Even more surprising is the fact that the first two of those films-1985’s Year of the Dragon and 1987’s The Sicilian-are not, as one might expect given the circumstances, small films, but epics of similar grandeur (if not production) to The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate.Įven though Heaven’s Gate made Cimino persona non grata with the major studios-with whom he wasn’t popular to begin with, the success of the similarly unwieldy (in terms of production) The Deer Hunter coming as a shock to everyone-he was still an undeniably talented director, one who producers outside of the majors assumed, half-correctly, would make for a good hired hand on productions in which he did not have control of the purse strings or final cut.

Given how notorious Cimino became in the wake of it all, it’s somewhat surprising that he was given the opportunity to make another film, let alone four. Volumes have been written about his experience on that film and its aftermath-indeed, the section on Heaven’s Gate makes up the largest chunk of Charles Eton’s new definitive biography of the filmmaker, Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision-that they overshadow his earlier successes, while almost entirely blotting out the films he made afterwards. The short version: so unwieldy and expensive was the production and so exhausting were the battles over final cut that by the time it flopped in theaters (earning only a little over $3 million off a $44 million budget) that not only did it greatly contribute to the collapse of its studio, United Artists, Heaven’s Gate is largely blamed for ushering out the auteur-driven ethos of its era, known as New Hollywood, which in turn led to the increasingly corporate driven culture of movies that has all but taken over the entire industry today. The director, who shot to the top of the Hollywood A-list after his Vietnam drama The Deer Hunter proved a massive critical and sizeable commercial hit in 1977-garnering nine Oscar nominations and winning six (including Best Picture and Best Director)-suffered an Icarus-like fall from grace following the disastrous production and release of his epic western Heaven’s Gate (1980). The late Michael Cimino is best remembered today as a cautionary tale.

Dragons of God by Vincent Coppola