Michael Cimino

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Michael Cimino ( chi-MEE-noh; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and author. Born in New York City, he graduated with a BA in graphic arts from Michigan State University in 1959 and a BFA and MFA from Yale University in 1961 and 1963 and began his career filming commercials.

He moved to Los Angeles to take up screenwriting in 1971.

After co-writing the script of Magnum Force and Silent Running he wrote the preliminary script Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Clint Eastwood read the script and sent it to his personal production company, which allowed Cimino to direct the film.

After its success, Cimino co-wrote, directed, and produced the 1978 Academy Award-winning film The Deer Hunter.

His next film, Heaven's Gate (1980), proved to be a financial failure.

Cimino directed four films after Heaven's Gate, and all failed commercially.

Early life

Cimino was born in New York City on February 3, 1939. A third-generation Italian-American, Cimino and his brothers grew up with their parents in the town of Westbury, on Long Island, New York. He was regarded as a prodigy at the private schools to which his parents sent him, but rebelled as an adolescent by consorting with delinquents, getting into fights, and coming home drunk. Of this time, Cimino described himself as

His father was a music publisher. Cimino says his father was responsible for marching bands and organs playing pop music at football games.

His mother was a costume designer. After he made The Deer Hunter, she said that she knew he had become famous because his name was in The New York Times crossword puzzle.

Cimino graduated from Westbury High School in 1956. He entered Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. At Michigan State, Cimino majored in graphic arts, was a member of a weightlifting club, and participated in a group to welcome incoming students. He graduated in 1959 with honors and won the Harry Suffrin Advertising Award. He was described in the 1959 Red Cedar Log yearbook as having tastes that included blondes, Thelonious Monk, Chico Hamilton, Mort Sahl, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and "drinking, preferably vodka."

In Cimino's final year at Michigan State, he became art director, and later managing editor, of the school's humor magazine Spartan. Steven Bach wrote of Cimino's early magazine work:

At Yale, Cimino continued to study painting as well as architecture and art history and became involved in school dramatics. In 1962, while still at Yale, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve. He trained for five months at Fort Dix, New Jersey and had a month of medical training in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Cimino graduated from Yale University, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1961 and his Master of Fine Arts in 1963, both in painting.

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Career

Cimino's graduation from Yale, he went to Madison Avenue advertising and became a television commercial director. Among other items, he shot ads for L'eggs hosiery, Kool cigarettes, Eastman Kodak, United Airlines, and Pepsi. "I encountered some people who were doing fashion stuff – both commercials and stills." "And there were these amazingly beautiful girls," Cimino said. "And then, zoom," I'm thinking about is the next thing I know, "I was directing commercials overnight." For example, Cimino directed the 1967 United Airlines commercial "Take Me Along" (transferred from a short-lived Broadway musical) to a group of men, presumably their husbands, in order to carry them on a flight.

The commercial is brimming with dynamic graphics, American symbolism, and elaborate set layout that have made Cimino's trademark. Cimino was loved by the agencies' customers," said Charles Okun, his production manager from 1964 to 1978. "His pictures were spectacular, but the amount of time it took was just ridiculous." He was so precise and took so long. Michael, it was not straightforward. Cimino met Joann Carelli, then a commercial director representative, through his commercial career. They began a 30-year relationship on a back-and-again basis.

Cimino began writing in 1971 in Los Angeles and began as a screenwriter. It was Carelli who introduced him to screenwriting, according to Cimino: "Joann] actually talked to me about it." I'd never really written anything before. I don't think of myself as a writer. By [1978], I've probably written thirteen to fourteen screenplays, but I don't think of myself that way. However, that's how I make a living." "I started writing screenplays mainly because I didn't have the funds to buy books or to option properties," Cimino said. At that time, you only had a chance to direct if you owned a screenplay, which some actors wanted to do, and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot were exactly what happened.

Cimino obtained assistance from William Morris Agency Stan Kamen. Clint Eastwood, who acquired it for his production company, Malpaso, gave Cimino a chance to direct the film. Cimino co-wrote two scripts (Silent Running and Eastwood's second Dirty Harry film Magnum Force) before going to directing. Cimino's Thunderbolt and Lightfoot impressed Eastwood enough to request him to work on Magnum Force's script before Thunderbolt and Lightfoot were released.

Cimino rose to direct Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Clint Eastwood stars as a Korean War soldier named "Thunderbolt" who brings a young drifter named "Lightfoot," played by Jeff Bridges, under his wing. When Thunderbolt's old friends try to locate him, he and Lightfoot make a deal with them to capture one of the last major heists. Eastwood had intended to control it himself, but Cimino was able to persuade Eastwood enough to change his mind. The film was a big box office success at the time, grossing $25,000,000 at the box office, earning Bridges an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

"I owe everything to Clint," a smoker later said.

Cimino said he received a lot of calls during Thunderbolt and Lightfoot's popularity, but decided against taking a gamble. I would only get involved with causes I really wanted to do." Before pitching an exciting Vietnam War film to EMI executives in November 1976, he turned down several offers before pitching an exciting Vietnam War war film. EMI accepted the film, much to Cimino's surprise. Cimino continued to co-produce, co-produce, and direct The Deer Hunter. Three friends in a Pennsylvania steel mill town who fought in the Vietnam War and rebuilt their lives in the aftermath are Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage. The film went overbudget and overbudget, but it became a huge critical and commercial success, winning five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture for Cimino.

Cimino was granted free rein by United Artists for his next film, Heaven's Gate, because of his previous success. Multiple times over budget, the film was canceled. It was a financial disaster that nearly bankrupted the studio right after its unveiling. Heaven's Gate became the industry's first line to the situation in Hollywood at that time. The film's demise brought an end to the New Hollywood era. Transamerica Corporation sold United Artists after losing faith in the organization and its leadership.

Heaven's Gate was such a tragic critical and commercial bomb that public perception of Cimino's career was tainted in its aftermath; the bulk of his subsequent films had no commercial or critical success; Many commentators who had praised The Deer Hunter became much more reserved about the image and Cimino after Heaven's Gate. In Steven Bach's book Final Cut, the story of the film's production and the University's subsequent demise was chronicled. Cimino's film was somewhat revived by an unexpected source: the Z Channel, a cable pay TV channel that at its highest in the mid-1980s, hosted 100,000 of Los Angeles' most influential film professionals. Jerry Harvey, the channel's programmer, decided to play Cimino's original 219-minute cut on Christmas Eve 1982 after the unsuccessful launch of the re-edited and reduced Heaven's Gate. The reassembled film received rave reviews. MGM/UA's full-length, director-approved version was released on LaserDisc by MGM/UA and later reissued on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection.

Cimino produced Year of the Dragon, a 1985 crime drama that was based on Robert Daley's book. Five Razzie awards were given to Dragons in the year of the Dragon, including Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. Many felt that the film was unfairly stereotypical of Chinese Americans. In 1987, Cimino directed The Sicilian, a Mario Puzo book. The film bombed at the box office, grossing $5 million domestically.

Cimino produced a 1990 version of the film The Desperate Hours, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mickey Rourke. This was another box-office disappointment, grossing less than $3 million. Michael Cimino's original cut of Desperate Hours was mutilated by the film's designers, resulting in a badly edited film full of plot holes, according to several credible reports. Some stills that appear to be merely evidence of any deleted scenes are those that appear to be just a few of them.

Woody Harrelson and Jon Seda's last feature-length film was 1996's The Sunchaser. The film was released straight to video and was not nominated for the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival.

Big Jane, Cimino's first book, was published in 2001. The French Minister of Culture rewarded him Chevalier des Lettres and the Prix Littéraire Deauville 2001, an award that previously went to Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. "I'm the happiest, I've ever been!" says the narrator. In reaction, he said in response. In 2003, Cimino published Conversations en miroir, a memoir by Francesca Pollock.

Cimino returned to directing for a short time in 2007's To Each His Own Cinema, an anthology film. The filmmakers were invited to discuss "their state of mind at the time, as inspired by the motion picture theater."

Cimino continued to write screenplays throughout the 2010s, but they were unable to get any of them funded.

Cimino attended the premiere of a new version of Heaven's Gate at the Venice Film Festival in 2012, which was met with a standing ovation. Film commentators re-assessed the film, and re-edited versions were welcomed with critical acclaim.

Cimino was named the Locarno Film Festival's Leopard of Honour on the Piazza Grande in 2015.

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