Cimino's new (or restored) cut of his 1980 revisionist western Heaven's Gate is a triumph. Critically flattened on its release for being pompous and bloated, the film is still both of those things, but not in any measure that hurts it. Instead, Heaven's Gate is a movie that should be lauded for its ambition; for its beauty too, and its scope.
As a revisionist western, Heaven's Gate can hold it with the best. It's complex, but it's also bold and broad-shouldered. It's epic, and runs rich with textures of struggle and authenticity deep-rooted in its story. It's sweeping, and still manages the small moments. The film's at times impossibly pretty; its every frame cloudy and hazed in dark frontier-dreaming. It's a magnificent achievement, even if it's not perfect. It's a little bit of Peckinpah, and a lot like the moody, elegiac mood of Cimino's previous effort, The Deer Hunter.
