If it is true that what one loves in life are the things that fade, at least fading is a process that doesn’t happen overnight.
But it literally did just that for the golden age of maverick film directors, barreling through Manhattan on the night of Wednesday, November 19, 1980, bearing a title very appropriate for the many career deaths it would reap, Heaven’s Gate.
Steven Bach, who greenlit this overpriced art film for United Artists, was out of work by 1981. In his memoir about the experience, he explains how good life was, how fast it went, and the razor-thin line between genius and crazy he discovered in Heaven’s Gate director Michael Cimino, known on-set as the Ayatollah and in the corridors of UA by less friendly terms.
