Today, Michael Cimino’s troubled period epic “Heaven’s Gate” has its fair share of defenders, thanks in large part to a 2012 restored director’s cut and a collective realization that it didn’t deserve the skewering it got upon initial release. But at the time of the Academy Awards, it was still seen as a hulking pile of burning rubble — a thing so powerful and ugly that it brought down an entire studio (United Artists). Woof.
So, it is kind of incredible that it still managed to garner an Oscar nomination, in the form of Best Art Direction / Set Direction (a deserved nomination if there ever was one). Alas, it didn’t win.
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