DISAPPEARANCE – Died at the age of 77 years, atypical engineering New Hollywood will finally see open Heaven’s Gate after his the Deer Hunter . His work great too intrusive that has seared the American cinema.
He had not touched a camera for over twenty years. Sunchaser , released in 1995, will remain his last film. Michael Cimino “died peacefully, surrounded by his family and two women who loved him,” said the Director General of the Cannes Film Festival Thierry Fremaux in a tweet dated Saturday, July 2 at 21:52, revealing the news to the French public.
Michael Cimino is, it went at the age of 77. American director as great as abused, this is one of the legendary figures of Hollywood 1970-80, which thus bows, without noise and fury, while her film, The Deer hell , the Year of the Dragon through Lightfoot or even Heaven’s Gate , are gorged.
A “Madmen” spotted by Clint Eastwood
Born in New York February 3, 1939, Michael Cimino is quickly described as “little prodigy of Long Island.” Arts graduate at Michigan State University, he continued his studies at Yale majoring in theater and architecture. But this is the first side of advertising agencies of Madison Avenue (the famous “Madmen” represented in the eponymous series) that made some memorable career directing commercials.
In 1972 yet he puts one foot in the cinema, working in film science fiction Douglas Trumbull (special effects director of the 2001 the space Odyssey Kubrick) Silent Running , with Bruce Dern. This first ecological space opera, which promises to be both Green Sun and Star Wars puts his foot in the stirrup.
Four years later, he was spotted by Clint Eastwood that reads, appreciates and buys the script of a film that will become Lightfoot . Eastwood is totally trust this young man, dressed all in black, who spends his time reading Russian literature, Nabokov’s Pushkin, not to mention Tolstoy or Chekhov Lemontov. The great Clint has launched its Malpaso production company.
He tells Cimino key to the realization of the Lightfoot (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot in the original version). picaresque mid-comedy, part existential road movie and subversive, Cimino’s first movie is an ode to the wild landscapes of the United States. Both soft robbers that are crazy Eastwood and Jeff Brigdes, through the western plains, sowing chaos and making the cannons, in a kind of synthesis between the western amazing to John Ford and the way thriller Don Siegel .
The Deer Hunter anti Apocalypse Now
Fruit atypical New Hollywood continues Cimino his way with an authentic masterpiece, the Deer Hunter ( the Deer Hunter ), made in 1978. the Vietnam war then haunts the America. Following the fate of three characters (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep) caught in the whirlwind of this terrible war, Cimino made a film as violent as masterful, hailed by Hollywood stars, and reap five Oscars, including best director. It’s a bit anti Apocalypse Now Coppola. We will long remember the sequence of Russian roulette, which Spielberg confessed one day Cimino she would remain for him a moment of staging and film tension.
Then comes the time of Heaven’s Gate ( Heaven’s Gate ). Cimino is considered the “ wonder boy American film.” It allocates a special budget of $ 40 million for his allegorical western 3:39, with Isabelle Huppert, Kristopherson Chris and Christopher Walken. ambitious fresco following the life of James Averille and participation in the “war of Johnson County” who lives stand in 1890 of poor immigrants from Eastern Europe facing wealthy Wyoming livestock owners, the film will be a bitter failure, both commercial and critical.
Renaissance with year of the dragon
Cimino then enters the category of damned filmmakers. Some say it comes alone to bury the American film copyright, and that ends the era of New Hollywood. After a long period of purgatory, Cimino back to business as it rises from the ashes with a polar twilight, explosive and violent The Year of the Dragon , released in 1985. Adapted from the book by Robert Daley appeared in 1982, the film features an all income cop, Stanley White, beautifully played by Mickey Rourke, who arrives in Chinatown to stop the wave of violence that swept the Chinese district of New York during the holidays New Year.
Oliver Stone and Cimino troussent relentless script, lyrical, violent, uncompromising. Chinese mafia outcome of Triads is described as far more dangerous than the Italian mafia. Thus the film’s hero, Polish immigrant income traumatized by Vietnam, even if it is the “most decorated cop in the city,” acts as a going to war. His catchphrase, “I want chaos!” Says a lot about the character: Stanley White is fighting that looks like a purifying crusade against organized crime. This is probably why the film will again create controversy to its release, being accused of ‘racist’ movie.
He dreamed of staging a film about the Tour de France
Cimino, all income declared in an interview in 2014 for the Sofilm : “me, I was stuck all labels. I was treated for homophobic Lightfoot , from fascist to The Deer Hunter , racist for The Year of the Dragon , from Marxist to Heaven’s Gate and violent for the Desperate … “
Although the film caused a scandal the year of the Dragon is the last great burst of Cimino. The Sicilian (1987), The Desperate (1990) and Sunchaser (1995) are minor works next to other films that it has signed throughout his career.
his last years, who lived in retirement Cimino movie sets, thought to return behind the camera. He that put pinnacle John Ford, Akira Kurosawa and Visconti Luccino dreamed of staging a film about the Tour de France, adapt Malraux’s novel The Human Condition , and even formed the project make a film in Sioux language.
The chaos got the better of it. Remains a seminal work, disturbing, powerful. A film as precious qu’accidentée that has marked American cinema with a branding iron.
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