Why would any film not deserve a critical reassessment?
The last thing we want is for attitudes towards a film to remain stagnant.
So while it's important to remember how movies were maybe once rejected or accepted by the critics or the unwashed masses, it's just as important that present and future audiences get to shape how these films are viewed as well.
After all, the verdict of whether or not a film is any good, is secondary to the process of how we got to that verdict. Or, in simpler terms, a movie being considered bad or good doesn't have nearly as much meaning as why a film is considered bad or good. And those standards are always going to change, as different criteria gets prioritized over time.
I don't think anyone here was calling for "attitudes towards a film to remain stagnant," although being perfectly honest, that does tend to happen, perhaps more often than we would like.
In regards to
Heaven's Gate, specifically, I do not in all honesty feel that it truly
deserves a critical reassessment, while at the same time I am nonetheless glad to see people trying to keep an open mind about it.
Look, the version of
Heaven's Gate that's available today has been considerably altered from the original version; it's one thing to make major changes to popcorn movies like
Star Wars or
Aliens, but I feel it's a bit of a different situation with a movie that was at least putatively a "serious" film.
(And before you go off on another tangent, yes, it would be preferable if the original version of all movies always remained available in a legal way).
The people looking at Cimino's film today are literally looking at something different than what was released in 1980.
And, more importantly, I feel critical standards have deteriorated since the late 70s and early 80s. There has been a significant "dumbing down" of the majority of movies and much of the "serious-minded" stuff is now done to go straight to streaming.
Critics looking at his movie in 1980 probably had much higher standards because there were a lot more mature movies getting made by the top filmmakers of the day. Sure, there was some silly stuff, too, but you could at least get a consistent diet of adult-minded movies that addressed some of the important issues of the day.
Today a lot of that is gone, and studios have shifted a lot of resources towards tentpole films, big IP, animated fare, etc. There are a few smaller films being made as well, but they tend to not get a very wide release and generally play on just a few cities.
I'm very happy that the discussion around this movie prompted me to take another look at it, there's definitely a few things there that indicate that the material could have been made into a much, much better film. In fact, I would argue that the historical events depicted definitely
deserved a better film.
But by the standard of what the "serious" directors were attempting and often accomplishing during the era, it still seems like a tremendously flawed and ill-conceived film.
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