Jump to content

Michael Cimino

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nytimes19992000 (talk | contribs) at 15:21, 16 April 2010 (→Other projects). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino (pronounced /tʃɪˈmiːnoʊ/,[1] born February 3, 1939) is an American film director.

Origins

Michael Cimino was born in New York City, New York on either November 16, 1943 (according to his professional biography) or February 3, 1939 (which is more plausible in light of the dates of his degrees). He has also given February 3, 1943 as his date of birth. He graduated from Yale University, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1961,[citation needed] and his masters in 1963.[2]

Early career

With two writing credits to his name (the science fiction film Silent Running and the second Dirty Harry film, Magnum Force), Cimino moved up to directing on the feature Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Cimino's spec script for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot had been purchased by Clint Eastwood's production company, Malpaso. Eastwood was originally slated to direct it himself, but Cimino convinced him to allow him to direct. The film became a solid box office success at the time, making $25,000,000 at the box office with a budget of $4,000,000.[3]

The Deer Hunter

Main article: The Deer Hunter

With the success of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Cimino was able to secure a stellar cast and freedom from studio interference for his second film, The Deer Hunter (1978). The picture became a massive critical and commercial success, and won a number of Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture.

Heaven's Gate

Main article: Heaven's Gate (film)

On the basis of this track record, he was given free rein by United Artists for his next film, Heaven's Gate (1980). The film came in several times over budget; the result not only was a financial disaster that nearly bankrupted the studio, but Heaven's Gate became the lightning rod for the industry perception of the out-of-control state of Hollywood at that time. The film marked the end of the so-called New Hollywood era. Transamerica Corporation, the owner of United Artists, lost confidence in the film company and its management. Transamerica soon sold the company.

Heaven's Gate was such a devastating box office and critical bomb that public perception of Cimino's work was tainted in its wake; the majority of his subsequent films achieved neither popular nor critical success. Many critics who had originally praised The Deer Hunter became far more reserved about the picture and about Cimino after Heaven's Gate. The story of the making of the movie, and UA's subsequent downfall, was documented in Steven Bach's book Final Cut.

Cimino's film was somewhat rehabilitated by an unlikely source: the Z Channel, a cable pay TV channel that at its peak in the mid-1980s served 100,000 of Los Angeles's most influential film professionals. After the unsuccessful release of the re-edited and shortened Heaven's Gate, Jerry Harvey, the channel's programmer, decided to play Cimino's original 219 minute cut. The re-assembled movie received admiring reviews and resulted in the coining of the term "director's cut."

Footloose

In 1984, after being unable to finalize a deal with director Herbert Ross, Paramount Pictures surprisingly offered the job of directing Footloose to Cimino. According to screenwriter Dean Pitchford,[4] Cimino was at the helm of Footloose for four months, making more and more extravagant demands in terms of set construction and overall production. Paramount realized that it potentially had another Heaven's Gate on its hands. Cimino was fired and Ross was brought on to direct the picture.

This episode, though seemingly trivial, had far-reaching effects for Cimino's career. Within the film industry, he was perceived as not having learned his lesson with Heaven's Gate.[citation needed] In fact, executives came to the conclusion that, given the chance, Cimino would again make extravagant demands that might ultimately lead to another debacle.[citation needed] All his subsequent films would be financed independently.

Other projects

Cimino had signed a multi-picture deal with United Artists in 1979. Heaven’s Gate was the first production but most of the other films that were supposed to follow were not made due to the former film’s failure. Cimino has been attached to many projects since Heaven’s Gate, but his reputation either precluded him from being hired or led to him ultimately being removed from production.

Cimino wrote a script for The Fountainhead, based on the novel by Ayn Rand. He wrote 27 drafts of this screenplay and it was previously optioned by UA in 1975. Filming was to begin after Heaven’s Gate, but was scrapped by United Artists.

Cimino wrote the script for The Dogs of War starring Christopher Walken and was also signed to direct but subsequently abandoned the project. The film was eventually made with a heavily rewritten script in 1980.

Cimino co-wrote the screenplay The Life and Dreams of Frank Costello with James Toback and went through pre-production on the film with three different studios (UA, Warners, and Dino De Laurentiis) from 1979 to 1989. The film never went into production.

Perfect Strangers was a love story written by Cimino and was to be produced by David Picker. The script went into pre-production at Paramount but was ultimately dropped.

Cimino took over the Mutiny on the Bounty project after David Lean quit but was removed from production after the failure of Heaven’s Gate. Lean had been one of a number of directors asked by United Artists to take over the directing duties of Heaven’s Gate when it spiraled over budget.

He wrote a script, Pearl, about the life of Janis Joplin which was rewritten several times and eventually became The Rose. Cimino returned to do script polishing for no credit.

Cimino was the original director for the film adaptation The Dead Zone but was fired by the studio at the behest of Stephen King due to creative differences over the rewriting of the script.

Cimino filled in for director Stuart Rosenberg towards the end of production on The Pope of Greenwich Village when Rosenberg fell ill. The finished film was solely credited to Rosenberg.

He co-wrote a biopic about the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky with Raymond Carver. This was optioned by Columbia Pictures, but never went into production.

Cimino wrote an adaptation of the French bicycle marathon novel The Yellow Jersey with Dustin Hoffman committed and slated to go into production at Lorimar in 1985 but was dropped.

He wrote an adaptation of Truman Capote’s short story Hand Carved Coffins for Dan Rissner at MGM and was set to direct after Year of The Dragon, but the project was dropped after Rissner was fired from the studio.

Cimino wrote a script and was involved in pre-production work on Michael Collins for over a year with Gabriel Byrne attached to star in the early 1990s. Cimino was fired over budget concerns and was replaced by Neil Jordan.

Later career

Cimino directed a 1985 crime drama, Year of the Dragon, which he and Oliver Stone adapted from Robert Daley's novel. In recognition, Cimino was made an honorary Colonel in the Royal Thai Air Force. However, Year of the Dragon was also nominated for five Razzie awards, including Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. The film was sharply criticized for providing offending stereotypes about Chinese Americans.

The advertising campaign for Year of the Dragon made frequent references to Cimino's hit film The Deer Hunter.

He directed The Sicilian from a Mario Puzo novel in 1987 and the remake of the Humphrey Bogart film The Desperate Hours in 1990, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mickey Rourke. Rourke also appeared in Heaven's Gate and Year of the Dragon.

Cimino's last film was 1996's The Sunchaser with Woody Harrelson and Jon Seda.

In 2001, Cimino published his first novel, Big Jane. Later that year, the French Minister of Culture decorated him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

Man's Fate

Cimino is currently said to be in pre-production for Man's Fate based on the award-winning existential novel by André Malraux. Chris Solimine is confirmed to have written the screenplay an the cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Alain Delon, Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Uma Thurman[5].

Interviews

Interviews with Cimino are rare, and he gives his part in the Heaven's Gate ordeal very little discussion. George Hickenlooper's book Reel Conversations and Peter Biskind's highly critical book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls deal with the film and resulting scandal. Hickenlooper's book includes one of the few candid discussions with Cimino; Biskind focuses on events during and after the production as a later backdrop for the sweeping changes made to Hollywood and the movie brat generation. Steven Bach, a former UA studio executive, wrote Final Cut (1985), which describes in detail how Heaven's Gate brought down United Artists.

The European DVD release of The Deer Hunter contains an audio commentary with Cimino, as does the American version of Year of the Dragon.

Controversy

Age

Cimino has given various dates for his birth, including February 3, 1939, February 3, 1943, and November 16, 1943.

Military service

During the production of The Deer Hunter, Cimino had given co-workers (such as cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and associate producer Joann Carelli) the vague impression that much of the storyline was biographical, somehow related to the director’s own experience and based on the experiences of men he had known during his service in Vietnam. Just as the film was about to open, Cimino gave an interview to The New York Times in which he claimed that he had been “attached to a Green Beret medical unit" at the time of the Tet Offensive of 1968. When the Times reporter, who had not been able to corroborate this, questioned the studio about it, studio executives panicked and fabricated “evidence” to support the story.[6] (Universal Studios president Thom Mount commented at the time that "I know this guy. He was no more a medic in the Green Berets than I’m a rutabaga.")[citation needed]

Four months later Tom Buckley, a veteran Vietnam correspondent for the Times, corroborated that Cimino had done a stint as an Army medic, but that the director had never been attached to the Green Berets. Cimino's active service – just six months in 1962 – had been as a reservist who was never deployed to Vietnam.[7] Cimino’s publicist reportedly said that he intended to sue Buckley, but he never did.

Filmography

Director

Director and Writer

Writer only

Pre-production

References

  1. ^ Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures
  2. ^ http://www.observer.com/node/45582
  3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072288/business
  4. ^ Shall We Footloose?
  5. ^ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/427672/Man-s-Fate/details
  6. ^ Biskind, Peter, "The Vietnam Oscars." Vanity Fair, March 2008.
  7. ^ Buckley, Tom, Harper’s, April 1979.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Michael_Cimino&oldid=356392937"