Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of "Heaven's Gate"

Heaven's Gate did not merely fail; it sank a studio. Michael Cimino's epic Western became a generic term for disaster, for ego run rampant, for massive mis-calculation, mismanagement and extravagence. Here is a picture budgeted for $7.5 million. Here is a director whose previous film, The Deer Hunter, had won five Academy Awards, following up with a film which was almost universally panned. Less than a month after its second release, United Artists effectively ceased to exist. After Heaven's Gate movies were never made the same way again. Steven Bach had been head Head of Production at United Artists. Final Cut records his experience working on this film. It is a rare, definitive and sometimes breathtaking inside look at modern movie-making, at Hollywood and its people.