Oscar-winning director Michael Cimino – best known for The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate – has died aged 77.

News of his passing was announced by Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux, who said that Cimino had ‘died, in peace, surrounded by the two women who loved him.’

He added: ‘We loved him too.’

@THIERRYFREMAUX: Michael Cimino est mort, en paix, entouré des siens et de ces deux femmes qui l'aimaient. Nous l'aimions aussi.

Cimino, who was born in 1939, directed only eight films in his career – beginning with 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot – but remains best known for 1978’s Vietnam-era drama The Deer Hunter.

That film – which stared Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken and is famous for its ‘Russian roulette’ scene – won five Oscars including best film and best director.

However Cimino’s next movie, the epic Western Heaven’s Gate, became notorious for entirely different reasons, after becoming one of the biggest box office flops of all time – so much so that it virtually bankrupted producers United Artists.

The film, which stars Kris Kristofferson, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston and Mickey Rourke, took eleven months to film and went four times over its budget – with studio executives almost firing Cimino and the director himself locking them out of the editing suite.

Ultimately the movie ended up costing around $44m, but made only $3.5m at the box office, and was savaged by the critics.

However in recent years it’s been given a more positive reception – with some even going so far as to hail it a ‘modern masterpiece’.

Cimino’s other films include 1985’s Year Of The Dragon, starring Mickey Rourke, and 1990 thriller The Desperate Hours.

He directed his last full-length feature, The Sunchaser, in 1996.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Caroline Westbrook

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