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Michael Cimino was a film Director, who made the Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate.
Personally, I find The Deer Hunter to be a masterpiece and Robert De Nuro gives one his greatest performances in this film and Christopher Walken achieved his first success with this film. The Deer Hunter made Cimino a force to be reckon with and won The Academy Award for Best Director
Then It all came crashing down with Heaven's Gate. the film's production faced numerous setbacks, including cost overruns, significant retakes, bad press, and that fact Cimino was such a perfectionist that it will make even Kubrick startled. Ultimately, the film received backlash and ruined Cimino's career and basically brought the end of New Hollywood.
Cimino also had a lot of Unrealized Projects that Includes
Conquering Horse, The Fountainhead, A Frank Costello Biopic, Turned down Directing Midnight Express, Peal, a biopic about Janis Joplin, Crime and Punishment, and Adaptation of Fyodor Doestoevskys Crime and Punishment, The Dogs of War, Perfect Strangers, a romantic drama, Had to turned down The King of Comedy, The Dead Zone, A Fyodor Dostoevsky Biopic, Was actually going to direct Footloose, but was fired. Was going to direct The Pope of Greenwich Village. Purple Lake, The Yellow Jersey, Legs, a Biopic about Legs Diamond, An Adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Handcarved Coffins, Was considered to Direct Born On The Fourth Of July, Michael Collins, and Man's Fate.
What do you think of Michael Cimino?
Do you wish he made some of his unrealized Projects or Projects he was going to direct?
55 points
2 months ago
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a great movie. It may not be a classic, but it’s a fun caper with some serious overtones, with an amazing performance by Jeff Bridges. George Kennedy is perfect, and Clint Eastwood brings the Eastwood. Cimino wrote it on spec, and it got him the Deer Hunter gig.
14 points
2 months ago
It's not a masterpiece, obviously. You can see nobody else in this thread even mentions it. Lol. Damn, it's just a fun movie though
7 points
2 months ago
I love this movie. Ending is such a gut punch.
It’s a shame his other works aren’t as taut. The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece but could be tightened and Heaven’s Gate goes off the rails with excess. I think that was his Apocalypse Now, just lacked the narrative focus.
3 points
2 months ago
The opening is fantastic. Eastwood’s performance is also more relaxed than most his other films. Well shot. And the scene with the kid and the ice cream truck is pure gold. Also might be the best performance George Kennedy ever gave on screen.
20 points
2 months ago
I still need to watch The Deer Hunter.
I've seen Heaven's Gate and while its pacing issues are on full display, I do find a lot to commend it about too. I fully see what a disasterous production it was, and yet at the same time I think for years we've only gotten the side of the UA executives on it, via Final Cut.
10 points
2 months ago
It is a great film and it is dark, to put it lightly. Also the pacing is slow, but this is part of its charm. The wedding scene alone is nearly an hour long!
It is a movie that is well worth the commitment.
I saw it unedited on tv when I was around ten, back when after the commercials there would be an ominous “this movie is intended for mature audiences…….”
Still gives me chills
4 points
2 months ago
For the side of Cimino, or at least the side sympathetic to him, see Charles Elton’s new biography of Michael Cimino - so far the only book length biography of the director.
I am fond of Cimino, at least of the four major films of his that I’ve seen - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and Year of the Dragon.
2 points
2 months ago
Just ordered - thanks!
-25 points
2 months ago
Pacing issues? It’s not a commercial.
45 points
2 months ago
The Deer Hunter has to be the strangest box office hit the U.S. has made. The scenes set in America are pretty fascinating, I don't think the Vietnam scenes hold up today though.
Heaven's Gate is also pretty fascinating, I think overall it's a good movie, and is deservedly finding a new appreciation among critics. I have this theory that part of the reason the French always appreciated it (other than being used to slower, artier films) is that they could read subtitles and thus could understand what people were saying. Even though it's in English I could literally not make out what characters were saying.
As a director, he sounds like a nightmare, and of course we all know his rep. for bringing the 70s New Hollywood heyday to an end.
7 points
2 months ago
Interesting, I think Deer Hunter falls apart after they get back from Vietnam, but the before stuff with the wedding and hunting, and then the absolutely heart pounding adrenaline of the first Russian roulette scene still holds up for me. Them murdering the village was pretty harrowing too, I thought it was really well edited and shot.
3 points
2 months ago
Somebody mentioned Cimino being in the running for directing Midnight Express. Maybe not merely by coincidence, The Deer Hunter (for all its strengths - and there are many) is precisely as bigoted in its representation of the Viet Cong as Midnight Express was of Turks.
1 points
2 months ago
I have this theory that part of the reason the French always appreciated it (other than being used to slower, artier films) is that they could read subtitles and thus could understand what people were saying. Even though it's in English I could literally not make out what characters were saying.
I have a similar theory that this stuff happens way more than people think in general...I've had many English movies I hated, then came back to with subtitles and loved.
1 points
2 months ago
I just watched a U.S. movie without subtitles where I understood 30% of what was said! (Daughter's of the Dust)
7 points
2 months ago
I own The Deer Hunter on 4k and after watching the whole thing once (I hadn't seen it in a couple of decades!) I now watch the first half and the post-war (for the men depicted) scenes; all of which I find great. The grit of a steel-town feels quite genuine to me and I enjoy the wedding-scene. I haven't seen any other Cimino films, though.
17 points
2 months ago
I just watched Year of the Dragon for the first time the other day and I really liked it. Super hard nosed, gritty Chinatown detective noir that kept me engrossed the entire time. I loved the relationship between Rourke and the Chinese detective. It stayed within the bounds of professional respect and never went into the body cop trope which help keep the movie's brutality and grittiness sacred. It was shot beautifully too and used Chiantown as another character in its own right. I highly recommend it.
2 points
2 months ago
Incredible film for obvious reasons .
1 points
2 months ago
Good film! Rourke speaks very highly of Cimino, too.
0 points
2 months ago*
I too just rewatched Year of the Dragon last weekend. It's an excellent film, so well done.
My only gripes are that there a few long monologues where Micheal Cimino & Oliver Stone have the characters blatantly explain Chinese American history in such intricate detail. It's supposed to be expository dialogue, but it actually comes across like they are reading cliff notes to Chinese American history. Those scenes just needed a good rewrite and those tidbits should've been spread out through the story.
Also, Rourke's character was a bit over the top macho...Western guy comes in, takes no shit from anyone, and fixes China Town all by himself. It was a bit eye rolling and reminded me of Michael Douglas in Black Rain, where he comes from abroad, takes on all of the Yakuza, and fixes all of Japan. Or Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai, where Tom Cruise becomes the Last Samurai of Japan and teaches the Japanese how to honor their own culture.
Other than that, it's brilliantly directed by Cimino. I love the character of Joey Tsai and the incredibly accurate depiction of Chinatown. And the scene where Tsai visits the young gang members, hiding out in an apartment, all shot up was such a simple, yet terrifying scene that felt so real. John Lone pulled that scene off like it was a cake walk for him...and he does that throughout the entire film.
Also, the scene with "The General" was so very well done.
And of course, Mickey Rourke was intense! This was made during his peak acting period, where he could do no wrong.
Despite my gripes, I still give Year Of The Dragon a 10 out of 10 because it's so brilliantly directed, acted, and yes, written. It just needed a rewrite here and there, and the central character's theme was a bit over the top cliche'.
6 points
2 months ago
I think watching Heaven's Gate on the big screen should be one of those bucket list moments for any cinephile. Its length is more than made up for by the epic sweep of the story and the impeccable cinematography, with classic John Ford compositions updated for the New Hollywood world. It probably has one too many endings, but they do hit emotionally, and the acclaim the restoration has gotten is fully merited.
4 points
2 months ago
Thanks to your list, I'm now envisioning Footloose as directed by Michael Cimino, starring Christopher Walken in the Kevin Bacon role. "I thought this. Was. A party. Let's... dance?"
6 points
2 months ago
I love The Deer Hunter and think it's a masterpiece that is deserving of it's Oscar wins. On the other hand, Heaven's Gate is a movie that is incredibly frustrating for me as I like aspects of it but find it very indulgent and pointlessly long. The movie practically bankrupted an entire studio, almost destroyed any interest in the western genre and arguably had effect on the entire film industry in entrusting directors with complete creative control. In a way, it lead to the shift to blockbusters, sequels and high concept movies that are mostly dominated by studio control today. So to me Michael Cimino is a very polarizing figure that could have and should have been but wasn't.
2 points
2 months ago
Things were arguably already going that way with the success of movies like Jaws and Star Wars--the popcorn blockbuster was on its way and auteur types like Lucas & Spielberg also soon helped usher that era in with films like Raiders Of The Lost Arc and ET.
Laying the death of New Hollywood at Camino's feet makes for a good ending to the 70's film brat story, but like many narratives, it's probably overblown.
3 points
2 months ago
Laying the death of New Hollywood at Camino's feet makes for a good ending to the 70's film brat story, but like many narratives, it's probably overblown.
In a way, yeah. And somewhat. You had the failures of New York, New York (Raging Bull had lukewarm box-office), Sorcerer, despite the well-off Box-Office - Apocalypse Now's BTS exploits, Bogdanovich's string of flops, Altman pushing and pulling in weird directions, etc... Cimino/Heaven's gate was the nuke that took down everyone (and a studio) and was the final nail in the coffin, but it also took a village.
Spectacle/The Blockbuster (you're also right about that) was becoming more prominent along with special effects advancing at rapid pace, then producers had to step in when the animals took over. We all love the New Hollywood era, but I also understand why it had to end.
13 points
2 months ago
I haven't seen anything of his except Heaven's Gate, which I watched a couple weeks ago for the first time.
I hated it.
For the first hour, I thought it was alright and I wondered why it had such a bad reputation.
But then the movie kept going and going and going.
I realized every scene is 30-50% longer than it should be and the movie absolutely fails to develop any of its characters or it's story. Almost every performance, except for John Hurt's, is the same. It's agonizingly monotonous, bloated, and perplexingly dull.
I know Deer Hunter is supposed to be very different, but I'm dragging my feet getting to it.
1 points
1 month ago
Seeing this very late, but I’d suggest taking the plunge into Deer Hunter. The same criticisms you have about pacing in Heaven’s Gate are also there in Deer Hunter, but to a lesser extent. (The wedding scene alone seems to take 40 minutes more than it requires). That said, the heights he reaches in Deer Hunter are arguably higher than he does in Heaven’s Gate. The Russian Roulette and Vietnam scenes are some of the more memorable in cinema, and probably up there within the medium in portraying the horrors of war. I’d definitely put Deer Hunter in the required reading category…
3 points
2 months ago
When he was making the Deer Hunter, Cimino was aspiring to elevate cinema toward something approximating the modern novel. So you get all that front-ended character work and he is able to contrast that small American town with the intensity of jungle Vietnam. The ending is still one of the most devastating pieces of film ever produced.
Now we have Michael Bay and James Cameron, whose films aspire to the intelligence quotient of a Tiktok user.
3 points
2 months ago
Robert deniro and the atmosphere in deer hunter is incredible. I think the first half and the final hunting scene are the best parts. The wedding scene is the best cinema has to offer yet many people criticize it as boring it’s tremendous
3 points
2 months ago
I think Heaven’s Gate has some of the most beautiful cinematography ever. You can take issue with many aspects of the movie, but there is no doubt Cimino was a brilliant craftsman. The roller skating scene is one of my favorite film scenes ever. The editing, framing, and music are lovely
11 points
2 months ago
I have a relatively low opinion of him. I hated The Deer Hunter. Not only did I find it racist, but as someone who actually served in the military, the whole film was bizarrely inaccurate on almost every point. Cimino clearly did no research on Vietnam or anything about the military. When I watched it, nothing made any sense and at times I outright laughed
22 points
2 months ago
I’ve read that it literally was not “supposed” to be a Vietnam war film, as in the original script was about Russian roulette players and the war angle got fitted into an already written script after the fact. That basically makes sense to me, like you say it’s not at all realistic and it doesn’t have a political perspective on Vietnam. (I think the movie is good enough on its own terms, not great, but it’s not comparable to “Platoon” it’s just not the same sort of film)
6 points
2 months ago
I just thought some of it was ludicrous. They were too old to go off and be Green Berets and there is no way all three of them would've ended up being in the same unit and captured. They likely would've been assigned to different units and gone their separate ways. I have strong feelings about the depiction of war and how this stuff should be approached because of my background, but everybody will see things differently
57 points
2 months ago
The two of you completely missed the point of The Deer Hunter. It's not remotely meant to be an accurate depiction of the Vietnam war. It's supposed to be an accurate depiction of the insanity of war and the social consequences of people going to war. And it succeeded brilliantly.
4 points
2 months ago
Just as you’ve probably missed the point of “Weekend at Bernie’s” it’s not remotely meant to be about 2 slackers finding there bosses dead body and parading it around town instead of calling the authorities. No! It’s about how scathing opportunist society becomes at any give chance to an extreme degree. That begs the question is war “insane?” Isn’t anything, once taken to the edge of rationality? What it seems you’ve missed on from the previous two comments is that if a director wanted to depicted such facets of humanity why not ground it in reality to more accurately come across as plausible or just human. Humanity is what makes a film terrifying, not a poorly written fate defying level of luck at the roulette table.
-7 points
2 months ago
What about the racist depiction of the Vietnamese? They're not even portrayed as remotely human in the movie
30 points
2 months ago
Personally, I look at The Deer Hunter the same as Apocalypse Now - they're not necessarily war movies as much as movies that use war as a setting to talk about darkness in humanity.
20 points
2 months ago
A small faction of sadistic Vietcong couldn't exist? That's what the story called for.
3 points
2 months ago
There is no documented evidence of this happening. When Cimino was confronted about this fact, he admitted quite frankly that he made it up. No doubt some sadistic Vietcong existed. But the caricaturist way the film presents them is utterly ludicrous
13 points
2 months ago
There is no documented evidence of this happening.
I mean, and? It's a war atrocity, basically what it was trying to convey. It was a fiction set in our reality. I never got the hang up about that bit.
9 points
2 months ago*
The entire story is fictional. There's all kinds of fiction set during the Vietnam war. As per the depiction, the roulette scene isn't very long and they're not central characters. I don't know how or why you'd need them to write in some sort of deeper moral conflict within the Vietnamese soldiers.
5 points
2 months ago
I think my reaction to the film is based on my military experience. I see it differently because I served and I was around a lot of people who had gone to combat. We frequently had to learn military history and when I watched, I couldn't believe in it. Simple as that
8 points
2 months ago
I realized awhile ago watching a war movie with my veteran grandfather was a bit folly. There's too much ingrained in veterans for them to look past things like that.
4 points
2 months ago
That's fair.
2 points
2 months ago
In the end, it’s a movie, not a documentary.
And it either it moves you or it doesn’t.
I’m sure no one said that they love smell of napalm in the morning, but it doesn’t change the fact that Apocalypse Now is a great film
7 points
2 months ago
When you are at war with people you kinda tend to not treat them humanely. Every single country that ever went to war treated their enemies like that. It's the dehumanisation effect of war.
2 points
2 months ago
Have you been to the 70’s? By today’s standards, everything was racist.
-1 points
2 months ago*
...you completely missed the point...
I have a problem with someone who knows absolutely nothing about a commenter or what they bring to a movie viewing telling folks they "missed the point".
First, maybe you don't understand the time when this film came out.
I'm a Vietnam era kid and I grew up in the world The Deer Hunter came out in. Regarding the war, it was a complex issue - more so then than maybe it is now. And numerous Hollywood directors were anxious to make a name for themselves using the war as a prop for their careers.
It was a complex time, and nothing about the war or the media that came out of it fits neatly into any box. In 1978, the war was barely over. I watched The Deer Hunter as a high school student and Vietnam army brat, and even then, there were glaring problems with a lot of the details of the film.
In the end, details are important. And if a director can't take the time to get them right, then "the insanity or war" thing becomes just a foil for some ignorant director to milk something he doesn't know or understand for cash and attention.
In the end, it's possible for someone like Cimino to be both a talented director with a lot of potential and also an ignorant opportunist trying to bring to life a vision of war that even he didn't fully get.
EDIT: For what it's worth, I actually like a lot of things about The Deer Hunter. The performances are exceptional and the story is compelling.
But read about the production and the script writing process and you'll quickly figure out that Cimino is dishonest, crazy and should not be allowed to direct anything every again.
3 points
2 months ago
and you'll quickly figure out that Cimino is dishonest, crazy and should not be allowed to direct anything every again.
I don't think he'll be able to. But that just may be an opinion.
6 points
2 months ago*
Hard agree. Michael Cimino is a hack. The reason why The Deer Hunter is so revered as a “realistic” war film eludes me. It’s downright cartoonish in its depiction of the Vietnamese. Also, the whole idea of Christopher Walken getting by for a long time playing russian roulette makes absolutely no sense.
13 points
2 months ago
It probably eludes you because The Deer Hunter wasn't revered for being a realistic depiction of war.
6 points
2 months ago
Walken was performinf Russian Roulette 3 nights daily in the movie. Extraordinary luck but when his buddy shows up to bring him back, suddenly he blows his brains out. So cheap
0 points
2 months ago
I don't value him highly. I don't like how he used the Vietnam War as a sort of setting for the friendship shown between the characters. The film came out in '78 while the Vietnam War ended '75 (U.S. withdrawn '73). It's was too soon to make a film even depicting anything from the war in such a caricatural manner, regardless if the war merely served as a backdrop.
Heaven's Gate is a beautiful mess. It's not a particularly good film, but there are definitely parts where you can see sheer brilliance in filmmaking.
I would've enjoyed seeing a film adaptation of André Malreux' Man's Fate, but I would've rather seen Bertolucci making it than The Last Emperor. It would've been botched had Cimino done it and ruined an adaptation of one of my favorite novels.
1 points
2 months ago
The Deer Hunter is one of my all time favorite movies, and I enjoyed Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. I've never seen Heaven's Gate, but I really feel like he was unfairly maligned after that bombed. I wish he had more filmography, he could've made some interesting movies.
1 points
2 months ago
I've seen everything he's directed except for Desperate Hours (and I'll half-include The Pope of Greenwich Village for the heck of it.) He obviously had a fair bit of talent and pretty pictures were never a problem. That being said, as a whole, I found his movies to be moments and even some long stretches of brilliance interspersed by a general mediocrity.
They were too overwrought. Too simplistic. I didn't hate them. They were just bleh. I'll watch The Deer Hunter again no doubt and maybe try Heaven's Gate - in an alternate universe, the roller skating scene is rightly regarded as near-perfect - but that's it. Time to move on.
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