“Heaven’s Gate”: Most Beautiful Movie Ever?
Michael Cimino’s 1980 film “Heaven’s Gate,” an extravagant mega-Western about a little-known range war in 19th-century Wyoming, has gone down in history not for its beauty but for its extravagance. But Dana Stevens says it’s one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. ‘The director who set out to create a new American myth instead wound up being best known for a mythic flop whose $44 million budget — among the largest in history at the time — bankrupted United Artists and, as the studio’s former head of production details in his superb book “Final Cut,” changed forever the relationship of business to art in Hollywood.’
