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I thought this an excellent review. In fact I'd say it was the most
*interesting* one he's done in a while. Like Louis and some others, I
actively promoted the film among SWPers when the film was released.
A flaw in the review is the lack of any mention of the ensemble cast: From
wiki: " Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff
Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Joseph Cotten, Geoffrey
Lewis, David Mansfield, Richard Masur, Terry O'Quinn, Mickey Rourke, Willem
Dafoe and Nicholas Woodeson,the last two in their first film roles." It IS
worth pointing this out, IMHO.
It should of been noted that this film essentially sank United Artists as
it lost 10s of millions of dollars. It is estimated that in today's dollars
that it would of meant a loss of $140 million!
My father, a theater director, tv stage manager and aspiring film director,
noted to me that the film was amazingly disjointed with a convoluted plot
that never tied it together. I didn't go back and re-read the critics of
the time's take down of the film but now it makes sense given how much the
film was cut down.
David Walters
On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 7:27 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> POSTING RULES & NOTES
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>
> While channel surfing the other night, I was intrigued to see “Heaven’s
> Gate” playing on Showtime, Michael Cimino’s 1980 revisionist Western
> that many critics viewed as both a Marxist tract in the vein of Luchino
> Visconti and the greatest flop in Hollywood history. That the two views
> could be the most common refrains about the film tells you a lot about
> the spurious characterization of Tinseltown as “leftist”.
>
> In a fascinating account of the film’s Hindenburg-like crash, “Final
> Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film that
> Sank United Artists”, Stephen Bach describes how in his view a talented
> egomaniac brought down a legendary film studio that was launched by
> Charlie Chaplin and others to guarantee artistic independence. None of
> UA’s forefathers could have imagined that a Marxist-inspired film might
> be its undoing.
>
> I saw “Heaven’s Gate” when it first came out in 1980 and made a case for
> it among my Trotskyist comrades who had little interest in films except
> for the usual Saturday night entertainment. “Heaven’s Gate” was a
> cinematic tour de force but hardly entertaining. It was a grim study of
> how class power in Johnson County, Wyoming ensured the victory of
> wealthy ranchers over small landowners who benefited from the Homestead
> Act of 1862 that was designed to build support for the Republican Party
> against Democratic Party plutocrats. Ironically, when the Johnson County
> War broke out in 1892, the Democrats were the party of the poor farmer
> with their presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan taking up their
> cause. All the big ranchers in Wyoming were rock-ribbed Republicans,
> just as they are today in most cases.
>
> full: https://louisproyect.org/2019/09/27/the-johnson-county-war/
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