2. Heaven's Gate
Theatrical: 148 minutesExtended: 217 minutes Heaven's Gate is
so money. You can see it in the enormous cast, the extravagant cinematography and the hefty location work. When the film was cut for theatrical release, about $15 million of that money was thrown onto the cutting room floor. Though director Michael Cimino had built steady, delicate rhythms into his epic Western, he was mercilessly made to chop it up by a nervous and downright spiteful studio. They'd obeyed Cimino's every expensive whim on set, only to see his final cut be annihilated by a hungry pack of critics, so subsequently cut him and his picture down to size. What was left was a hollow, nonsensical mess that cinemagoers outright rejected. Well, the studio and those critics of 1980 were wrong. Sure, Cimino's 217-minute behemoth is occasionally unwieldy, but there's so much to be enjoyed about Heaven's Gate on a whole that some have hailed it as a lost masterpiece. The rich photography, for one thing, is flawless. Cimino spent an entire day filming his lead (a magnetic Kris Kristofferson) cracking a whip for the sake of one shot, which should give you some idea of the perfection you'll be looking at. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kVstsrQ4vY And the money is always evident. The bigness of the film - huge vistas, towering mountain ranges, vast townships built from scratch - is symbolic of the auteur-driven excess of New Hollywood, as well as the America that the film both romanticises and attacks. From the setting, to the themes, to the relentlessly high drama, this is a film obsessed with size. In that respect, you'll never see anything else like it.