Heaven's Gate (1980)

"I saw this one again a few weeks ago in its incredible restored director’s cut. I have always admired Michael Cimino, and I loved Heaven’s Gate when it was released—with some quibbles. Now, I can’t believe I could have had any quibble about this masterpiece. It’s not just that it ages well; it wipes away any doubt: for some reason the passing of time (remember the only genuinely moving tagline ever? What one loves in life are things that fade.) reveals this film as the extraordinary, transcendent triumph I could not see then. And the way it finally reaches us through the echo of time only makes it more moving, heartbreaking, even."

"Was 1979 the year of excess? If we look at Spielberg’s 1941, Landis’s The Blues Brothers, and Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, we see they are very different films made by young American filmmakers whose previous work had given them blank checks. Heaven’s Gate was so brutalized at the time of its release, but all things considered one feels most of the assessments now are actually positive. I think time has been kind to it; it’s an American epic that feels closer to a Soviet experiment than to straight-up Hollywood. And what a great disc this is."