEE
29Nov12
The most personal film I have ever seen! It must have made Cimino the proudest man in the world!
Kyle Lewis
27Nov12
"Heaven's Gate" is neither a major catastrophe nor an underappreciated classic, but that more slippery, shimmering, and ultimately frustrating thing — a noble failure. - Matt Brennan, indiewire After enduring the director's cut on blu-ray from Criterion, that quote sums up my feelings on Cimino's epic.
Graeme Higginson likes this
Stephen Campbell
19Nov12
Now on Criterion we can see the film for what it really is a flawed gem masterpiece
Graeme Higginson likes this
Robert Castle
29Aug12
Just watch this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiNlthlz1d8 This sums up the entire movie. It's epic, ambitious, beautiful but goes on for way to long and you begin to ask yourself "What is the point of this, again?"
Ulrich Jarløv.dk
31Jul12
FINAL CUT: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdcRiPLp4oU
Dave
27Jul12
If I could give half-ratings, 3.5 would be the most appropriate. There's a lot here to love, but unfortunately there is much to be uninterested in. It's not so much the pacing, I love many films that meander in this way. For whatever reason, there were just long stretches that had me checking the running time. Still, this is Vilmos Zsigmond's shining moment and makes it an absolute feast for the eyes.
Jaspar Lamar Crabb
21May12
It grows on you...it's way out of control...but there is so much beauty here, it's hard to fuly dislike it
Graeme Higginson and C.F. Kane like this
Tiago Costa
23Mar12
You could call it megalomaniac or insane if it wasn't for the fact that it's also a profoundly humble film in its aesthetic and moral distance. A movie of infinite beauty,rich in its textures,dirt, faces,dramatic landscapes and internal rythms in each shot which betray a patience,attention to emotional,material,details which could only be achieved by an intelligent and kind hearted human being.Or as I call it:genius.
Michael Harbour
16Jan12
Very flawed - no doubt - but there are glimpses of the very good film Michael Cimino must have seen in his imagination. There's also the opportunity to learn from many, many errors of others if you ever decide to make a big-budget western.
Hunter Duesing
11Jan12
A film that enjoys the very insensitive indulgence that the film's class-guilt ridden narrative rails against. HEAVEN'S GATE is certainly the most expensive-looking film I've ever seen, the production design is positively period-perfect. But it comes at the expense of the narrative, which is stuck with boring characters, a dull story, and a brutally-slow pace, An interesting failure, but a bad film nonetheless.
Jack Lehtonen
11Jan12
A film whose ambition is no less than carrying the weight of America's moral failures on its back. Featuring two of the most profound leaps in time in cinema, each solidifying the tragedy of lost ideals, this is The American Epic, and surely one of the greatest masterpieces in cinema. Every movement is rendered with breathtaking poetry. "It's getting dangerous to be poor in this country." "It always has been."
Rick Petaccio and 4 others like this
Trolley Freak
11Sep11
Cimino's epic Western never stood a chance as the critics were gunning for him even before the film was released. Stories of a spiralling budget, being way behind schedule and out of control filtered out from the shoot and critics who felt they had over praised his previous film The Deer Hunter began to sharpen their pencils. Ignore them - he made a masterpiece which deserves to be reappraised. A magnificent folly...
Todd Ford
5Feb11
I've watched this every five years since it first hit VHS and every time I become more convinced of its genius and overwhelmed by its beauty. I read things like "the editing is atrocious" and "the Harvard prologue contributes nothing." These comments make no sense to me. Once one grasps the film's design, the editing seems perfectly sublime and the prologue becomes the key to the whole film.