New DVDs & Heaven's Gate - My thoughts

[Fredric]

Firstly, I'd like to thank the Xmas Bunny for getting me The Trial and Lady From Shanghai on DVD. I like Bogdanovich's droll tone more and more each time I hear him. I can tell he authentically loves Orson and means well on his redundant commentary. Anyway, I'm in Heaven . . . .

Which leads me to some interesting articles I've been reading online about Cimino's Heaven's Gate that make me think of Ambersons. The movie apparently destroyed UA, was panned by everyone. A real stinkeroonie, but . . . Europe, and especially the French, embraced it as an unheralded masterpiece. Sound familiar? Has anyone seen this 219-minute film and care to comment about its merits. This group would be the one where I would thoroughly respect opinions on a subject such as this.

[mteal]

The 219-minute HEAVEN'S GATE doesn't work for me - I found it dreary and pretentious - and a 219-minute film that doesn't work is a chore to sit through. It's the same problem I have with David Lynch's DUNE: the atmosphere painted is extraordinary, and there are some stunning sequences here and there, but the actors (fine as they have been elsewhere) simply don't have the chemistry or the charisma to carry such a lengthy epic off.

With Welles's AMBERSONS, you have a story that bears certain resemblances to both HEAVEN'S GATE and DUNE, as well as a vivid dreamworld conjured by the director. The difference is that the core of the AMBERSONS cast consisted of Mercury Theatre regulars who had worked together for years and had a seasoned chemistry. And as the Vanity Fair article on Ambersons points out, many of them gave the performances of their careers in the film.

[jaime marzol]

i tried to watch HEAVEN'S GATE but i couldn't get through it.

i was given the book by steven bach about the making, or unmaking, depending on which side of the fence you stand on, and i could not get through the book, but it did start out with a very good sentence, "i gave michael cimino $42,000,000 to make a movie, he gave me a breifcase". he was refering to a good luck gift cimino gave bach before production began. i guess bach never got any of his 42 mill back.

several article i read on the making of HEAVEN'S GATE, sound like a producer's nightmare; it was a cocaine production.

[Fredric]

Hmmm. I'm still interesting in attempting a viewing. About DUNE: It really grew on me, once I thought of it as Lynch purposefully raising camp to epic status. Nowadays the film delights me, because I think I see what he was trying to do. I mean, really: thoughts externalized for the audience? Quick, unnecessary scenes that mean nothing in the context of the film but gobbledygook? I can't help but laugh.