Michael Cimino

Born on February 3, 1939 into an Italian-American family – he is the son of a record publisher and a fashion designer – New Yorker Michael Cimino was considered a child prodigy in the private schools his parents sent him to. as a child. But he grew into a troubled teenager who got into fights, surrounded himself with bad company and often came home drunk.

After studying Graphic Arts at the University of Michigan, he graduated in Painting from Yale, one of the most valued campuses in the United States. When he finished his studies he returned to his hometown, where he was working as a director of commercials. “I met some guys who were making a living by shooting commercials, and they were surrounded by pretty girls, so the next thing I know, I was working on the same thing myself,” Cimino recalls. In the advertising world he met Joann Carelli, also an advertising director, with whom he fell in love. Over the course of 30 years, he had an intermittent relationship with her, with various breakups and reconciliations.

It was Carelli who suggested Michael Cimino move to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker, although once they settled in the city he would take his first steps in the Seventh Art as a screenwriter. “Back then you only had a chance to direct if you had a script that a star was interested in. I didn’t have enough money to buy the rights to any books, so I decided to become a screenwriter.” The plan worked almost perfectly for him, because after he was hired to write Mysterious Ships and Strong Harry , the second installment of Dirty Harry , he managed to impress the protagonist of this second film, Clint Eastwood , who bought him his script forA loot of $500,000 through Malpaso, his production company. Eastwood, who had just made his directorial debut with Chill in the Night and Hell of Cowards , hoped to direct this film as well, but Michael Cimino managed to convince him to change his mind and allow him to make his directorial debut.

The film, in which Eastwood plays a retired robber who goes on a hit again along with a young playboy he takes on as a ward – Jeff Bridges – was a notable success (it cost $4 million and grossed $25), and even earned an Oscar nomination (Bridges for Supporting Actor). Thus, Cimino was in a position to demand a large budget for his second job that allowed him to gather a solid cast. The Hunter was going to star Robert De Niro –already a big star at that time–, accompanied by Christopher Walken , Meryl Streep , John Savage and John Cazale .

Already during the filming of The Hunter , Michael Cimino began to carve out a certain reputation as a conflicting director. He rewrote the script himself after removing Deric Washburn from the project , and the original authors, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker , who asked the Screenwriters Guild for their intercession. This body decided that it was fair to put them all in the credit titles. He also confronted the production company, Universal, because the executives wanted to remove John Cazale from the film, since he suffered from terminal bone cancer and they feared that he would pass away before finishing filming. They agreed to keep him inside him because his girlfriend, Meryl Streep, threatened to leave them planted, but the shooting schedule had to be changed, bringing forward the Cazale sequences, which considerably delayed the completion of the film.

In addition, the director insisted that his three-hour production be released. The producer demanded a cut version and organized test runs of both alternatives. Cimino decided to bribe the projectionist so that there would be unexpected interruptions when the shortest one was projected, thus influencing the rating of the public recruited for the test.

The excellent film about three hunting friends who work together in a steel mill before leaving for the Vietnam War was a huge box office success. The hunter the great winner of the Oscars in 1979, winning five awards in the categories of film, director, supporting actor ( Christopher Walken ), editing and sound. After the gala, the film crew, Cimino included, had to leave the auditorium through the back door under police custody, faced with the threat of extremist groups that were waiting at the door, disappointed by the image that the film gave of American soldiers. .

The end of the authors in Hollywood

It took four Hollywood greats – Charles Chaplin , Douglas Fairbanks , Mary Pickford and David Wark Griffith – to found United Artist. But Michael Cimino took down the company all by himself, without anyone’s help.

After the excellent box office results of The Hunter , the legendary producer decided to give it a free hand for its next project, Heaven’s Gate , a western starring Kris Kristofferson , John Hurt , Isabelle Huppert , Brad Dourif , Sam Waterston , a young Mickey Rourke and veteran Joseph Cotten . In addition, Cimino recovered Christopher Walken and Jeff Bridges. It focused on the adventures of two friends (Kristofferson and Hurt) who, twenty years after graduating from Harvard, each end up on a different side, in an unfortunate historical episode, when a landowners association organized a manhunt for 125 troublesome immigrants. those they accused of stealing cattle.

The shooting was complicated to the unthinkable. Cimino clashed with technicians and actors – to the point of earning the nickname ‘the ayatollah’ – and exceeded the estimated time of filming, without being able to explain for sure when it was going to end, which multiplied the costs up to 44 million euros. Dollars. This figure made it the most expensive production filmed so far. Since they were mortgaging the company (they had put in so much money that either the film was successful or they were out) the executives wanted to see at least what Cimino was shooting, but he came to change the locks in the editing room so that no one could. review your work. He finally told his bosses good news – it was finished – and bad news – the final cut lasted five hours and a bit, unthinkable for a conventional distribution.

It was decided to cut it down to a 149-minute montage, which nevertheless puzzled the public. After a masterly ‘Viscontinian’ start –the Harvard graduation of the two protagonists, with the sensible speech of the reverend played by Joseph Cotten– , the rest of the film seems confused, clipped and lacking in strength. It is not surprising that it received terrible reviews and that it did not even raise 4 million (it had required an investment of 11 times that amount).

Someone thought that when the Oscars arrived, a shower of awards could renew the public’s interest in the film. But he only got one nomination, for best artistic direction. The result was that United Artist went bankrupt, only going ahead because MGM bought it out, turning it into a subsidiary. Years later, a more complete version of 219 minutes was put into circulation, which for many authors allows a much better understanding of what Cimino wanted to tell with this pretentious film.

The crash of Heaven’s Gate marked the end of the era of star authors in Hollywood. The ‘majors’ realized that it was better for them to have a mercenary director on their payroll – who would replace genius with professional behavior – than an uncontrolled prestigious artist whose move could go wrong.

Contrary to what one might think, this resounding failure does not completely explain the end of Michael Cimino ‘s career . Shortly after, some risky Paramount executives decided to hire him – after all, he was responsible for The Hunter – to shoot Footloose , the film that Kevin Bacon would star in , as a teenager who moves to a town where rock music has been banned. . Cimino was in charge of the project for four months, but during that time he did not stop asking for absolute freedom and exaggerated budget increases to build grandiose sets, to the point that his bosses began to fear that the story of Heaven’s Gate would repeat itself . Finally, they fired him.

He managed to get hired for Mutiny on the Ship , The Dead Zone and The Thirst for Power , but he was quickly removed from shooting all three, due to his extravagant demands. From that moment, Cimino carried forever the label of not having learned the lesson after having sunk United Artist. This practically closed the doors of the studies.

In 1985, producer Dino de Laurentiis put him in charge of directing Manhattan South . Michael Cimino himself co-wrote the screenplay with then-upcoming Oliver Stone , adapted from a Robert Daley novel . He brought back Mickey Rourke to play a cop fighting the Chinese mafia. The violent but interesting film did well at the box office, but raised a huge controversy, as the filmmaker was accused of racism for his stereotypical portrayal of Chinese-Americans.

With independent companies, Cimino was able to finish three more films: The Irregular The Sicilian (based on a novel by Mario Puzzo), 37 Desperate Hours (remake of Desperate Hours , by William Wyler ) and Sunchaser (thriller about an Indian who kidnaps a doctor ). None of them had much impact at the box office, so the director completely disappeared from the world of cinema.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Michael Cimino became a novelist. The French government awarded him the Chevallier des Artes et des Letres medal. In his public appearances he showed a strange makeover, with an unrecognizable face, rejuvenated by surgery, and so ambiguous that it has given rise to various speculations, according to one of which he had changed his sex and lived in Paris under the name of elizabeth.

A restored version of Heaven’s Gate was screened at the 2012 Venice Film Festival , and Michael Cimino received the Persol Award, for his entire career.