2016 continues to take away some notable talent from the world of entertainment and this last weekend has seen several key names including controversial director/writer Michael Cimino…
Michael Cimino was a legendary figure in Hollywood – responsible (as producer and director) for one of the films that many regard as a pinnacle of cinema – The Deer Hunter – and also the auteur behind one of its greatest failures – the doomed western Heaven’s Gate. The Deer Hunter captured the horror and aftermath of battlefield soldiers, in this case the Vietnam War. A memorable cast, including Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken gave some of their career-best performances alongside the likes of the equally talented Meryl Streep and John Savage and the film earned five Academy Awards and huge critical praise despite its violence and controversial subject-matter. The theme from The Deer Hunter, Stanley Myers’ Cavatina, is also a timeless classic.
The latter film,1980’s Heaven’s Gate was set in the real-life Johnson County War in 1890s Wyoming but despite being as star-packed ( Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Waterston and – again – Christopher Walken) the film quickly went massively over-budget (largely attributed to Cimino’s trait as an acute perfectionist).
His first cut of the western came in at around five hours and even after it was trimmed to around three, it was a critical and commercial disaster that stalled Cimino’s career but also contributed to the end of the United Artists studio.
A controversial figure throughout his life he actually directed eight films in total, with titles also including Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), Year of the Dragon (1985) with Mickey Rourke, The Sicilian (1987) with Christophe Lambert, Desperate Hours (1990) with Anthony Hopkins, Mimi Rogers and re-teaming him with Rourke, The Sunchaser (1996) with Woody Harrelson and contributed to a cinematic collective of stories called To Each His Own Cinema in 2007. He also wrote or co-wrote a number of classic screenplays, including those for Silent Running and Magnum Force.
The career-arc of his work speaks for itself and several books – many of which he distanced himself from – but almost everything else about Cimino has been questioned, including military service, films he nearly made and even his age – he was believed to be aged 77 at the time of his passing.
