One of the best books about making movies is Steven Bach’s Final Cut : Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists
David [Field] read [Stan Kamen] UA’s terms for the picture, essentially what Kamen had asked, including preapproval of Christopher Walken, contingent on his deal’s fitting the budget, raised that figure to [Lehman] Katz’s still-leery $7.8 million, and aside from an excited slip of the tongue that offered [Kris] Kristofferson 10 percent of the gross instead of 10 percent of the profits – a slip that Kamen caught and graciously corrected – the deal was accepted. David and I made triumphant eye contact. We were now running production at United Artists with Danny [Rissner]’s blessing and Andy [Albeck]’s and Transamerica’s, and our first official act, a fairly routine one at that, had been to make the deal that would destroy the company.
Hindsight’s 20/20 and all that, but Bach is very honest about the signs he missed, the red flags no one heeded, and how many executives were actually just paying attention to the wrong things. This happens all the time in business. Everyone can see perfectly, after the fact, where things went wrong – but that’s not an interesting or helpful perspective, at least not in terms of a book such as this one. Bach doesn’t come off perfectly – and it’s one of the reasons why the book is so effective. If he wrote it with an axe to grind, if he shoveled all the blame onto Field or Albeck or Cimino, or someone else … the book would read as petty. The book would be an obvious ploy for sympathy, a biased self-righteous account of one of the biggest corporate disasters in Hollywood history (if not the biggest. Heaven’s Gate is in the history books for all time.)
One of the best insider accounts of moviemaking that exists.
I also love Julia Salamon’s The Devil’s Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco
While I never agree with the flat-out contempt many ordinary people have for artists and artistic executives (I hear envy masquerading as moral outrage half of the time with these people) who happen to be fortunate enough to make some money, what is fascinating about Final Cut is its step-by-step look at how decisions are made. Some of the decisions are cynical, some are idealistic. Some SEEM idealistic and then turn out to be cynical. Sometimes you strike it rich. Sometimes you come up empty. Decisions are made all day every day in Hollywood, and very few are of such import that they bring down a Hollywood institution like United Artists. What happened?
Final Cut is about just that. I’ve read it about 3 times, I think. If you want to know “how things work”, this is the book to read.
Here’s an excerpt from the start of the book. All of these characters worked for UA, and all of them would be casualties of Heaven’s Gate (not to mention the re-shuffling of UA at parent company Transamerica’s insistence – the book is a masterpiece of corporate culture at work). Here is a conference about a property that had come their way, one of those intellectual/artistic/practical debates that go on all the time, but here take on enormous import because of all that came after. Christpher Mankiewicz (son of Joseph Mankiewicz, and part of Hollywood royalty) worked in the West Coast division of UA, Daniel Rissner (head of production at UA, and soon to be forced to resign), Steven Bach (who would step into Rissner’s shoes following his departure, sharing the post with David Field, a situation that was treacherous from the get-go), and Andy Albeck (president of United Artists, but new to the post, and not from an artistic background, which was a blessing and a curse here).
Here, they discuss the third book by an author whose first book was a smash, and the movie made from the book an even bigger smash, changing the Hollywood game entirely … so they are considering the third book as a possible property. It becomes easy to guess who they are talking about. My favorite comeback is one by Mankiewicz, and it’ll be pretty obvious which one I mean.
Michael Cimino has not yet entered the picture at the time of this conference. This is merely set-up of some of the main characters, and how deals are made (or not made), and UA’s desire to seem like a heavy-hitting player in the new landscape of 1970s American cinema.
Great book.
“Fellas, this book is a piece of shit!”
Chris Mankiewicz’s considerable bulk rolled behind the statement, imploring the rest of us to agree. He flung his palms outward toward the room, as if the evidence were smeared there to observe. After a moment he dropped one hand into the pile of sweet rolls on the coffee table before him, piled high with danish and dirty coffee cups.
“Everybody knows that, Chris,” Rissner sighed. “It’s not about whether it’s a piece of shit or it’s not a piece of shit. It’s about whether we want to make a goddamn deal.”
“On this unmitigated, irredeemable piece of shit?”
Rissner borrowed matches from someone, lit a cigarette, pointedly ignoring the redundancy. “What’s the minimum bid we could make, you think?” he said to the room in general. “A million? A million five?” His voice seemed casual, but his manner suggested constraint as he bent and rebent the borrowed book of matches. He looked up at the circle seated in mismatched chairs around the glass and chrome coffee table in his Culver City office. There was the chairman of the board, down from San Francisco for the morning, looking on with a kibitzer’s curiosity, his expression acknowledging nothing more than respectful interest; the president of the company, his mouth a tight line, owllike eyes swiveling from one face to another behind his huge spectacles, glinting in the early-morning sunlight like windshields; there were the heads of domestic and ancillary distribution, ignoring Mankiewicz’s outburst and Rissner’s question by burrowing into their synopses of the book in question, readers’ reports they were supposed to have read the previous night or on the plane from New York but clearly hadn’t. There was Mankiewicz, exasperated beyond belief that his opinion was having no apparent effect on anyone else; there was David Field, looking thoughtful and tactful; and I – I was confused. Who cared what the distribution guys thought? I wondered. Why? When? What did they know?
I knew, so I answered Rissner. “My guess is that the least they’ll listen to is a million five and a gross percentage, and that won’t make a deal. If we’re not prepared to go that high, we shouldn’t make an offer at all because the agent will decide he’s been insulted and our relationship with the agency is weak enough as it is. This is the first major submission from them in months, right?”
“Right,” Rissner nodded.
“The first major submission because they’re trying to hype what even they know is a piece of illiterate shit!”
“Chris, please.”
Albeck looked simultaneously alarmed and annoyed. Why didn’t Mankiewicz shut up? He had clearly been given more than a cue by his superior. Or could the book really be all that bad? He asked the question of Rissner.
“Andy, the guy’s last two books were huge best sellers. The movie of the first one became one of the top-grossing pictures of all time. The movie of the second one, which was only routine, did forty million dollars. It’s not about quality; it’s about money and track record.”
“Don’t talk to me about track record,” retorted Mankiewicz. “My old man won four Academy Awards in two years and then went out and made The Honey Pot. I know all about track record.”
Rissner ignored this and turned to me for an opinion. “How would I know?” I waffled. “I turned down the first book. I thought who in Nebraska knows from sharks?”
“But what about the offer?”
“Well,” I said, grateful for a money discussion to get me off the hook of commenting on a book I didn’t like any more than Mankiewicz did, “if you want to make an offer” — I couched it in Rissner’s direction with the second-person pronoun — “it should be as preemptive as possible. Otherwise, we look like pikers. What’s he want – an auction, what?”
“One offer, all terms, sealed bids. He’s submitted the book five places–”
“He says,” Mankiewicz now seemed to be talking to himself since no one else was apparently listening, except maybe Harvey, but it was hard to tell.
Rissner ignored him again. “–five places, expects five bids by the close of business today, and top bid takes it. So the offer has to be the best and farthest we’re willing to go. If we go.”
Andy looked up, puzzled and impatient. “Are we obligated to make an offer?”
“No,” said Rissner, anticipating resistance.
He was rescued by the musings of domestic distribution. “Forty million?”
“Domestic or worldwide?” asked ancillary.
“Domestic, I think.”
Albeck shot sharply: “That was because of big boobies in wet T-shirts. Does this book have boobies?”
Jim Harvey’s placidity seemed suddenly jarred, by the subject matter or Andy’s terminology one couldn’t tell.
“It has boobies and rapes and S and M, and not one word of it has any resemblance to human behavior as we know it!” Mankiewicz chimed in.
Rissner looked bored. “Yes, Andy. It has boobies. Wet ones.”
While Andy mulled this over, frowning, I asked where else the book had been submitted.
“You have to assume to the producers of the first picture and the second picture, if only as courtesy submissions. They would be buying for Universal or Columbia. Then there’s us, probably Fox and … maybe Paramount. Or Warner’s.”
“Danny, you’re close to Warner’s,” said Andy. “Can you ask them what they think?”
“Why would I do that?” said Rissner, appalled. “What difference would it make? Who cares if they like it or hate it? The point is, what do we do? Do we make an offer or not, and if we do, what’s the goddamn offer?”
“I got it,” said Albeck, chastened, gloomy, but instructed.
We voted. Andy agreed; Harvey said nothing.
An offer was framed, approved, and made, as Mankiewicz fumed in uncharacteristic silence. The offer came to slightly more than $2 million for the movie rights, based on a floor price which escalated with performance of the book on best seller lists, in book clubs, and so on; a gross percentage of box-office receipts was added to make the offer unbeatable.
It was beaten.
The producers of the movie made from the author’s first book secured the rights for something closer, it was believed, to $2.5 million. Losing the book was almost a relief. We had demonstrated we had the money, were willing to spend it, and it hadn’t cost a penny.
Two and a half years later, when the movie based on the book was released and landing with a critical and financial thud, I had lunch with Mankiewicz, who had been long gone from UA.
“I told you it was a piece of shit.” He laughed without a trace of a sneer.
“That was never the point, Chris,” I said.
“It should have been.” He smiled.
sheila! there is something of divinity in the timing of this post. i have been itching for a good hollywood expose read and was just going to email you for your recommendations. i recall a book you mentioned about the fiasco behind the making of cleopatra…..what was it called…travesty on the nile sinks 20th century fox? something like that? but the story of heaven’s gate has fascinated me ever since vanity fair did that big story several years ago (perhaps it was an excerpt from this book)?? and the story of bonfire of the vanities! this is exactly the shit i need to read right now.
i miss you!
on a quick separate note…wasn’t cleopatra the movie that was being made concurrently with marilyn’s last pic, something’s gotta give? i seem to recall that the elizabeth taylor movie was hemorrhaging cash and that something’s gotta give was suffering as a result???
Allison – God, I miss you too. Can we have a phone date soon, please? Communicating through my blog comments just will not cut it for me!
In the meantime:
YES. I would say that Final Cut is the best book of its kind that exists. With Devil’s Candy being a close second. Heaven’s Gate is actually not a terrible movie – it’s definitely worth a look – but the behind-the-scenes decisions, and WHY they came about – is so worthy of examination, because Cimino did end up hijacking the studio, and you can see both sides – Steven Bach is not afraid to take the blame, but you can see how things start to go through the looking glass.
One film that brings down United Artists? Unbelievable. READ IT.
And also Devil’s Candy. That book is like participating in a slow-moving trainwreck. You can see all of the elements of disaster from the get-go – the second they cast Tom Hanks in the lead – the second they cast Morgan Freeman as the judge – the second almost every decision was made … but of course, nobody SETS OUT to make a terrible movie. This was Brian De Palma, no slouch, obviously – but that’s why Devil’s Candy is so so fascinating, in a horrible way.
It also makes me happy that Kim Cattrall went on to the huge success that she did because De Palma treated her like SHIT on that film. hahahaha
And the book you are referencing is The Cleopatra Papers – which I don’t believe is in print anymore – but you can buy it on Amazon, I’m sure. It is the memos back and forth of two of the producers of the film, the guys in charge, basically – who watched, as things spun out of control. The studio system was already on its way out – but Cleopatra was the nail in the coffin. And yes, Fox put all of its eggs in the Cleopatra basket and basically punished Monroe in place of punishing Taylor (although Monroe, at the time, was certainly acting out – and disobeying them – but that was part of her issue with the set up – its patriarchal nature, etc.)
The Cleopatra Papers has no objective eye – it is a present-moment documentation, in letter-form, of the entire disastrous Cleopatra shoot (starting off with the terrible decision to film it in England – sunny Rome to be created in rainy England? What were they thinking??) – it’s a very entertaining book.
Miss you tons.
In a slight defense of those who criticize artists who make a little money (I think its true that anyone who doesnt understand a particular industry is more inclined to make blanket criticisms – I see this all the time in regard to the oil industry, yet people have no idea just how much petroleum has impacted their safety, health, and well-being), I think (some) of the criticism is incited when those same artists appear to lecture the “little people out there.” THATS when a lot of ppl get indignant: where does a highly paid artist get off telling people who make the world run how to live their lives/spend their money. Movies are made that slam all sorts of ‘ordinary’ people in stereotypes and stories, and then those ordinary people are further insulted when they won’t support the slams. When the ordinary person (ie those NOT involved in the arts) compares what they go through to contribute to society to the artist who tries to contribute, the urge to tell said artist to ‘kiss off’ becomes irresistable, especially when said artist already holds them in contempt. Maybe Im wrong, and maybe its because I havent been fully engaged in the ‘artistic’ world, but it seems to me the goal of the artist is to get as many people outside his realm to agree with his vision. I don’t know…as I said, I am not fully engaged in the arts so my perspective is way off.
Having said that, its interesting you blogged about this today because on an entertainment blog (I dont know if you visit Big Hollywood) there is a similar article posted today that dovetails with your article here. There is a discussion there as to what really affects what goes on in the industry – both posts offer an insight that a non-artist like me would have.
My apologies, I should preview my post before I hit go – that last sentence should read: “both posts offer an insight that a non-artist like me would NOT have.”
Sharon – Obviously that comment struck a nerve, as it was meant to (not you specifically, but those who have that attitude). I maintain my position. I hear a lot of envy in such comments, as I mentioned, and anger at what they see as the frivolity of the pursuit in the first place, and also – just a flat-out disinterest in artistic conversation. They cannot hold back their contempt – but then they suddenly love John Wayne, because they agree with his politics.
This TYPE of conversation has no interest for me (my comment policy was created to cut it all off at the pass), and I won’t go over it again.
The ongoing fight on my blog early on was to make those who sneered in a kneejerk way at serious conversations about art to feel – not unwelcome, but certainly aware of the fact the normal rules they were used to on the political sites they visited did not apply here. Many couldn’t hack it. They couldn’t do it. I still get mean emails. Oh well.
This is a blog for insiders, I make no bones about it. Insiders meaning: those who love movies and love to talk about them. Or books. Or art. Or at least people who are fans without sneering at the artists who make the work they shell out 12 bucks for.
Most of the people I know are actors, and the business side of it is challenging and stressful and interesting – and I’d rather talk about it without having to defend it as worth talking about.
In terms of lecturing: I am sick of being lectured by those who think Hollywood is a morass of nitwits with no values, when that is not true, first of all, and also: that’s my family you’re talking about. Those are my friends, my people, my community.
It’s no wonder the artistic community “slams” ordinary folks, when ordinary folks have generally treated them with nothing but contempt. Two-way street.
A post I saw on Big Hollywood recently is actually indicative of the kind of ignorant contempt I often see in “ordinary” people. There was a great old reel posted on BH of out-takes of old Hollywood stars, something you don’t normally see. John Wayne, others, doing bloopers. It was totally awesome. You rarely see footage like that – now, of course, directors save EVERYTHING to put on the DVD Special Features, but then? So it was a real treat.
Some person said in the comments section, “When Hollywood had class. When stars had class…”
Now that is the kind of thing I am talking about. It is ignorant, first of all. When exactly did stars have class? Have they ever heard of Fatty Arbuckle? Lana Turner? Robert Mitchum’s shenanigans? Bogart beating his wife? John Wayne swearing like a longshoreman? Carole Lombard saying in an interview that riding a horse was like a “dry fuck”? Let’s see what else. In many ways, the scandals back then were FAR worse than Lindsay Lohan driving with a suspended license, for Christ’s sake.
But the CHIP on the shoulder of that commenter about “Hollywood today” means that he lives in a dreamspace of contempt and envy – where once upon a time, stars “had class”.
Guess he never saw the reel of Carole Lombard’s outtakes on Youtube, peppered with “fucks” and “shits”.
I can’t STAND that attitude – mainly because it is incorrect. It is an unexamined incorrect assumption.
Also, I guess, really boring.
Like, it bores me to tears to hang out with people who talk like that.
So here I try to talk the way I want to talk. Like most other bloggers do, I suppose.
(Oh, and I don’t blame Big Hollywood for the general tone of their commenters, which I find abhorrent, actually. Plenty of sites I visit and love have terrible comments sections. It was just a comment I saw recently that made me think of that VIBE that I don’t like.)
Eh, that’s just ’cause you’re out of touch with the common man, Sheila. ;)
Sports Guy’s suggestion of the VP of Common Sense would be applicable in a wide variety of situations. “Make THAT trade? Pay THIS stiff $15 million per for four years when he openly dogged his way off his last team? Uhm, NO.” Or, “Add a twelfth secret herb and spice? Get bent.” Or, “Dare the press to follow you around looking for scandals? Mr. Hart, I’m not sure about this.”
BUT – I’m not sure about movies. They are already such a collaborative effort, chances are the project already has a VPoCS, maybe more. You’ve shared stories of shows that you knew were trainwrecks even as you were going down in flames night after night. (Some of your best stories, actually.)
For another, how is an average schlub going to get up to speed on even the basics of making a picture or TV show? My friends and I were talking about doing a homemade film… but even leaving aside our day jobs for a minute – say that somebody decided to drop the needed cameras/mikes/rigging/lighting/what-have-you in our lap, pay our mortgages, the whole smorgasboard. I still have to turn my story into a shooting script. We have to wrangle all of our schedules. We have to build props and dress sets, have people show up in the same costumes over the course of however-many days. Then we have to edit all this down into something usable.
Looked at that way, the marvel isn’t that some horrible stuff gets made, but that MORE of it isn’t horrible. And yeah, I’ll still make glorious mock of lousy movies, but man, it’s hard work even to be lousy at it.
Nightfly – It is amazing to me that good movies (let alone masterpieces) are ever made at all.
Because reading these books … again, nobody WANTS to make a bad movie. The thing about Heaven’s Gate was its pretensions – its “importance” – and also the buzz surrounding Cimino at the time – Deer Hunter hadn’t even been released yet – but on the strength of the rumors, he was allowed carte blanche with this project. It’s a fascinating morality tale, actually.
It also makes you yearn for producers who still had SOME connection to the business of art, and weren’t just deal-makers. Steven Bach (the author) was a literate man, had a good understanding of story, no contempt for artists – although he was the money guy – he had to keep things in line – but you really really can see what was lost when producers of that kind were run out of town by dudes with MBAs. Final Cut is really about that. That art vs. commerce thing. Sometimes it works out, sometimes you hit the motherlode with a movie like Jaws or Rocky – sometimes an artistic movie suddenly becomes a huge hit – or a low-budget film makes an enormous profit – and that’s what everyone obviously hopes for.
But the executives you read about in Final Cut are not malicious evil money-grubbing guys. They are honestly trying to do the right thing by United Artists, and things just get totally totally out of hand.
Devil’s Candy (the book that tells the story of filming Bonfire) is another story altogether and well worth reading. The politically-correct police were all over that project from the start, cutting off the power and satire of Tom Wolfe’s vicious book – and dictating everything from the casting to the script. But that was Brian De Palma and you would assume he knew what he was doing – and he did – but it just goes to show you how easy it is to lose your way.
And your paragraph about the “average schlub” … see, that’s another thing: What it takes to get anything done, even on a low level, separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. You need to commit to it. Like a job. WITHOUT getting paid. This is what it means to be an artist. Whether you’re making a low-budget werewolf movie, or a high-end Henry James adaptation.
You have to believe in the unknown and commit to it as though it is real. You have to CREATE.
So no. No room for “average schlubs”. If you want to do it, you have to commit to it.
Have you seen American Movie, Nightfly??? It’s a documentary about a guy dedicated to making horror movies … just a guy in a house with his friends. It borders on painful to watch (almost a Waiting For Guffman type thing, but it’s real) – and at the same time, that’s kind of what I’m talking about. This guy lives in the sticks, with his strange friends, and his even stranger family, who all think he’s crazy – but he has an idea for a gory movie called “Coven” (only he pronounces it COH-ven.) I cannot describe how funny and inspiring and weird and awful the movie it is.
American Movie.
Check it out!
And so yes, those who sneer from the outside at the silliness of the conversation (again: not you, Sharon – I never feel that from you) and how “seriously” the artists take themselves – well, I have no use for them.
I don’t like self-serious people either, and it is fun to mock those who are humorless (ie: Russell Crowe’s recent interviews about Robin Hood being a prime example – lighten up, crankypants!!) but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I’m talking about a post I wrote once here about an acting struggle I had had in an acting class once, something I was working on and trying to get, and having some moron write, “This is why people like me don’t like actors … you’d think this was going to cure cancer.”
That’s the kind of attitude I’m talking about.
No. It’s not going to cure cancer. An acting class will not cure cancer. But if you want to read a blog about curing cancer, then don’t come to a site that is a film site and then bitch about the fact that I’m not writing about the cure for cancer.
This was a huge problem with my site – not so much now – but it still crops up from time to time.
American Movie… will definitely check it out. But first, the book. Books have always been my first love.
Is there a book of American Movie??
Or are you talking about Final Cut?
I’m talking about Final Cut – but I LOVE the sudden enthusiasm in your comment! “American Movie BOOK? GIMME!”
Sorry–I am late to this discsussion, but wanted to add my 2 cents. In the pursuit of artful expression, disasters ARE going to happen. But so are magical successes. It’s when other considerations outside of the pursuit of artful expression that disasters and unartful pieces of crap are MORE likely to happen. This is true of film, music, painting, writing, sculpture, etc. It is in the pushing of the envelope that the future happens. If everyone plays it safe, as so many do today because of financial concerns, then the chances for true art to occur are slim. Personally, I can forgive shooting for the moon and missing much easier than I can forgive playing it safe and blowing an opportunity to say something meaningful and lasting.
For whatever reason, I think of someone like Miles Davis. Now, Miles was undoubtedly a difficult and curmudgeonly individual at times, BUT he was inarguably a genius who NEVER played it safe. That’s why he is going to be remembered and admired hundreds of years from now. Just when he would reach a certain level where too many would think, “I’ve reached the pinnacle. My career is set, and I can live a comfortable, profitable existence the rest of my days,” Miles would change EVERYTHING, and, in doing so, he reinvented Jazz several times in his life. His influence on music and culture in general were significant–perhaps as much as any individual musician of the 20th Century. Note–I am not stupid. I realize there are lots of people about whom that could be said. But Miles belongs in a very select group, and he didn’t get there by being complacent, or being worried about experimenting.
DBW – awesome comment. This is one of the things that is so great about this book – I was chatting about it on Twitter the other day. My apologies, I know that’s an obnoxious comment, but it’s true. These guys took a gamble with Heaven’s Gate – on the basis of Ciminos’ reputation with Deer Hunter – and I totally agree: better to reach for that gold ring than play it safe and make mediocre inoffensive movies. Steven Bach (author of the book) took a chance – many chances – many that he now regrets. United Artists is no more because of some of his decisions. He realizes that.
But the unfolding story on the ground – is so fascinating because you can see how a trainwreck like this happens. and again: all of these people were interested in making a good movie, hell, a GREAT movie – Nobody went into it chuckling with malice, “Hahaha, this movie will suck, and that’ll show ’em”.
There are some movies that are bad, and some movies that are great but go way over-budget and over-time, but then are huge hits (apocalypse now – which was on everyone’s minds at the time) – and then there are these gargantuan trainwrecks that seem to shake the entire industry’s confidence – Heaven’s Gate being the biggest example.
I haven’t seen the film in a long time. It certainly isn’t the worst film ever made – it’s gorgeous, it’s got Jeff Bridges, Christopher Walken, etc. – and you watch it, wondering: “how the hell did this movie, this small movie, sink an entire studio, pulling down the entire structure with it??”
It’s awful, and interesting.
The stories on the other side of movies that nobody believed in – and then became giant hits – (Star Wars, for example) – or movies that were hugely over-budget and then MORE than made up for it in box office profits (Jaws) – these stories keep everyone hooked, like drug addicts or gamblers … hoping that something like that will happen to them.
heaven’s Gate had all the earmarks of a giant important picture – although the red flags were legion. I don’t blame these guys for jumping on board …
But at some point …
Boy oh boy. Things went really wrong. Cimino was out of control. He had nothing but contempt for UA – the ones financing the whole thing – and basically got them to cave to his ridiculous demands – which gave him even LESS respect for them – and he had them by the proverbial balls.
But your point is very well-taken. It takes a little guts (a lot of guts), and imagination, and commitment to the unreal, the not-yet-manifest – that makes art. It’s ephemeral, not ever a done deal … but boy, that’s the hook, that’s what keeps everyone in the game, from executives down to gaffers and extras.
DBW – “Note. I am not stupid.”
Who ever said you were??
The thing about someone like Miles Davis, though, which makes it different from film is that film requires an ARMY of people to get it done. It can make the risk-taking 100% more risky, because these movies can spend millions of dollars a day, just feeding extras and keeping the horses happy and building new buckboards, or whatever. So Cimino’s risk-taking has a level of financial gamble in it that has nothing to do with art – that’s the whole point of Final Cut.
Who was Cimino to thumb his nose at the producers who just wanted him to get it in on schedule dammit? Who was he to ban United Artists – the very ones funding this film – from the location? And on and on …
If this was SELF funded, then that would be one thing.
That’s the interesting thing about Cimino and what he represents. The death of the “auteur”? Not really – but definitely an example of the auteur theory run wildly amok.
To contrast: Woody Allen had a similar crazy deal with UA. He had final cut. He didn’t have to submit his scripts to them for approval. He didn’t allow press on the set. His movies (to this day) barely have titles until they are released – they are just known as Woody Allen Project #3 – or whatever. Now why did UA put up with that from him?
He usually came in UNDER budget, he rarely went over schedule, and he did not play fast and furious with the money allotted to him. And this was relatively early in his career.
Anyway: the difference between an individual genius, who takes risks, and a director – who requires 1000s of people to make his vision come true – is often subtle, but it’s always there. It MUST be a collaboration. It is HUGELY expensive. Even “low budget” films are usually more money than any one individual has seen in his or her lifetime.
The beauty and power of Steven Bach’s book is that it does not sidestep that issue. The executives and producers are not presented as anti-art idiots. As a matter of fact, nowadays the situation is much worse – with guys in charge of productions who don’t give a rat’s ass about art. But the producers back then really gave a shit … and yet: Cimino flipped them off, repeatedly. “Fuck you, and your company.” was his message. They were funding him.
How did that happen?? The book is all about that.
Craziness.
And then there are the examples of other troubled expensive productions (Apocalpyse Now, Reds) that didn’t seem, on the face of it, to work – and people had a hard time believing in – but Coppola and Beatty were DRIVEN MEN, to get THEIR VISION on the screen. Now they both had power by that point, that they could wield – both had proven themselves before … so the money guys felt they could take a risk.
HOWEVER: If Apocalypse Now or Reds had tanked at the box office: the risks would not have been forgiven. It’s one of those gambles in the business that keeps people hooked, and hoping to cash in on something similar.
Reds was filmed in something like 15 different countries. It was about an American COMMUNIST. It involved location shoots in 15 different countries, and a cast of hundreds. It was an absolutely insane project and shouldn’t have worked at all. Beatty MADE it work.
But the real proof is that his vision is actually on the screen. Whatever was in his head, made it on the screen.
Cimino did not manage the same thing. He printed every take (an unheard of and expensive and ridiculous thing to do) – and so putting the film together became nearly impossible with so much material. He was unable to SEE his “vision” anymore … who knows what was going on with him … Heaven’s Gate is certainly not the worst movie ever made. But you look at it, and you cannot see
1. any of the budget that was spent on it. Most of the money was spent off-screen, and if it’s not onscreen, then you’re in big trouble
2. any of the high-flying visionary talk that got the movie green-lit in the first place.
Beatty was fascinated by the creation of the American Left, in the early years of the 20th century. Not exactly blockbuster material, but he could SEE what he wanted to do … and he made it happen, sometimes by sheer willpower.
Cimino lost sight of what he was actually trying to do. His ego made him get sucked into the war with UA, and he forgot that what he was actually supposed to be doing was making a movie.
Beatty took risks, and Reds is one of the most improbable blockbusters of all time. To me, it still is untouchable, in terms of what it looks like, the power of its story, its artistry, its effectiveness – and how I, as an audience member, can keep it all straight. It is breathtaking.
Cimino took risks, but none of that showed on the screen.
What happened in the transfer? Where did he lose his way?
You can see it happening, in the course of the book … you can see how the entire thing beame a runaway train, and UA lost control, but so did Cimino. Beatty managed to keep the entire project cohesive, through multiple countries, and a couple of YEARS of filming and editing …
His risk was translated into cinema through specific and practical choices.
Of course, Reds was in the process of being filming while Heaven’s Gate was happening … so it wasn’t there as a model of success. They were more looking at Cimino’s Deer Hunter and Coppola’s crazy shoot of Apocalypse Now – to keep their belief in the current Heaven’s Gate project.