Word: cimino
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...Micnael Cimino presented his "contemporary" epic of men at war--in this case, the Vietnam War--and, initially, it received universally enthusiastic reviews. Most critics ignored the film's contrived, overdone script and Cimino's bland direction, and praised The Deer Hunter for its emotional power. But, after having their tears jerked and their guts wrenched for three poorly-paced hours, many viewers recognized The Deer Hunter as a thoroughly racist, reactionary depiction of America's involvement in Vietnam. Cimino claimed he had set out to show what the war was really like. Instead, he made a hollow, melodramatic adventure...
Biggest Bomb: Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, which cost 36 million but was pulled back from distribution after some unheavenly reviews...
...there is grandeur in this folie. Cimino's voluptuous romantic imagination and the dusky imagery of Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond produced breathtaking panoramas of majestic landscape and milling hordes. A hundred happy couples waltz in circles within circles in Harvard Yard; 20 years later and 2,500 miles west, another hundred couples roller-skate to fiddle music in a cow-town grange hall. In Cimino's Wyoming, it is never high noon; everything happens in misty morning or dusty dusk, so the oblique, ruminative sunlight can memorialize every moment. Some viewers with educated eyes found scenes of beauty...
Perhaps lilies are more in order. "His life is on the line," said one U.A. executive of Cimino. "This is a tough town." Things may be tough for the U.A. brass too. The company has not had a single solid hit this year to erase the red ink from such bombs as Carny, Roadie and Those Lips, Those Eyes. Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, which cost $20 million, is a major box office disappointment. The studio's Christmas films were to have been Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (which opened two weeks ago to strong critical...
...statement, Cimino admitted that "the missing step of public previews clouded my perception of the film" and had made him "unable to benefit and learn from audience reaction." Now he has learned, but the lesson was prohibitive. Including advertising and interest costs, U.A. spent close to $50 million for the industry's most disastrous sneak preview...