Heaven's Gate (Cimino's 2012 revision)
OK, there has been a lot of revisionism lately around this title, and I decided to seek out the most recent copy of the movie (which is currently available on the Criterion Channel and other streamers) and see if it's worth it.
To be perfectly blunt, I think this movie still sucks, but does it suck a little bit less now than it did in 1980? The answer is, "possibly", but only because Cimino tinkered with it a little bit around 2012 and brightened up the image considerably, so that what you see when you watch the movie today isn't at all the same as what critics (and a handful of moviegoers) watched back in 1980.
The biggest problem with the movie is that the historic incidents depicted in it actually sound like they could make for a fascinating movie or even a mini-series - but this movie ain't it.
Cimino went out of his way to dedicate long stretches of the movie to things that don't really seem all that important, such as the extended opening sequence set at Harvard, which really hardly has anything to do with the rest of the story at all.
Or the story about the proverbial "prostitute with the heart of gold," about as worn-out a cliche as you will find in any movie, and which in
Heaven's Gate has the prostitute (Isabelle Huppert) being torn between the characters played by Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken.
I swear, it really feels like Cimino just stuck that in the movie because, I don't know, maybe he just wanted to hire a French actress who would be happy to take her clothes off at the slightest excuse? The whole subplot about the love triangle with the prostitute feels like it takes almost a whole hour of the already insanely long running time.
A better movie might have spent more time telling us the stories of the actual immigrants and the government officials who were involved in the land conflict, which according to the best information I've gathered, actually did happen, but involved only 2 people dying - not hundreds, like Cimino depicts in this movie.
Honestly, if you have nothing better to do with almost 4 hours of your time than watching a pretentious load of manure posturing as a serious movie, then
Heaven's Gate might just hit the spot. Otherwise, it still remains as good an example of wretched excess now as it did when if first (and very briefly) showed up in theaters.