• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

    Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request

Heaven's Gate: The 2nd Director's Cut by TM2YC

Thread re-acivated.

I'm about two fifths through this already, so it's about time I got the rest done :).

By the way, I notice that Kris Kristofferson is working on another historical-western Directed by Oscar-nominee Roland Joffe called 'Texas Rising'.
 
Made a good bit of progress yesterday, about halfway through now and got to one of the most radically different parts of Cimino's second cut. It's a lot of fun (In a nerdy way) reconstructing this version as you can see exactly what has been changed and why...

1st DC Running Order:
1. Picnic Scene (6.5 minutes) - Averill tells Ella that the government has declared war on Johnson County. He asks her to leave. She calls him a "Son of a bitch" and the scene ends with them talking in nihilistic terms about aging and death (A Very long and often tiresome scene).
2. Roller Disco (5 Minutes) - Very fun sequence but it goes on too long, Jim seems to be missing and it feels odd that they are partying just after the deadly secret has been revealed.
3. Waltz (3.5 Minutes) - Again a wonderful scene where Jim and Ellla share a romantic slow dance but it's too long.
4. Talk by the Lake (1 Minute) - Jim again asks Ella to leave Johnson County

2nd DC Running Order:
1. Roller Disco (4 Minutes) -Now contains many insert shots of Averill watching the community dance from the bandstand. We see the looming threat is troubling him, but he eventually joins in the celebration. It is now made clear through extra dialogue that the party is in aid of Ella's birthday and Jim doesn't want to spoil her day.
2. Waltz (2.5 Minutes) - A shorter but still lovely dance where it is further made clear that it is Ella birthday and the special dance is for her - "Talk by the Lake" scene is removed entirely and instead we cut to...
3. Picnic Scene (3 minutes) - Much shorter and very different scene. Now placed post birthday party, we see that Jim finally can't put off the bad news any longer and tells Ella of the danger. She undersands and it ends with new footage of them silently embracing.

Here is the alternate cut of the 'Picnic Scene'. I've coloured the new shots B&W just to show what has been added...


(Password: fanedit.org)

This is so obviously a superior and more logical cut of 'Heaven's Gate', that it is truly bizarre that Cimino has chosen to forget about it.
 
I decided from the get-go that I wouldn't cut between the two sources mid-shot on this project. If the SD-DVD had a longer take then I'd use the hole shot from the DVD and lose the shorter Blu-Ray shot. I thought it would be distracting as I could only match the two up to a point.

But I don't know now, I had a go on this one shot...


(password: fanedit.org)

...and I don't think it's at all distracting. It's obviously nice to use as much of the HD source as possible as it makes up 80% of the shot. What does anybody think?

I might try it with some other shots and see if I can match it as closely as that.

By the way, this extra bit of footage at the end makes all the difference, as in this cut John Hurt appears to vanish like a ghost, which is very nice.
 
Only a quarter of the film-left to recut now :). Then I'm gonna go back and try blend in as much HD footage as I can in the extended shots, as so far my experiments are looking pretty seemless (IMO). It's a real pleasure to do a fanedit with no audio editing I must say :p.
 
I thought I'd have finished this edit already but then I got to the lengthy battle scene :shock:.

The rest of this version is a fairly radical recut, but for the battle, I think Cimino must have just picked apart the negative and started from scratch. Because there is barely a single shot that is left uncut, shortened/lengthened, replaced or rearranged. So you can imagine that for a rapidly edited 20-minute action sequence, that's a lot of work to reproduce.

Still it's gonna be awesome and well worth it to get to watch this in HD :).
 
TM2YC said:
I thought I'd have finished this edit already but then I got to the lengthy battle scene :shock:.

The rest of this version is a fairly radical recut, but for the battle, I think Cimino must have just picked apart the negative and started from scratch. Because there is barely a single shot that is left uncut, shortened/lengthened, replaced or rearranged. So you can imagine that for a rapidly edited 20-minute action sequence, that's a lot of work to reproduce.

Still it's gonna be awesome and well worth it to get to watch this in HD :).
Click to expand...

I must say your dedication is truly inspiring. Heaven's Gate is a favorite of mine and both of your edits are important for historical and personal reasons. Keep up the good work here!
 
Yay! Finished editing the Blu-Ray :).

"Just" need to go back and adjust the colour-grading on all the 2ndDC-DVD-Sourced shots. I've spent an hour today regrading the final 12-second shot of the project but hopefully they won't all take that long.

Here is the timeline (Click image for full size)...



...so, as you can see, Cimino's second cut is almost a whole different (and better) film. The top two video tracks are the Blu-Ray footage, the bottom one is all the DVD shots/scenes that are unique to this version of the film.
 
Here is a comparison clip of one shot I've had to blend sources on...


(Password: fanedit.org)

There's a number of shots I'm doing this on (Rather than just swapping in the SD version) to maximise the amount of HD footage on screen.
 
Rendered out finished project and about to convert to an *.mp4. Then I can finally watch this cut for the first time and of course check for errors...

tumblr_mpa4jsaYWM1s7iasho1_1280.jpg


If all goes well then this fanedit should be released next weekend :).
 
Nice! Really looking forward to this one! Just the thought of the 216 minutes cut is enough to put me to sleep, but more importantly the revisionism going on now is borderline sickening and being able to watch the 1981 director's cut in good quality is important to avoid making the same band-wagon mistake people made in 1980. I want to decide for myself. And thanks to you, I can. :)

Btw, out of curiosity... do you have any good sources that says Cimino was happy with this cut in 1981? There's obviously heavy revisionism going on now, with Criterion and Cimino glossing over the fact that HG used to be near-universally hated by not including any extras that explicitly mention this. For that reason I find it it hard to sift through both the band wagon hate of 1980 and the unquestioning adulation of 2013 to uncover the actual truth of what went down. (Especially since a lot of people have belatedly realised that the critics, by going all out in their hate, actually did the big studios' bidding by helping the studios effectively end the Hollywood Auteur era, but that's a different story.)

From all accounts it seems the 219 minute original cut was a rush job, and not really finished. Then again, it's interesting that the 149 minute cut was really badly received too, though. (Wikipedia claims this is the version Roger Ebert panned upon release, although the date on rogerebert.com (which again could be wrong) would suggest otherwise. I know Variety reviewed the long version, so it could just be that Wikipedia is wrong.) It seems everybody wanted the second cut to fail anyway, so I'm not surprised Cimino claims to hate it today. (Although I don't know why he would want to re-release the original 219 minute cut that effectively killed his career either.) Is there, say, a less biased 1981 source that says anything about whether or not he was happy with the second cut?
 
theslime said:
Do you have any good sources that says Cimino was happy with this cut in 1981?
Click to expand...

I'm largely going by the excellent documentary 'Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate' which you can watch on YouTube...


...in which the narrator (Willem Dafoe) reads extracts from the letter Cimino addressed to the UA President asking for the 1st preview Cut to not be released. I could never find a copy of the letter online but by freeze-framing the documenary I could read it and write out a copy...

Mr. Andy Albeck
President
United Artists Corp
729 Seventh Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10019

Dear Andy,

As you know, for many months we have been locked in an around-
the-clock effort to meet the November release date which we
all wanted for "HEAVEN'S GATE". My editorial crew has adhered
to this schedule valiantly, with dedication and without com-
plaint, and, forgoing the usual time-tested work-in-progress
previews, we were able to meet our commitment to exhibitors.

It is painfully obvious to me that the pressures of this sche-
dule and the missing crucial step of public previews clouded
my perception of the film. Thus unable to benefit and learn
from audience reaction, we rushed to completion.

So much energy, time and money have gone into the making of
"HEAVEN'S GATE" that I am asking you to withdraw the film from
distribution temporarily to allow me to present to the public
a film finished with the same care and thoughtfulness with
which we began it.

I am only too aware of the emotional difficulty and various
complications of such an extraordinary step, but I believe
that we have learned an invaluable lesson from our very first
public showing. I want to do everything possible for "HEAVEN'S
GATE" to achieve it's widest audience around the world.

Once again, I call on your remarkable faith, understanding and
cooperation.

Sincerely,
Michael Cimino
Click to expand...

(Suspicously on the recent European release of HG, the documentary is included but the shot of the letter has been edited out).

But, I've not read anything concrete where Cimino later states that the 2nd Cut was his personally prefered version but it was certainly the way he intended the public to see HG in April 1981. To me, it seems unlikely that a Director would volantarily spend another half a year working on a film and the outcome to not be their prefered version? Regardless of the truth, the 2nd cut is at least equally valid as the 1st cut.

It's possible that Cimino only made the 2nd Cut after the extremly negative reception to the 1st and not because he thought there was anything wrong with it. But as far as I'm aware the film was only pulled at his request (As the letter shows), otherwise UA would have gone ahead and released Cimino's 1st cut as they were legally contracted to do (He had in writing, that if he met the November 1980 release date, UA couldn't cut a frame).

theslime said:
Iit's interesting that the 149 minute cut was really badly received too, though. (Wikipedia claims this is the version Roger Ebert panned upon release, although the date on rogerebert.com (which again could be wrong) would suggest otherwise. I know Variety reviewed the long version, so it could just be that Wikipedia is wrong.) It seems everybody wanted the second cut to fail anyway
Click to expand...

Interesting about the Ebert review, thanks. As you say, if the date on his site is true it cannot have been a review of the 2nd Cut. I think all the critics at the time were just competing to see how much they could slate a film, as one says something like "there is nothing good I can say about the film". Which is nonsense, as the soundtrack by David Mansfield and the cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond are amazing (The art-direction was also Oscar nominated). As you point out, it's ironic that by destroying HG in the press, the critics helped usher in the era of glitzy-studio-manufactured-blockbusters that they've complained about ever since.
 
That's incredibly illuminating! Thanks! And thanks for typing it out. Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what people on the internet seem to think went down. (Final Cut is on my list, but I wanted to wait for your version of this so I could properly appreciate HG as a film before I delved more into the history bits.)

First I thought 1 January 1981 was a placeholder date for the Ebert review (as is often the case when you don't have the exact date), but based on the Variety review being published on December 31 1980 (and definitely covering the first cut), I'm beginning to think there was a press screening during Christmas and that the review date is accurate - and hence that Wikipedia is inaccurate (shocker!).
 
One thing I forgot to mention in support of the idea that the 2ndDC was absolutely Cimino's prefered cut (And not something he was forced to do in any way), is the fact that he created the 2nd Cut by efectively destroying the negative-version of the 1st Cut. This is stated in the liner notes of the Criterion Blu-Ray.

Everytime I've made a cut in the project I had to remove (at least) 1 frame from the start of the shot beginning the cut, to recreate the effect of physically splicing the two bits of film together. So all those little bits of negative do not exist anymore. If Cimino had held any attactment to the 1st Cut back in 1981, wouldn't he have made the 2nd Cut from a copy?
 
You mentioned that in the beginning of the thread, I think. It's a good point. You could argue that the letter is obviously written in full disaster mode, and that he probably was too heartbroken to care about the negative at that point and wanted to save what little could be saved by at least making it shorter. But I think your interpretation is more likely.

Really interesting that the letter is gone from the documentary. That's really beyond revisionism.
 
theslime said:
You could argue that the letter is obviously written in full disaster mode, and that he probably was too heartbroken to care about the negative at that point and wanted to save what little could be saved by at least making it shorter.
Click to expand...

This is a good argument and could easily be true. I guess only a time-machine and a mind-meld would be able to truly figure out what Cimino's thoughts were in 1981.

On another subject...

While watching the render of the project I noticed that a few frames in one shot had this crazy blue noise over them...



...so I thought damn a problem with the render :oops:. Went back to the timeline and it was there, went back to the source rip and it was there too. Pulled out the Criterion Blu-Ray and it was there as well and I'd never noticed it before. Probably because I was dosing off during watching the long-cut ;-) and it was only the fact that I was really enjoying this shorter cut that caused me to spot it!

But the plot thickens, because I then pulled out my UK Second-Sight-Label Blu-Ray and it was gone. A rare f**k-up from Criterion in the mastering department... oops. Needless to say I've swapped the clean shot into my timeline and will re-render.
 
TM2YC said:
While watching the render of the project I noticed that a few frames in one shot had this crazy blue noise over them...

Click to expand...

Looking at your example frame the "blue noise" it seems to have some uniform holes/slots to the right hand side making it look a little like some sort of negative reflection. Not sure if thats possible during the mastering process or most probably just a coincidence. Maybe me seeing something that isn't even there...... :confused:
 
sgp1428 said:
Looking at your example frame the "blue noise" it seems to have some uniform holes/slots to the right hand side making it look a little like some sort of negative reflection.
Click to expand...

That occured to me too as the right hand side do look like bits of film. I imagine that the three-strip film was realigned digitally so perhaps the computer miscalculated the positioning of the blue record for those few frames? However the rest of the frame looks coloured correctly, and the overlayed blue thing doesn't look like that frame, so maybe this is not the case?

Perhaps this was a problem with the Criterion master-scan and they just fixed those frames before the UK Blu-Ray came out a year later? Maybe they've fixed it the latest copies of the Criterion Blu-Ray too?
 
TM2YC said:
Perhaps this was a problem with the Criterion master-scan and they just fixed those frames before the UK Blu-Ray came out a year later? Maybe they've fixed it the latest copies of the Criterion Blu-Ray too?
Click to expand...

I see what you mean. Reading one of your posts earlier in this thread you mention how The Blu-Ray is sourced not from the O-Neg but from the colour seperation masters, so maybe it was that process that caused this blue noise.
Anyways handy you have several releases of the movie........:thumb:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom