Heaven's Gate is a 1980 American epic Western film written and directed by Michael Cimino, starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, and Joseph Cotten, and loosely based on the Johnson County War. It revolves around a dispute between land barons and European immigrants of modest means in Wyoming in the 1890s.
The film's production faced numerous setbacks, including cost overruns, significant retakes, bad press (including allegations of animal abuse on set), and rumors about Cimino's allegedly authoritarian directorial style. Cimino had an expensive and ambitious vision for the film, pushing it nearly four times over its planned budget.The Story of Hollywood's Biggest Bomb: HEAVEN'S GATE – Matt Draper on YouTube
The film premiered in November 1980 and received significant critical backlash, prompting United Artists (UA) to pull it from theaters. In April 1981, a truncated re-cut version was released, though it remained a financial failure, earning only $3.5 million against its $44 million budget and was lambasted by critics. It was condemned as one of the worst films ever made at the time. According to some film historians such as Peter Biskind, the film's financial failure resulted in the demise of director-driven film production in the American film industry, steering back toward greater studio control of films.Biskind, Peter (1998). Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-'n'-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. New York City: Simon & Schuster. . pp. 401–403. The film's failure also led to Transamerica selling UA to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), ending their existence as an independent studio.
In the decades since the release, however, general assessment of Heaven's Gate has become more favorable. The 1981 re-edit has been characterized as "one of the greatest injustices of cinematic history", while later re-edits have received critical acclaim. In 2015, BBC Culture ranked Heaven's Gate 98th on its list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.
Plot
In 1870, two young men, Jim Averill and Billy Irvine, graduate from Harvard College. The Reverend Doctor speaks to the graduates on the association of "the cultivated mind with the uncultivated" and the importance of education. Irvine, the class orator, follows this with his opposing, irreverent views. After a celebration, the male students serenade the women present, including Averill's girlfriend.
In 1890, Averill is passing through the booming town of Casper, Wyoming, on his way north to Johnson County, where he is now a marshal. Poor European immigrants new to the region are in conflict with wealthy, established cattle barons organized as the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, who suspect the newcomers are stealing their cattle for food. Nate Championa friend of Averill and an enforcer for the stockmenkills a settler for suspected rustling and dissuades another from stealing a cow.
At a board meeting, the head of the Association, Frank Canton, tells members, including a drunk Irvine, of plans to kill 125 named settlers, as thieves and anarchists, with the help of the cruel Major Wolcott. Irvine leaves the meeting, encounters Averill, and tells him of the Association's plans. As Averill leaves, he exchanges bitter words with Canton. Canton and Averill come to blows, and Canton is knocked to the floor. That night, Canton recruits men to kill the settlers.
Ellen Watson, a Johnson County bordello madam from Quebec who accepts stolen cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes, is infatuated with both Averill and Champion. Averill and Watson skate in a crowd, then dance alone, in an enormous roller skating rink called "Heaven's Gate", which has been built by local entrepreneur John L. Bridges. Averill receives a copy of the Association's death list from Minardi, a baseball-playing U.S. Army captain, and later reads the names aloud to the settlers, who are thrown into terrified turmoil. Cully, a station master and friend of Averill's, sees the train with Canton's posse heading north and rides off to warn the settlers, but is murdered en route. Later, a group of men comes to Watson's bordello, slaughters her workers, and rape her. Averill shoots and kills all but one of them. Champion, realizing that his landowner bosses seek to eliminate Watson, goes to Canton's camp and shoots Morrison, the remaining rapist, then refuses to participate in the slaughter.
Canton, Wolcott, and their men encounter one of Champion's friends, who is leaving a cabin with Champion and his friend Nick Ray inside, and a gunfight ensues. Attempting to save Champion, Watson arrives in her wagon and shoots one of the hired guns before escaping on horseback. Nick is killed before Canton's men push a burning cart towards the cabin, setting it on fire. Champion writes a last letter to Ella before emerging from the burning cabin, shooting at Canton's men, but is killed by a hail of bullets. Watson warns the settlers of Canton's approach at another vast, chaotic gathering at "Heaven's Gate". The cowardly mayor of the county, Charlie Lezak, proposes to deliver the people on the list peacefully. At the same time, the young pharmacist Mr. Eggleston claims that the only way to survive is to arm themselves and fight the enemy army. The agitated settlers approve of Eggleston's idea and rush to battle with Bridges and Ella leading them. With the hired invaders now surrounded, both sides suffer casualties (including a drunken, poetic Irvine) as Canton leaves to bring help. Watson and Averill return to Champion's charred and smoking cabin and discover his corpse, along with a handwritten letter documenting his last minutes alive.
The next day, Averill reluctantly joins the immigrant settlers, with their cobbled-together siege machines and explosive charges, in an attack against Wolcott's men and their makeshift fortifications. The battle is fiercer and more desperate. Despite the heavy losses that the immigrants suffer, including Eggleston himself, they manage to inflict a vast number of casualties on the mercenaries' army. Wolcott himself, while trying to escape, is killed by Averill, who hits him with an explosive charge. Before the settlers wipe out the enemies, the US Army arrives with Canton and Minardi, thereby stopping the battle. The mercenaries are arrested, though Averill knows this is just a facade to save them and keep them from facing a criminal charge. Later, at Watson's cabin, Bridges, Watson, and Averill prepare to leave for good, but Canton and two others ambush them. Averill and Bridges shoot and kill Canton, and one of his men, but both Bridges and Watson are killed. A grief-stricken Averill holds Watson's body in his arms.
In 1903, a well-dressed, beardless, but older-looking Averill walks the deck of his yacht off Newport, Rhode Island. He goes below, where an attractive middle-aged woman sleeps in a luxurious boudoir. The woman, Averill's old Harvard girlfriend (perhaps now his wife), awakens and asks him for a cigarette. Silently, he complies, lighting the cigarette and returning to the deck.
Cast
In addition, musician Ronnie Hawkins appears in the first of his few acting roles, as Major Wolcott; the film's composer David Mansfield appears onscreen as John DeCory, the leader of the Heaven's Gate Band and an employee of Ella; Rosie Vela (credited as Roseanne Vela) appears as the "Beautiful Girl" whom Averill falls for at Harvard; future Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Mickey Rourke appears in his second-ever screen role as Nick Ray; and future multi-Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe makes his first, uncredited, screen appearance as Willy.
Production Historical basis The basic plot elements of the film were inspired by Wyoming's 1892 Johnson County War, the archetypal cattlemen–homesteaders conflict, which also served as the background for Shane and The Virginian. Most of the film's principal characters bear the names of figures in the war but the events portrayed in Heaven's Gate bear little resemblance to historical events.Davis, John W. (2010). Wyoming Range War: The Infamous Invasion of Johnson County. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. .
Inaccuracies Homesteaders began to settle northern Wyoming in the 1890s, claiming land under the Homestead Acts, but there were no hordes of starving European immigrants killing rich men's cattle to feed their families, as depicted in the film.Larson, T.A. (1990). History of Wyoming. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. . Nate Champion is portrayed as a murderer and "enforcer" for the stockmen, but he was a popular small rancher in Johnson County, nicknamed "king of the rustlers" by the stockmen because he resisted their tactic of claiming all unbranded young cattle as their own.
Jim Averell was another homesteader who lived about southwest of Johnson County. Two years before the invasion began, he and his wife Ellen Watson were murdered by stockmen, who falsely accused Watson of exchanging sexual favors for stolen cattle. There is no evidence that Watson was a bordello madam, as portrayed in the film, nor that Watson or Averell ever knew Nate Champion.
Screenplay In 1971, film director Michael Cimino submitted an original script for Heaven's Gate (then called The Johnson County War), but the project was shelved when it failed to attract big-name talent, including John Wayne, who turned down the lead role. A third version of the script was submitted to 20th Century Fox before the release of The Deer Hunter. His directorial debut, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), was a hit. In 1979, on the eve of winning two Academy Awards (Best Director and Best Picture) for 1978's The Deer Hunter at the 51st Academy Awards, Cimino convinced United Artists (UA) to resurrect the Heaven's Gate project with Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, and Christopher Walken as the main characters. He was given an initial budget of $11.6 million, but was also provided with carte blanche. Cimino's girlfriend, Joann Carelli, was hired to produce the film.
Filming Cimino and his friends searched through 20,000 miles of land for scenery for the film. Principal photography began on April 16, 1979, in Glacier National Park, east of Kalispell, Montana, with the majority of the town scenes filmed in the Two Medicine area, north of the village of East Glacier Park. Shooting also included the town of Wallace, Idaho. Harvard University refused to allow the film to be shot there, reportedly because of Cimino's excessive demands for the film set, and the film's prologue was instead shot at the University of Oxford. The project had a December 14 projected release date and $11.6 million budget, and promptly fell behind schedule.
Production issues According to legend, by the sixth day of filming the project was already five days behind schedule.
Cimino's perfectionism Kristofferson compared Cimino to Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Steven Bach compared him to Michelangelo and said that "I am confident we'll make our money back on it". As an example of Cimino's fanatical attention to detail, a street built to his precise specifications had to be torn down and rebuilt because it reportedly "didn't look right." The street in question needed to be wider; the set construction boss said it would be cheaper to tear down one side and move it back six feet, but Cimino insisted that both sides be dismantled and moved back , then reassembled. An entire tree was cut down, moved in pieces, and relocated to the courtyard in Oxford, England, where the Harvard 1870 graduation scene was shot. Cimino had an irrigation system built under the land where the major battlefield scene would unfold so that it would remain vividly green, to contrast with the red color.