Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating account of a filmmaking disaster, July 12, 2004
It was called a "runaway," and never has a term been more appropriate. In this case, it was a movie running millions of dollars over budget with an end nowhere in sight. The 1980 film "Heaven's Gate" has become synonymous with failure, its very name punned whenever big-budget productions flirt with disaster. Steven Bach's "Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists" gives a terrific blow-by-blow account of this gargantuan flop. A former producer at United Artist who suffered the ax after "Heaven's Gate," Bach penned this detailed tome a couple of years after fallout. The book should be a fascinating account for film lovers. "Final Cut" details the history of United Artists and filmmaking in the 1970s - a truly golden era. At United Artists, Francis Ford Coppola premieres "Apocalypse Now," Woody Allen helms "Manhattan" and Martin Scorsese prepares "Raging Bull." But the man of the hour in 1978 is a quiet guy named Michael Cimino. He just won an Academy Award for directing "The Deer Hunter," and now he wants to make a western - a big, big western. Bach accurately reveals the difficulties United Artists was going through at this time, losing several long-time executives who jump ship to form the Orion film company. Bach and company, wishing to re-establish United Artists as a major player, take on Cimino's western project. Cimino sets up shop in Montana, the location work a two-hour's drive from the nearest cement road. He ships an antique train across five states to the Montana wilds. He hires over 700 extras. He signs a cast of mainly unknowns including Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt and Sam Waterson. And he films only during the twilight hour, a period right before dusk so scenes will have a golden hue. But what terrifies United Artists most is Cimino is filming 50-60 takes per scene, and printing almost every take. Such obsession was unheard of. As Bach reveals in "Final Cut," Cimino's western (now hovering around $25 million) was going to have make blockbuster numbers just to turn a profit, performing in the "Jaws" and "Star Wars" neighborhoods. United Artists attempts to fire Cimino, at one point even asking David Lean to take over. Cimino realizes the dire situation, finally bucks up and finishes the film. With promotional and post-production fees, "Heaven's Gate" cost United Artists $44 million - the most expensive film in history up to that time. Heaven's Gate is premiered in New York, a three-and-a-half hour monstrosity that receives devastatingly bad reviews. It is eventually released to the theaters and makes $1.8 million. It is the biggest bomb in motion picture history (cue dead elephant hitting the cement). Heads roll at the studio, Cimino's career is finished and United Artists, a film company created by Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, is purchased by MGM to disappear forever into the sunset. Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" spelled the end of the free-spirited, amazingly creative decade of the 1970s. Producers and studios took the reins out of the hands of superstar directors (Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" ran a similar "Heaven's Gate" route, but he pulled success from the fires of disaster, perhaps inspiring this debacle as much as anything else). "Final Cut" is a tragedy exposing the end of a golden era of filmmaking and a once-great studio. It's as good as an Irwin Allen disaster film, and a lot cheaper.
|
|
|
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't put it down - compelling story still relevant, October 26, 1999
Steven Bach's account of the "Heaven's Gate" fiasco has never been more relevant than now. With weed-like conglomerate corporate growth each day and the Dilbert-like stupidity spawned in most corporate environments, this book should serve as a lesson to many of us. His compelling story of divided responsibility, group thinking and diluted control goes a long way to explaining the excesses of Cimino and the movie. Bach writes beautifully and directly. He covers the machinations of the story from the corporate side only. I wished for more of the on-the-set stories - the book would have been improved with a few chapters by someone who witnessed the on-set story. One hilarious on-set story I heard about "Heaven's Gate" before reading this book described how the director needed more space in the street and wanted sets on both sides of the street destroyed and rebuilt 6 feet back. Someone suggested destroying and rebuilding one side only, 12 feet back, and saving half the cost. Cimino told him that it wouldn't have the same feel, and they commenced destroying and rebuilding the entire set! Although these sorts of on-set anecdotes aren't in the book, many other incredibly good ones from the management side are there. The book describes the history of UA, the history of the skirmish the movie is based on, and the entire before, during and after of the film's development from the viewpoint of Transamerica and UA. I read it cover to cover in just a few days, and laughed often. A great book!
|
|
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Hollywood Books Ever, June 11, 2000
This book, first published in the 1980s, is a classic textbook example of why Hollywood so often pours tens of millions of dollars into projects that ultimately go haywire. In this book, Bach, who as production head had information and sources only an insider could have, shows how a director, Michael Cimino, was given a virtual blank check on making a film United Artists hoped would duplicate the success of his Oscar-winning film, "The Deer Hunter." This new project was based on a script Cimino had written, called "The Johnson County War." It was based on an obscure event in 19th century Wyoming, but the moguls were impressed enough with the script to go forward with it.It wasn't long, though, before the project went awry. Bach provides the reader with many, many reasons why this was so. There was plenty of blame to go around, though certainly director Cimino deserves a large share of the blame. He reminds the reader of another self-destructive director, Erich von Stroheim, in that he couldn't stay within a budget and was obsessed with detail. Millions and millions of dollars were thrown into this project, now called "Heaven's Gate." By the time the film was released in 1980, it had become the biggest bomb in Hollywood since the 1963 flop "Cleopatra." It helped sink United Artists. Not surprisingly, Cimino has yet to duplicate the success of "The Deer Hunter." Bach is an excellent writer, and the book makes one almost nostalgic for the days of the old studio system of pre-1960s Hollywood.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by John Gregory Dunne
DVD ~ Kris Kristofferson
by James Robert Parish
See all Editorial Reviews
