Heaven's Gate

Heaven's Gateⁱ is pretty useful a piece of failed propaganda, because it makes the collectivist misarguments quite plain. Close to two hundred indictments in four years resulting in but one conviction : that of a man found in possesion of the skin and bones of rustled cattle, convicted of the theft of the skin and bones only, 18 dollars' worth, petty larceny. The boy trying to pass himself for a "grown man" and his fambly for "starving" while he employs in his theft a horse and a pistol. You'd think that people who can afford the implements of professional rustling aren't exactly doing it out of hunger, desperation and despair, I guess. He leaves proferring the typical verbiage of the collectivist ("You're a servant of one of them! I thought you were one of us!", that sort of blather).

The film grossly misrepresents the sexual freedom of poor Russian immigrants to the American Midwest cca 1800. While it's quite probable that some young girl'd have gladly taken a local sheriff for a lover, it's outside the realm of the conceivable that she'd have pranced around naked indoors, let aside outdoors by the river side. Moreover, when her screaming and carrying on over having received a brand new horse & buggy brings out the neighbours, it's beyond incredible that she'd have stuck around, tits out, carelessly wrapped in a piece of bedding (and, for that matter, that said neighbours would have joined in an impromptu party, half the females equally toplessly adorned). Then again, if you're going for libertard bait might as well pretend like cattle thieves cca 1880 are a sort of shoplifters cca 1960. You gotta free your mind, maaaan...

The film grossly misrepresents pretty much anything and everything else. Cattle Kate was not running a brothel at any point. She did work as a cook and seamstress, including for various hotels, but they didn't happen to be brothels (and no matter why you think your stereotypes work with regards to 1880s Wyoming even if they don't work with regards to 2010s New York, you're wrong). She was married to a drunk when she was 25 (Kristofferson's character in the movie), who was never sheriff, nor magistrate, nor educated, nor particularly rich. She was, by the time of her lynching, raising her own cattle on her own farm with the help of some kid she had adopted, and in all likeliness wasn't fucking. She had no French accent, and certainly didn't go around yelling "Arretez!" at people. Remarkable what fount of dumbass stereotypes leftie propaganda can be when it suits, huh. All whores speak French, all western women keep brothels, it's a jamboree already. Also, she wasn't blonde.

Probably the most offensive part of the entire steaming tower of cattle poo is the cheapo symbology employed. It was made in 1980, you see, 100 years after the events. The valedictorian of the imaginary college none of the people actually involved in the events attended is given the part of what both Trotsky and Lenin agree was the "ineffectual intellectual". All the "crafty" stuff is so rough cut it sickens.

The film bombed upon launch, possibly in part also because it runs an unconscionable two hundred and nineteen minutes. Cimino's ambitions to make something that can't be made (ie, aesthetically pleasing leftie propaganda) came out the way such normally comes out : complete confusion of hierarchy, in this case manifested by an inability to discern which scenes need to be cut and by how much. This film could be well repackaged into something about eighty five minutes with no loss whatsoever. In fact it'd greatly benefit by it.

I did make it through over two hours of the muck, so I guess I should get a prize. Outside of forensic stupidology watching this thing is pretty much inexcusable.

1. 1980, by Michael Cimino, with Christopher Walken, Kris Kristofferson. [↩]