"Cimino" a biography by Charles Elton

This is a fairly new biography of the elusive director of "The Deer Hunter" and "Heaven's Gate", plus a handful of other less-well-known films.

I found this biography fascinating because Michael Cimino was very private and frequently answered biographical questions in a contradictory fashion, lying about his age, family background, privilege, exaggerating his womanizing, giving the impression he had a daughter when in actuality he didn't (although he was a good "father" to this young woman--the daughter of his longtime business partner and "muse", Joann Careli), trying to take writing credit on screenplays he barely touched, and fibbing to producers in order to keep them away from his movie sets or lead them to believe he was on schedule and keeping to budgets.

I don't want to include any spoilers, but the ending of this book--even though it seems a bit anticlimactic compared to the activity of his early years--is important because it corrects some of the myths that surround him.

"The Deer Hunter" is his most highly-regarded film, but it wasn't his first. He co-authored the science fiction film "Silent Running," directed by Douglas Trumbull (better known for his special FX for "2001", "Close Encounters" and "Bladerunner" than his directorial efforts). His rewrites really did improve upon the plot, resulting in that incredibly poignant movie. He also directed "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" for Clint Eastwood.

As most people know, "Heaven's Gate" was a critical and financial disaster. Originally budgeted in the $7 to $13 million range, it's total cost seems to have been about $44 million. After six days of shooting, it was already five days over. "Heaven's Gate" has undergone a re-appraisal, with some critics who initially loathed the film coming around to seeing it as an achievement. Some critics have called it "a masterpiece." In this book, Elton argues quite sensibly that "Heaven's Gate" was not responsible for bankrupting a studio or ruining Hollywood for auteur directors, although it was used as an excuse by some studios for tamping down on the freedom they extended to great directors. He takes very strong issue with many accusations leveled by Steven Bach in his now-classic book "Final Cut" about the making of "Heaven's Gate." In fact, in some instances Elton makes Bach look somewhat dishonest, hypocritical, and like someone who never took responsibility for his role in "Heaven's Gate," choosing instead to blame not just Cimino but his producer/partner at United Artists, David Field.

Elton glosses over one of my favorite of Cimino's films, "Year of the Dragon," a 1986 feature collaboration with screenwriter Oliver Stone, a film I would have liked to know much more about.

After the failures of both "The Sicilian" and "Sunchaser", Cimino spent the last twenty or so years pretty much a recluse, writing novels and screenplays that never saw the light of day. He continued to be appreciated in France.

During the few excursions he did make outside during this period, people noticed a radical change in his appearance. To an intimate friend, he began to go by the name Nikki Cimino, and may have made an effort to legally change his name from "Michael" to "Michelle." He also seems to have become much more outgoing and pleasant to be around, shrugging off the macho pose he adopted in the 70s and 80s. The author doesn't go so far as to state definitively that Cimino changed his gender because up until Cimino died he denied it (but in a very playful way), but looking at photos of Cimino over those last twenty years, it is very hard not to conclude he had changed in a profound way, not just physically but was becoming more honest, humble and accepting. I'm sure he was also thrilled by the reappraisal of "Heaven's Gate" and the acclaim he experienced in Europe.

This is a totally fascinating book. The author is at his best in cataloguing Cimino's life. I found his analysis of historical trends in cinema less convincing. The changes that overtook the industry in the early 80s ("High Concept" filmmaking) had a number of causes--not solely auteur films that ran grotesquely over budget. I personally think producers have as much ego as directors and resented all the attention directors began to receive in those thrilling years when directors like Coppola, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, and many others became celebrities in their own right. And, of course, money. If you can make a hit out of a horrendous script like "Flashdance" for $7 million, why spend $44 million making a costly historical movie like "Heaven's Gate"?