3. Final Cut: The Making & Unmaking Of Heaven's Gate (2004)
That other exception I mentioned earlier? It lies with western
Heaven's Gate, which I believe has just about the most interesting production process ever to have ever occurred and been chronicled: it was, on account of director Michael Cimino and the studio executives over at United Artists, immense chaos from start to finish. So much so, in fact, that its filming ended the studio and changed the policies regarding auteur-based cinema forever. Its failure marked the end of an era. This documentary (made in 2004, 24 years after the movie's original release),
Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate (and based on an even better book) will prove an absolute delight for screenwriters who are curious about the script into production phase - and are even more concerned with how bizarrely the Hollywood system works. This documentary is candid and revealing in every sense. You won't believe how out of control things get. At the end of the day, though, it all goes back to the script, doesn't it? Had this movie had a crazy production and not emerged a relative bore (or a "cinematic waste," as Roger Ebert put it), the production story would've been painted far differently, I'm sure: Cimino as a crazed genius struggling against movie executives who didn't understand his wondrous vision. Sadly, this one didn't turn out like
Apocalypse Now. I advise you track down the script and then watch this: the insights are spectacular.