Michael Cimino
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The Lost City of Z (2017)
Directed by James Gray
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980), The Deer Hunter (1978)
Visuals
Geographically, The Lost City of Z recalls Werner Herzog’s two great Amazonian adventures and that other riverbound jungle journey, Apocalypse Now, but Darius Khondji’s stately, golden-hued imagery constantly brings to mind Vilmos Zsigmond’s lugubrious photography in Heaven’s Gate.
It is a beautiful film with many small wonders and mysteries of its own for the viewer to discover: the candor of the first scenes between the Fawcetts, and the way they give a human face to the era’s social maneuvering; the explorers’ visit to a rubber baron (Franco Nero) who has built a small open-air opera house on his slave plantation; the scene of the boisterous debate at the Royal Geographical Society; the use of Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis Et Chloé to suggest an elusive meaning to the jungle; the sweep and Tolstoy-esque detail of the scenes of social life in mid-1900s Ireland and England, which bring to mind Michael Cimino’s attempts to re-sculpt the New Hollywood auteur cult in the image of 19th century fiction in films like The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate .
It is a beautiful film with many small wonders and mysteries of its own for the viewer to discover: the candor of the first scenes between the Fawcetts, and the way they give a human face to the era’s social maneuvering; the explorers’ visit to a rubber baron (Franco Nero) who has built a small open-air opera house on his slave plantation; the scene of the boisterous debate at the Royal Geographical Society; the use of Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis Et Chloé to suggest an elusive meaning to the jungle; the sweep and Tolstoy-esque detail of the scenes of social life in mid-1900s Ireland and England, which bring to mind Michael Cimino’s attempts to re-sculpt the New Hollywood auteur cult in the image of 19th century fiction in films like The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate .
Also, he blatantly pilfers scenes from "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter" -- although Boyle would probably call these scenes homages shaped by Richard's pop-culture mind.
As in the book, Boyle's film draws parallels between the collapsing life on the island and key moments from Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, not because these characters experienced Vietnam, but because they know Hollywood's version of that dark chapter.
While it thumped along, I had plenty of time to ponder the other and better movies that it reminded me of: The Mosquito Coast (1986), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Apocalypse Now (1979), as well as William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies.
As a critique of Generation X amorality, vapid pop culture, and Western exploitativeness, The Beach comes off as unintentional self-parody, especially when it lapses into riffs from Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter.
The film indexes Apocalypse Now, and The Deer Hunter, as well as The Blue Lagoon and Ursula Andress's sexy bikini scene from Dr. No, with a little bit of The Lord of the Flies thrown in for good measure.
It’s pointless to compare "Jarhead" with the host of late 20th century war genre classics that include "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter," "Platoon" and the end-all-be-all of Stanley Kubrick’s "Full Metal Jacket."
They cheer during the massacre scenes of Apocalypse Now and eagerly quote The Deer Hunter as its credits gear up.
Of course, it doesn't help that this overly familiar war drama is so reminiscent of other, better movies, including "The Deer Hunter," "Full Metal Jacket," "Three Kings" and "Apocalypse Now."
There is another interesting idea that pops up about the ways that popular culture have influenced and infiltrated the military mindset–the drill sergeant in the opening scenes seems to be taking his cues (as is Mendes) from Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” and we are later treated to the sight of the soldiers giddily watching the village bombing from “Apocalypse Now” and, later, preparing to screen a video of “The Deer Hunter.”
They've grown up with VCRs and have watched Full Metal Jacket and The Deer Hunter to prepare for war.
Once the outfit is stationed overseas for Operation Desert Storm, the men eagerly gather around a television to watch a VHS tape of another war-is-hell Vietnam morality tale, “The Deer Hunter.”
Overall Pavish presents a man that while defeated by a Hollywood system that was unwilling to take a chance on his vision, (and who can blame them considering it was the era where a film like Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate brought down a studio), Jodorowsky still presents himself as a spiritual warrior, defiant in the face of defeat.
Cinephiles will find echoes of The Wild Bunch, Heaven's Gate, Leone and Visconti in the mix, yet the director has modulated the nervy syntax to fashion what is meant to be his most accessible movie - the percussive rock score and wan romantic clinches between DiCaprio and Diaz are firmly in the blockbuster idiom.
Critics have already pointed out similarities between Gangs of New York and Sergio Leone’s loose, heartfelt Once Upon a Time in America, but a more appropriate point of comparison is to Michael Cimino’s legendary Heaven’s Gate, a film that has so many links to Gangs that one might think they are one and the same.
By this time and after these hurried manipulations of the story line, I couldn't help thinking of another great saga that became the classic embarrassment in screen history, "Heaven's Gate."
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980)
Themes
The influence of Robert Altman on Anderson's work continues, this time drawing inspiration from Altman's 1971 "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" but one could just as easily draw parallels to Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" if Anderson didn't do so much more with his own attempt at creating an epic period piece.The first thing that immediately impresses is the amount of detail put into examining the early days of the American oil business, the technical aspects of drilling and how the industry flourished with big corporations and big money making it harder for entrepeneurs like Plainview to make a living.
American Sniper (2014)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
influenced by The Deer Hunter (1978)
Visuals Themes
American Sniper possesses the sweep and scope of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, but very little of that movie's romantic grandeur.
Not since The Deer Hunter, however, has Hollywood done such justice as American Sniper to polemical wars?
Like Michael Cimino’s similarly themed Vietnam war epic The Deer Hunter, Stone’s film eschewed the sentimental, jingoistic tone of World War II combat films, revising their tropes of greatest-generation heroism and camaraderie to reflect a more caustic viewpoint about a more divisive war.
It’s a moment similar to when The Deer Hunter (1978) arrived.
When Pauline Kael reviewed Michael Cimino’s original ultra-long premiere of “Heaven’s Gate,” she observed that she could think of plenty to cut, but when it came to what should be kept, her mind went blank.
In short: Babylon is a lot like Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate in several ways: Its length, ambitions, and probable reception.
“Heaven’s Gate” it is not, but for Paramount, this costly misstep will impact the bottom line.
Speaking of legendary movies, “Babylon” may not be Chazelle’s “Heaven’s Gate,” exactly.
Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980), The Deer Hunter (1978)
Coppola’s “One From the Heart,” Spielberg’s “1941,” Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate”).
From the Oscar-winning triumph of the gut-wrenching The Deer Hunter, he found himself at the mercy of the movie-going world upon the release of the hilariously catastrophic Heaven’s Gate, the closest visual representation of gluttony before the guy who ate himself to death in Se7en.
From the Oscar-winning triumph of the gut-wrenching The Deer Hunter, he found himself at the mercy of the movie-going world upon the release of the hilariously catastrophic Heaven’s Gate, the closest visual representation of gluttony before the guy who ate himself to death in Se7en.
While the results are far from unprofessional--the cast is uniformly good, including a characteristically slapped-around Meryl Streep, and the two deer-hunting sequences mark director Michael Cimino as an able student of Disney's Bambi and Riefenstahl's The Blue Light--the male self-pity is so overwhelming that you'll probably stagger out of this mumbling something about Tolstoy (as many critics did when the film first came out in 1978) if you aren't as nauseated as I was.
True, one occasionally might feel that the film could have benefited from some additional trimming by editor Thelma Schoonmaker, but to reverse Pauline Kael’s famous observation after seeing the original “Heaven’s Gate”—that she could think of much to cut but nothing to keep—in this case one might talk in the abstract of shortening the film, but it’s difficult to think of specific parts you’d remove.
After seeing Marty Scorsese's The Irishman, I thought it might be Scorsese's Heaven's Gate (1981).
Holy Motors (2012)
Directed by Leos Carax
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980), The Deer Hunter (1978)
(Michael Cimino's eternal transgression in having made Heaven's Gate has haunted his career ever since, even though he also made The Deer Hunter.)
(Michael Cimino's eternal transgression in having made Heaven's Gate has haunted his career ever since, even though he also made The Deer Hunter.)
In that sense, the film that Heaven's Gate most resembles isn't a western at all, but Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise .
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Directed by Andrew Dominik
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980)
Visuals
Andrew Dominik, who made the raw, gritty, irresistible Chopper just seven years ago, got his hands on DVDs of Terrence Malick’s films, Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, and a few other nouveau westerns and picked his very favorite parts, took Warner Bros’ $50 million, and the passion of Brad Pitt (which I would never mock in any way, though it as led to some terrible choices), and a cadre of very good actors and made one of the most obnoxiously taste-free stews imagineable.
In George Stevens's Shane the Johnson County war is enacted on two planes: the sodbusters confronting the pioneer rancher Ryker on a realistic level; Alan Ladd's angelic Shane facing up to Jack Palance's evil gunslinger Wilson in a mythic manner.
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
Directed by Seth MacFarlane
influenced by Heaven's Gate (1980), The Deer Hunter (1978)
Visuals
In a weird way, both in its period setting and misguidedly lavish excessiveness, it’s closer to Michael Cimino’s studio-bankrupting “Heaven’s Gate” than “Blazing Saddles” (except that “Heaven’s Gate” is much, much more watchable).
That’s where Michael Cimino went after The Deer Hunter, Barry Sonnenfeld after Men in Black, Jon Favreau after two Iron Man hits and Gore Verbinski after three Pirates of the Caribbean blockbusters.
Although its dismal first week at the box office is already drawing comparisons to the epic failure of Heaven’s Gate (1980), the two couldn’t be any different: the colossal failure of Heaven’s Gate stemmed from the monomaniacal control and unchecked authority of its newly minted auteur, Michael Cimino, while John Carter’s failure is a product of so many corporate cooks stirring the pot that it winds up flavorless.
Den of Thieves (2018)
Directed by Christian Gudegast
influenced by Year of the Dragon (1985)
Characters
It’s particularly noticeable in writer-director Christian Gudegast’s feature, because the actor is playing a gangsta-style law enforcement anti-hero who gives Mickey Rourke in “Year of the Dragon” a run for the money for sheer repellence.
That sounds a bit like Michael Cimino's bewitched undie fixation during the making of "Heaven's Gate": He insisted the underwear folded in the characters' dresser drawers be authentically period, even though these unmentionables were never seen, nor even mentioned, on-screen.
The Nice Guys (2016)
Directed by Shane Black
influenced by Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Characters
And now here they are together in The Nice Guys, riffing on the old Clint Eastwood/ Jeff Bridges, hard-nut/soft-shell routine from Thunderbolt and Lightfoot .