Michael Cimino#Other projects

Cimino publicly shared few details of his early life and family background and is believed to have given false birth year information.{{cite magazine|last=Garbarino|first=Steve|title=Michael Cimino's Final Cut|url=https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2002/3/michael-ciminos-final-cut|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=March 1, 2002|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Many Cimino biographies thus include inaccuracies about his early years, as well as his background in filmmaking.Thomson, p. 178.Andrews, p. 245.

Cimino's presumed birth date was February 3, 1939.{{cite web|url=http://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/michael-cimino-58467725/|title=Michael Cimino – Biography and Filmography – 1939|date=February 6, 2015}}Heard, p. 26. A third-generation Italian-American,Andrews, p. 249.Lawton, Ben (2001). "America Through Italian/American Eyes: Dream or Nightmare?". From the Margins: Writing in Italian Americana. Purdue University. [Cimino is said to be Italian/American] Cimino and his two younger brothers, Peter and Edward, grew up with their parents in the town of Westbury, on Long Island.Bliss, p. 268 He was regarded as a prodigy in early private education, but rebelled as an adolescent by consorting with delinquents, getting into fights, and coming home drunk.{{cite web|last=Griffin|first=Nancy|title=Last Typhoon Cimino Is Back|url=https://observer.com/2002/02/last-typhoon-cimino-is-back/|website=Observer Media|date=February 11, 2002|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Of this time, Cimino described himself as

"always hanging around with kids my parents didn't approve of. Those guys were so alive. When I was fifteen I spent three weeks driving all over Brooklyn with a guy who was following his girlfriend. He was convinced she was cheating on him, and he had a gun, he was going to kill her. There was such passion and intensity about their lives. When the rich kids got together, the most we ever did was cross against a red light."Wakeman, John (1988). World Film Directors (2). The H. W. Wilson Company. pp. 214–219.

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

"When my father found out I went into the movie business, he didn't talk to me for a year," Cimino said. "He was very tall and thin... His weight never changed his whole life and he didn't have a gray hair on his head. He was a bit like a Vanderbilt or a Whitney, one of those guys. He was the life of the party, women loved him, a real womanizer. He smoked like a fiend. He loved his martinis. He died really young. He was away a lot, but he was fun. I was just a tiny kid."

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| caption1 = A still from Cimino's "Take Me Along" commercial{{cite web|author=Filmmaker Staff|url=https://filmmakermagazine.com/93179-watch-michael-ciminos-1967-united-airlines-commercial/|title=Watch: Michael Cimino's 1967 United Airlines Commercial|website=Filmmaker|date=February 19, 2015|access-date=July 31, 2023}}

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Within eighteen months of directing TV ads, he was hired by Madison Pollack O'Hare to work on special assignments involving "graphic design concepts and unusual approaches to live film".{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=24}}Hickenlooper, p. 76 While there, he handpicked the best cameramen MPO employed to shoot his commercials, including Gordon Willis and Owen Roizman, before either rose to fame.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=26}} He directed ads for L'eggs hosiery, Kool cigarettes, Pepsi, Canada Dry and Maxwell House coffee, among others.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=28}} "I met some people who were doing fashion stuff{{spaced ndash}}commercials and stills. And there were all these incredibly beautiful girls," Cimino said. "And then, zoom{{spaced ndash}}the next thing I know, overnight, I was directing commercials." Few of Cimino's early commercial work survived.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=25}}

One of his more successful commercials was shot for United Airlines in 1967. Taking a song called "Take Me Along" from the short-lived Broadway musical, he created an ad in which a group of housewives plead, musically, to their husbands to take them along on their business trips.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=26}} The commercial is filled with the dynamic visuals, American symbolism and lavish set design that would become Cimino's trademarks. Later that year, he made his most famous commercial; for Eastman Kodak, called "Yesterdays", which went on to win several awards that year.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=27}} The elaborate commercial took six days to shoot — two on an intricately built set in New York and four on location in Connecticut. Cimino apparently shot close to eight thousand feet of film, which was whittled down to 2 minutes.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=28}}{{cite web|last=Parker|first=George|url=https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2013/05/george-parker-on-the-maxwell-house-set-with-maverick-film-director-michael-cimino/|title=George Parker: on the Maxwell House set with maverick film director Michael Cimino|website=More About Advertising|date=May 20, 2013|access-date=August 22, 2024}} Although the ads he made were considered among the most prestigious in the industry, they became increasingly costly. "The clients of the agencies liked Cimino," remarked Charles Okun, his production manager from 1964 to 1978. "His visuals were fabulous, but the amount of time it took was just astronomical. Because he was so meticulous and took so long. Nothing was easy with Michael."Epstein, Michael (director). (2004). Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. [Television Production]. Viewfinder Productions.

At the height of his commercial career, Cimino met Joann Carelli, then a commercial director representative, and the two began to date.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=31}} Encouraged by Carelli, Cimino began to write screenplays, despite no background in writing.Carducci; Gallagher, p. 39.{{cite web|title=Michael Cimino: I'm probably not so different than Visconti or Ford (2007) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjV5U7W8X6E |website=YouTube |access-date=August 1, 2023 |date=August 18, 2022}} To be more prolific, Cimino sought out collaborators to work with, including poet Thomas McGrath and playwright Deric Washburn, who had produced a one-act play off-Broadway.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=37}} Washburn later recalled that there was always a big distance, socially, between him and Cimino:

"I remember trying to get to know him a little better. A friend had a house in Poughkeepsie, and I invited him up for the weekend. He shows up in his Rolls-Royce, and he's not comfortable there. But he wanted something from me, I think. Mike and I got closest when we started talking about a story. Then it was amazing. It was like one person. It was like a dance. We could boil together."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=38}}

Thomas McGrath and Cimino co-wrote two scripts together, Paradise and Kef.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=42}}{{cite book|last=Sund|first=Pamela|title=Thomas McGrath: The Early Years, plus a Biographical Sketch|series=Horizons anglophones |date=March 25, 2022 |pages=245–274 |publisher=OpenEdition Books|isbn=9782367813998 |url=https://books.openedition.org/pulm/12328|access-date = March 22, 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/kef-michael-cimino-unproduced-movie-1983784479|title=KEF / Michael Cimino, unproduced movie script screenplay|website=WorthPoint|access-date=August 1, 2023}} McGrath also gave Cimino a copy of the 1959 Frederick Manfred novel Conquering Horse, tracing the history of the Dakota Indians in America before the arrival of the white man,{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=43}} which Cimino would go on throughout the rest of his life to try and make into a film.{{cite news|last=Foundas|first=Scott|url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2013/03/20/michael-cimino-revisits-his-notorious-flop-heavens-gate-which-maybe-was-a-masterpiece-all-along/|title=Michael Cimino Revisits His Notorious Flop Heaven's Gate, Which Maybe Was a Masterpiece All Along|newspaper=The Village Voice|date=March 30, 2013|access-date=August 6, 2023}}

By 1970, Cimino's agent Michael Gruskoff was approached with an offer from studio executive Ned Tanen to produce a slate of low-budget films for Universal Pictures, with Conquering Horse among them.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=42}}{{cite news|last=Weiler|first=A.H.|title=A-Jive in Denmark|date=22 February 1970|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/22/archives/ajive-in-denmark-danish-jive.html|access-date=1 August 2019}} The estimated budget for the film had gone far over what initially was projected, and would have cost Universal substantially more than their cut-off figure of $1 million to produce it. Moreover, Cimino wanted to shoot the film in black-and-white and use authentic Sioux dialogue, with subtitles.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=43}} Shortly after the project was cancelled, Gruskoff assigned Cimino to help draft the script for a story outline by Douglas Trumbull for his science fiction film Silent Running, and he brought aboard Deric Washburn to help. The two morphed the script to be more countercultural.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=44-45}} However, Steven Bochco was later brought in and rewrote the story to be less bleak and more "accessible" to a mainstream audience.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=46}}

The following year, Cimino and Joann Carelli moved to Los Angeles where they rented a house in Hidden Hills that belonged to British director J. Lee Thompson.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=48}} Carelli told Cimino that the only way he would be able to direct a film is if he wrote an original screenplay and got the biggest star in Hollywood to agree to be in it. Cimino, who had never written on his own, began by writing stories about people he knew about.{{cite web|title=Masterclass Michael Cimino (Subtitulado) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8LMJK7tmM |website=YouTube |access-date=August 1, 2023 |date=June 3, 2018}} From this habit, the script for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was born, which first began as a period story about the Irish outlaw folk heroes Capt. Thunderbolt and Capt. Lightfoot.For the Love of Characters - Featurette with Michael Cimino (2014). [Thunderbolt and Lightfoot Region B Blu-ray]. Allerton Films. Cimino gained representation from Stan Kamen of the William Morris Agency, who urged him to make it a contemporary story.McGilligan, p. 237. Taking both their advice, Cimino took the spec script to Clint Eastwood, who loved it and wanted to direct it himself. Cimino told him that it wasn't for sale, and that he would have to direct the film or else there was no deal. Eastwood agreed, but under one condition: "I'll give you three days. If it doesn't work, I'll get another director."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=50}} He also asked Cimino to finish John Milius' script treatment for the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force, which had a set shooting date. When Magnum Force was in production, Cimino was looking at various locations in Montana and preparing for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. "We traveled a lot," said Cimino, "especially around the Great Falls; in the banks of the Dearborn and the Missouri; in the fields of wheat, east of Great Falls."Krohn, Bill (June 1982). "Interview with Michael Cimino" (in French). Cahiers du Cinéma (n337). In the film, Eastwood plays an aging Korean War veteran who, in the words of Cimino, "has lost his zest for life" and runs into an "exuberant, freedom-loving kid" (played by Jeff Bridges), who restores his youth. Bridges, for his part, felt hugely unprepared for the role, but was quickly reassured:

"Mike looked at me, and said, 'You know that game Tag?' 'Yeah,' I said. 'Well... you're it,' Mike told me. He went on to say that this guy, Lightfoot, was no one other than me, that I couldn't make a mistake, or a false move, even if I wanted to. I've never forgotten that bit of direction that that young director gave me on his first movie, that gift of confidence."{{cite web|last=Nordine|first=Michael|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/jeff-bridges-michael-cimino-heavens-gate-thunderbolt-and-lightfoot-1201702797/|title=Jeff Bridges Remembers Michael Cimino, a 'Splendid Filmmaker' Whose Advice He's Never Forgotten|website=IndieWire|date=July 5, 2016|access-date=July 31, 2023}}

George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis were also cast to star in the film, chosen for the primary reason that neither actor had ever done comedic roles before. Cimino had since compared their chemistry in the film to that of Laurel and Hardy. The film shot from July to September with a schedule of forty-seven days on a budget of $4 million. Cimino was careful to make Eastwood happy by keeping things moving quickly and efficiently. "I knew that the only way I could keep control of the movie was to be ahead of schedule," he said.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=52}} Eastwood was impressed enough with Cimino's work that he allowed him to finish it his way. "I owe such a debt to that man," he later said of Eastwood.Cimino, Michael (director) (2005). Commentary by director Michael Cimino. [Year of the Dragon Region 1 DVD]. Turner Entertainment Co. The film became a solid box office success at the time grossing $25 millionEliot, Marc (October 6, 2009). American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood (1st ed.). New York, NY: Rebel Road, Inc. p. 155. {{ISBN|978-0-307-33688-0}}. and earned Bridges an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

With the success of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Cimino landed a deal at United Artists to write and direct The Fountainhead, based on Ayn Rand's sprawling novel about an architect who refuses to compromise, which he had loved for years.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=54}} He sent his script to Elliott Kastner, who was going to produce,{{cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/michael-cimino-fountainhead-original-2066344657|title=Michael Cimino fountainhead original screenplay for an unproduced signed #147227|website=WorthPoint|access-date=August 1, 2023}} and his first choice to play the character of Howard Rourk was Clint Eastwood.{{cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-script-fountainhead-michael-1965635657|title=Original script for the Fountainhead by Michael Cimino based on Ayn Rand novel|website=WorthPoint|access-date=August 1, 2023}} Taking its cue from more than the novel, Cimino's modern-day adaptation was largely modeled off of architect Jørn Utzon's troubled building of the Sydney Opera House, as well as the construction of the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York.Hickenlooper, p. 78Chevrie, Marc; Narboni, Jean; Ostria, Vincent (November 1985). "The Right Place" (in French). Cahiers du cinéma (n377). "Making it a contemporary story meant that there was a lot of new work that had to be done [in adapting]," he said.{{cite web|url=https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/michael-cimino-interview-mark-patrick-carducci/|title = Michael Cimino – Interview with Mark Patrick Carducci (1977)|website=Scraps from the Loft|date=October 21, 2016|access-date=July 31, 2023}} According to Cimino, Eastwood turned the film down over concerns of being compared to his idol Gary Cooper, who had played the same character in the 1949 film adaptation.{{Cite web |last=Mueller |first=Matt |title=Michael Cimino Tells Locarno Audience 'I'll Never Stop' |url=https://www.screendaily.com/locarno/michael-cimino-tells-locarno-audience-ill-never-stop/5091507.article |date=August 11, 2015 |access-date=March 15, 2021 |website=Screen Daily}} Over the years he continued to try to get it made, approaching different funding sources with copies of the script and each time rewriting it in the process.

He then worked for a year and a half at Paramount Pictures on a film from his original screenplay Perfect Strangers. Cimino described the film as a political love story that bore "some resemblance to Casablanca, involving the romantic relationship of three people." The film was sold to the studio as "a romantic Z" and was to star Roy Scheider, Romy Schneider and Oskar Werner in the lead roles.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nHYwCgAAQBAJ&q=michael+cimino+perfect+strangers&pg=PA209|last=Kachmar|first=Diane C.|title=Roy Scheider: A Film Biography|year=2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476609034|page=118}} Cimino said they had come very close to doing it:

"We'd already shot two weeks of pre-production stuff, but because of various political machinations at the studio, the project fell through. This was just before David Picker left. He was the producer. There were internal difficulties, that's all. Nevertheless, I'd spent a year and a half of my life on something. It had been a difficult time. My father passed away while I was writing the screenplay. I kept working..."

Around this time he also spent two years developing two projects for 20th Century Fox.{{cite news|last=Vallely|first=Jean|url=https://classic.esquire.com/article/1979/1/2/michael-ciminos-battle-to-make-a-great-movie|title=Michael Cimino's Battle To Make A Great Movie |magazine=Esquire|date=January 2, 1979|access-date=May 13, 2023}} One film, Pearl, based on an unpublished book he wrote,{{cite web|last=Baker|first=Tom|url=https://whatculture.com/film/10-movie-passion-projects-that-will-never-get-made|title=10 Movie Passion Projects That Will Never Get Made|work=WhatCulture|date=February 27, 2015|access-date=May 12, 2023}} was to be a musical biopic about singer-songwriter Janis Joplin. Cimino conceived the film's story with producer Marvin Worth and collaborated on the script in association with Oscar-winning screenwriter Bo Goldman.{{cite news|title=Alan Bates, Bette Midler To Co-Star in 'The Rose'|date=24 March 1978|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/24/archives/alan-bates-bette-midler-to-costar-in-the-rose.html|access-date=26 July 2019|quote=Mark Rydell will direct from a script by Bo Goldman and Michael Cimino and an earlier draft by William Kerby from a story by Mr. Worth and Mr. Cimino.}} The film was made several years later under a rewritten script titled The Rose, with Joplin's name cut out after her family denied the producers the rights to her story. While Goldman received screenplay credit for his work, Cimino did not. Then, after meeting with James Toback, the two began work on The Life and Dreams of Frank Costello, a biopic chronicling four decades of the life of Mafia boss Frank Costello. Cimino saw the mobster as Gatsby; to him, he had a vision of America. "We got a good screenplay together," said Cimino, "but again, the studio, 20th Century Fox in this case, was going through management changes and the script was put aside." Cimino added, "Costello took a long time because Costello himself had a long, interesting life. The selection of things to film was quite hard." He also did a rewrite for United Artists of Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War to be directed by Norman Jewison, and was briefly attached to direct the film after Jewison left.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=55}}

The film that came closest to production was an original for Paramount, titled Head of the Dragon, that was set in a "mythical South American country" and revolved around a polo-playing WASP who springs a Mafia killer from jail in order to assassinate a rebel leader. The project was described as Cimino's desperate attempt to come up with something commercial that might stand a chance at being made. With location scouting and pre-production work already three weeks in, the film was cancelled, due to issues Paramount was having with their other big production, Sorcerer, which was being shot in the same country.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=56}} A month later, in October 1976, Cimino took what he thought would be another routine meeting at a production studio, where he gave a 1-hour pitch (with no script), verbally, to EMI executives for his ambitious Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter.Realising "The Deer Hunter": an interview with Michael Cimino. Blue Underground. 2003 interview on The Deer Hunter UK Region 2 DVD and StudioCanal Blu-ray. {{YouTube|yo_90HKkAas&t|video}} To his surprise, they accepted his pitch and gave him a set start date of March 17, later postponed to June.

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| quote = I believe that this research is an integral part of the film; the time spent watching people, talking to them, hitting the road, sleeping in those towns, walking down those streets. You notice things, some consciously, others involuntarily, that otherwise... It really approaches the work of an actor, you absorb a number of details; you notice a lot of things which, in a certain way, find their way back into the film.

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Derived from some of Cimino's personal experiences,{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=66}} The Deer Hunter tells the story of three blue-collar steelworkers, portrayed by Robert De Niro, John Savage and Christopher Walken, who during the Vietnam War volunteer to serve together. Since he had to spend the next several months prepping for the film and scouting for locations, Cimino brought in Deric Washburn to help him write the film's script. According to Cimino, he would call Washburn every night and feed him lines of dialogue and scenes to write. When Cimino returned, he was shocked with what he read, recalling that he felt it was written by someone who was "mentally deranged". Washburn, who said he couldn't handle the pressure in writing within the time constraint, left the project. From there, Cimino wrote the screenplay by himself within six weeks. "I had to write the thing on buses, on trains, in cars, at night in hotels, I mean I worked like a dog." Despite this, Washburn received sole writer's credit from the Guild after he went to a lawyer demanding arbitration.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=97}}Biskind, Peter (March 2008). [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/warmovies200803 "The Vietnam Oscars"]. Vanity Fair. Retrieved August 28, 2010. Roy Scheider was initially considered for the lead role, but after he dropped out,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nHYwCgAAQBAJ&q=michael+cimino+perfect+strangers&pg=PA209|last=Kachmar|first=Diane C.|title=Roy Scheider: A Film Biography|year=2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476609034|page=73}} Cimino took the script to Robert De Niro, who insisted that he accompany him for the location scouting. The film also starred John Cazale, who at the time was dying of cancer and was therefore considered a liability by EMI. The steel town of Clairton, Pennsylvania used in the film was not shot there, but was instead composed of eight different towns in four states, including several in Ohio; Cleveland, Steubenville and Mingo Junction. Principal photography began in June 1977, but since the film took place during the winter, everything had to be defoliated; the grass had to be browned and the leaves stripped from the trees, which made the film fall behind schedule.{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=John M.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/02/18/stalking-us-all/dc412600-16c7-45b2-a8e7-1219ebea52d5/|title=Stalking Us All|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=February 18, 1979|access-date=August 6, 2023}} Many locals from the various towns they shot in played minor roles in the film. "They brought an exceptional characteristic to the film," Cimino said, "[they] had certain facial expressions. You couldn't create that in professional extras." For the deer-hunting sequences, Cimino had his crew assemble, paint and transport a prefabricated cabin up to the Cascade mountain range. He also specifically requested that wild deer be used, which they had to ship from a special game preserve in New Jersey. The Vietnam scenes were filmed on location in Thailand, on the River Kwai and near the Burmese border, and in Bangkok, where the conditions were arduous, doubling the film's initial budget of $8 million to $15 million. Once there, Cimino advised De Niro, Walken and Savage that they sleep in their uniforms and never take them off, wet or dry, for the entire month.{{cite web|last=O'Connor|first=Michael|url=https://www.threemonkeysonline.com/battling-the-past-an-encounter-with-michael-cimino/|title=Battling the Past – an encounter with Michael Cimino|website=Three Monkeys Online|date=August 2005 |access-date=August 2, 2023}} Because of the unstable political situation in Thailand and the subject matter of the material, Cimino had been warned not to fly the processed footage back in. Cimino agreed not to see any dailies on the condition that "I am going to have every camera we have rolling all the time because there is no coming back here." As a result, the film took a whole three months just to view the footage that had been shot, and another three to edit it down. Cimino's chosen length came in at almost three and a half hours.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=59}} Universal initially wanted to cut it down to two hours, so that more daily showings were possible. "If we had done that," said Cimino, "We would have lost important things. The first places people attack are those scenes that involve character development. A film lives, becomes alive, because of its shadows, its spaces, and that's what people wanted to cut." Despite its grim subject matter, The Deer Hunter performed well when it opened in December 1978, but quickly aroused controversy, particular for the film's depiction of Russian roulette, which the characters were forced to play when captured by the Viet Cong. Even though he had never intended the film to be political (himself referring to it as a story of what happens to ordinary people when they experience tragedy), some critics felt that Cimino was making a "right-wing statement", particularly with the film's ending. Nevertheless, the film became a massive critical and commercial success,Deeley, p. 197. winning five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cimino.Dirks, Tim. [http://www.filmsite.org/deer.html "The Deer Hunter (1978)"]. Greatest Films. Retrieved May 26, 2010.

The day after the Academy Awards, Cimino flew up to Kalispell, Montana to begin shooting his Western epic Heaven's Gate, where it had been in pre-production for several months; finding locations, casting five hundred extras and building complicated sets. Joann Carelli, who had been a production consultant on The Deer Hunter, was the sole producer of the film, despite no longer having a romantic relationship with Cimino.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=113}} An ambitious take on the American Western genre, the film follows a Harvard graduate who becomes a federal marshal investigating a Government-sanctioned plot to steal land from European settlers in Casper, Wyoming. The origins of the project dated back to a script Cimino had written earlier in the '70s titled The Johnson County War, based on a rare bit of history he stumbled across when researching the development of barbed wire and its use in the American West.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=115}} At that time, his script was shelved due to its failure to attract big-name talent,{{cite news|last=Robey|first=Tim|title=Heaven's Gate: the bomb that almost destroyed Hollywood|date=July 19, 2013|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/classic-movies/10131915/Heavens-Gate-the-bomb-that-almost-destroyed-Hollywood.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/classic-movies/10131915/Heavens-Gate-the-bomb-that-almost-destroyed-Hollywood.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=January 29, 2015}} such as John Wayne, who turned down the lead role.{{cite web|last=Abrams|first=Simon|title=John Williams Turned Down Scoring 'Heaven's Gate' & More Learned From The Criterion Edition Of Michael Cimino's Cult Film|date=November 29, 2012|website=ThePlaylist.net|url=https://theplaylist.net/john-williams-turned-down-scoring-heavens-gate-more-learned-from-the-criterion-edition-of-michael-ciminos-cult-film-20121129/|access-date=March 28, 2023}} Later, in 1978, after a print of The Deer Hunter was screened for the head of production at United Artists, they offered Cimino a two-picture deal.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=117}} What he wanted to do was The Fountainhead, but UA showed disinterest.{{cite news|last=Thomson|first=David|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/reach-for-the-skyscraper-1184953.html|title=Reach for the skyscraper|newspaper=The Independent|date=November 15, 1998|access-date=August 3, 2023|quote=One great fan was Michael Cimino. After he had made The Deer Hunter, he wanted to remake The Fountainhead. The powers that be said no, it was too expensive... too intoxicating. So he did Heaven's Gate instead, and destroyed United Artists in the process.}} Instead, he resurrected his screenplay for The Johnson County War, which he promptly rewrote before it went into production in April 1979 with an assembled cast of Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert and Christopher Walken. Cimino gave UA the initial budget estimation of $7.8 million, even though the period detail required for the film was astronomical. To authentically re-create the period, Cimino built an entire boomtown on the Montana location and transported a working steam locomotive from a Denver museum. He also had less time to prepare the film, since it was given a shorter pre-production period by United Artists to qualify for the December Oscar nomination deadline.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=141}} Because each setup took such a long time to prepare, by the sixth day of filming the film was five days behind schedule.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=143}} As with The Deer Hunter, Cimino was famously demanding of his cast and crew, including cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, whom he had liked working with before because of his "obstinacy" on set. Second assistant director Michael Stevenson since admitted that Cimino "lost his temper sometimes when people tried to interfere," but that the cast loved working with him "because Michael treated them with respect." When they weren't performing, the actors would take lessons on how to ride a horse, how to practice their characters' trades and how to dance. Even the extras used in the film were all considered with great detail; carefully chosen, dressed and even redressed if Cimino felt it wasn't right. They were also classified into specific groups of immigrants and merchants. "The idea," explained Cimino, "is that you must be able to look at any part of that immense screen and isolate from it any small piece according to your choice." Music arranger David Mansfield noted that the film's immigrant settlers were constantly filling out the background of crowd scenes. "Some bit character might be in the background while the lead actor is in the foreground. So you always see everybody in the community constantly, become familiar with them over the course of the picture." UA nearly ended up firing Cimino as the production budget continued to increase, with Norman Jewison or David Lean in mind to replace him. Ironically, a few years later, Cimino would be the first director approached to take over for Lean on the out-of-control production of The Bounty.{{cite magazine|last=Gray|first=Tim|url=https://variety.com/2016/film/people-news/michael-cimino-dead-dies-deer-hunter-heavens-gate-1201808052/|title=Michael Cimino, 'Deer Hunter' and 'Heaven's Gate' Director, Dies at 77|magazine=Variety|date=July 2, 2016|access-date=August 3, 2023}} Cimino, however, was intent on "painstakingly constructing his film according to photographs from the time" and immersing the audience into the world created in the film:

"I wanted you to feel what it was like to walk down a street in that period: to follow those noisy wagons, to cross all that activity, what you felt, what you heard. People made so much dust; my God, was it dusty! That makes the streets dirty... when hundreds of wagons go around, they raise dust. And very often, we took the time to record the background sound. In the store, for example, we recorded numerous conversations, with the intention of inserting them into the soundtrack later. This isn't general background noise; you hear people, in a corner, argue over the price of a knife, discuss the merits of a particular rifle... each of those people are engaged in a very specific activity and you hear them."

Shooting in Kalispell officially completed in October.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=181}} By that point, $36 million was spent on the production. Cimino and Carelli then worked out a post-production schedule that would involve him delivering a film of three hours on May 1, 1980.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=182}}

{{quote box

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| source = —Michael Cimino

| quote = One must love a place to be able to show grand landscapes on the screen. Nobody showed and made one feel Monument Valley like [John] Ford, although many tried. But him, he loved it, and if he was there and one could pose the question, "Why?", I am certain that he couldn't articulate a response, except to say that he deeply loved that place. When one loves a place, it shows in the images one makes.

}}

After editing the footage shot in Montana, filming for the Heaven's Gate prologue and epilogue began in March 1980.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=183}} A rough edit of the film ended up screening for United Artists in June, running over five hours long.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=188}} On November 18, Heaven's Gate had its world premiere in New York City. "I remember going to the New York premiere," said Jeff Bridges, one of the film's stars. "I'm not sure he [Cimino] had seen the movie complete; he was scrambling to put it together." In the 219-minute version that was shown, sound-editing problems in critical scenes made the plot hard for audiences to follow, and Cimino and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond tinted the film "with a kind of yellow glow" that was supposed to give an antique look,{{cite news|last=Kordenbrock|first=Mike|url=https://flatheadbeacon.com/2022/10/20/book-examines-complex-life-and-legacy-of-director-michael-cimino-and-polarizing-film-heavens-gate/|title=Book Examines Complex Life and Legacy of Director Michael Cimino, and Polarizing Film 'Heaven's Gate'|newspaper=Flathead Beacon|date=October 20, 2022|access-date=August 3, 2023}} removed in the 2012 restoration.{{cite web|title=Heaven's Gate - Restoration Demonstration |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ7SjwtDc6w |website=YouTube |access-date=August 6, 2023 |date=January 30, 2017}} "Afterward, we heard that terrible stuttering applause," said Bridges, "and it was that sinking feeling. We tried to tell ourselves, 'Well, maybe they liked it so much that they are stunned into silence.' " The reviews were devastating.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=193}} Before the film opened in Los Angeles, Cimino asked for it to be withdrawn and re-edited.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=195}} In 1981, a shorter version was released, with added narration.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=197}} A new poster campaign and a submission into the Cannes Film Festival slate did little to make a dent in financial losses.{{cite news|last=Prial|first=Frank J.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/21/movies/heaven-s-gate-tries-again-at-cannes.html|title='Heaven's Gate' Tries Again At Cannes|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 21, 1981|access-date=August 6, 2023}} The failure of the film was also blamed for the collapse of United Artists, which was then sold by the Transamerica Corporation, having lost confidence in the company and its management.Bach, p. 404. As a result, UA executive Steven Bach wrote an entire book devoted to the topic, Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists. Cimino referred to the book as "work of fiction" by a "degenerate who never even came on the set." Bach retorted when he told a reporter he didn't resent Cimino or wish the movie ill: "It would be like wishing ill of a corpse." With its scathing reviews and financial loss, Heaven's Gate quickly became a Hollywood legend.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=197}}

Cimino intended to follow up Heaven's Gate with Conquering Horse through his two-picture deal with United Artists, but was never realized after its failure.{{cite web|last=Whitney|first=Stu|title=Whitney: How 'Revenant' left Frederick Manfred behind|date=12 December 2015|publisher=Argus Leader|url=https://www.argusleader.com/story/stu-whitney/2015/12/12/reverant-movie-frederick-manfred-lord-grizzly-hollywood/77157066/}}{{sfn|Medved|Medved|1984|p=185}} The film, based on the Western novel written by Frederick Manfred, would have been a generational saga set in pre-white America that dealt with a young Sioux boy's rite of passage. "It's a story of the American Plains," said Cimino in 1982, "[taking] place in the Dakotas and Montana." Also at this time, Cimino had been attached as the director of The King of Comedy, which he withdrew from when Heaven's Gate was green lit, but vowed to return to once production ended. The film was first reported in 1979 as a Joann Carelli production,{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/67056|title=AFI|Catalog - The King of Comedy|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=August 2, 2023}} with Buck Henry making revisions to the script.{{cite magazine|last=Scott|first=A. O.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/magazine/robert-de-niro-on-the-art-of-the-long-career.html|title=Robert De Niro on the Art of the Long Career|magazine=The New York Times Magazine|date=November 13, 2012|access-date=August 17, 2023}} However, by 1981, Martin Scorsese had already entered negotiations to direct.{{sfn|Medved|Medved|1984|p=185}} According to Cimino, in his version he would have cast Andy Kaufman in the lead role as Rupert Pupkin. "I shot videotape of Andy for weeks," he said.{{cite tweet |user=cimino1939 |number=277480791271936000 |date=8 December 2012 |title=
Films I Almost Made no.269
The King of Comedy
1981
Andy Kaufman
Meryl Streep
Orson Welles
I shot videotape of Andy for weeks.}} His version was to have also starred Meryl Streep{{cite web|url=https://www.eightieskids.com/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-king-of-comedy/|title=10 Things you probably didn't Know about 'The King of Comedy'|website=Eighties Kids}} and Orson Welles.{{cite magazine|last=Grierson|first=Tim|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/how-the-king-of-comedy-proved-jerry-lewis-was-a-great-actor-204398/|title=How 'The King of Comedy' proved Jerry Lewis was a great actor|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=August 20, 2017|access-date=August 2, 2023}}

Following Heaven's Gate, Joann Carelli quickly landed him a picture deal at CBS Theatrical Films to direct Nitty Gritty, described by The New York Times as "a black comedy about news reporting".{{cite news|title=40 Film Projects At CBS|date=16 January 1982|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/16/movies/40-film-projec-ts-at-cbs.html|access-date=1 August 2019}} The film was scheduled to be released in 1982, alongside a slate of films including Table for Five, however, Cimino's never went into production, just as with several of the other reported projects. It was later listed as a lost project of Cimino's by the Los Angeles Times, who reported that it had been retitled Live on Tape prior to being dropped by CBS.{{cite news|last=Broeske|first=Pat H.|title=Look Who's Back With a New Movie: 'The Deer Hunter' made Michael Cimino a winner, but his next film was the legendary failure 'Heaven's Gate.' With 'Desperate Hours,' the stakes have never been higher.|date=October 7, 1990|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-07-ca-3191-story.html|access-date=August 1, 2019}} He also allegedly proposed his Frank Costello biopic, then retitled Proud Dreamer, to CBS with Robert De Niro in mind to star, but his script was rejected due to the project's budget.{{sfn|Medved|Medved|1984|p=185}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=givaCwAAQBAJ&q=michael+cimino+proud+dreamer&pg=PA347|last=Levy|first=Shawn|title=De Niro: A Life|year=2015|publisher=Crown/Archetype|isbn=9780307716798|page=347}}

In early September 1982, Cimino approached short story writer Raymond Carver and his wife Tess Gallagher (both fans of Heaven's Gate{{cite web|last=Phipps|first=Keith|url=https://thereveal.substack.com/p/the-80s-in-40-heavens-gate-april|title=The '80s in 40: 'Heaven's Gate' (April 29, 1981)|website=The Reveal|date=April 11, 2023|access-date=July 4, 2023}}) to rework a screenplay based on the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky, in hopes that he would direct it.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/conversationswit00carv|url-access=registration|last1=Carver|first1=Raymond|last2=Gentry|first2=Marshall Bruce|last3=Stull|first3=William L.|title=Conversations with Raymond Carver|year=1990|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9780878054497|page=26}} According to Carver, Cimino presented him an existing screenplay commissioned by the veteran Italian film producer Carlo Ponti. The first draft had been written by Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and then translated to English by two Italian writers. Heavily researched, and taking Dostoevsky's near-execution as the film's focal point, Carver and Gallagher opted to rewrite the entire script, delivering a 220-page draft to Cimino in November. Cimino was impressed with the results, but Ponti returned to Europe shortly thereafter, halting further development.{{cite journal|last1=Carver|first1=Raymond|last2=Gallagher|first2=Tess|title=Dostoevsky: A Screenplay|journal = New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly|year=1984|volume = 6|issue = 3|pages = 355–393|publisher=New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly Vol. 6, No. 3 (Spring, 1984)|jstor = 40374689}}pp.355-393 Fragments were later published in 1985, by Capra Press.

{{quote box

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| source = —Michael Cimino

| quote = It will always be people who will interest me, I believe. It's people who give you the urge to make movies, characters. You have an attraction to a character, if he's interesting enough, that's what's important. I don't see myself making a film because it's from a certain genre, except a musical comedy, I would love to make a musical comedy. It provides a special pleasure which tempts me.

}}

In December 1982, after being unable to finalize a deal with director Herbert Ross at the time, Paramount Pictures offered the job of directing Footloose to Cimino.{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57086-FOOTLOOSE?sid=88bc2465-1eff-46e1-a4a9-f64927f15e36&sr=10.447276&cp=1&pos=0|title = AFI|Catalog – Footloose|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=March 26, 2023}}{{cite news|last=Rodriguez|first=Rene|title='Footloose:' a remake that makes sense|date=14 October 2011|newspaper=The Blade (Toledo)|url=https://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/movies/2011/10/14/Footloose-a-remake-that-makes-sense/stories/20111013050|access-date=1 August 2019}} Producer Daniel Melnick warned him that if the film went over its budget of $7.5 million, Cimino would have to cover the expenses himself and he agreed. Cimino's proposed reimagination of the film, "a John Steinbeck inspired musical-comedy"{{cite news|last=Yamato |first=Jen |title=From 'Heaven's Gate' to 'Star Wars,' Must-Read Tweets From Michael Cimino's First 24 Hours On Twitter | work=Movieline | via=Yahoo! |url=https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/news/heavens-gate-star-wars-must-read-tweets-michael-000031932.html |date=December 7, 2012 |quote=I wasn't being facetious about Footloose / I worked on it for 6 months. / My John Steinbeck inspired musical-comedy didn't reach the screen.}} set during the Great Depression, was to have followed a rich girl from Houston who falls in love with a dancer from a shanty town. Working from Dean Pitchford's original script, Cimino was at the helm of the film for several months, making more and more extravagant demands in terms of set construction and overall production.{{cite web |first=Scott |last=Holleran |date=12 October 2004 |title=Shall We Footloose? |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=1510&p=.htm |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=12 May 2009 |archive-date=15 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415182633/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=1510&p=.htm |url-status=live }} Just when the film was to begin shooting, he asked Melnick to let him rewrite the screenplay for an additional $250,000 and to delay the start date.{{cite magazine|last=Cormier|first=Roger|title=18 Catchy Facts About Footloose|date=9 January 2016|magazine=Mental Floss|url=http://mentalfloss.com/article/73151/18-catchy-facts-about-footloose|access-date=1 August 2019}} Melnick fired him,{{cite news|last=Harmetz|first=Aljean|title=Independent Producer And Young Studio Unite|date=2 September 1987|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/02/movies/independent-producer-and-young-studio-unite.html|access-date=1 August 2019}} and Herbert Ross directed Footloose instead.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/newpotofgold00step|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/newpotofgold00step/page/134 134]|last=Prince|first=Stephen|title=A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood Under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980 1989|year=2002|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520232662}} According to Melnick, "It might have been a good film [if Cimino had directed], but it wasn't the film we wanted to make. It wasn't the film we came to the party with." Craig Zadan, one of the film's producers, also stated, "Cimino wanted to make a darker film. We wanted to make entertainment."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OBQNk53ai9MC&q=michael+cimino+footloose&pg=PA110|last=Jordan|first=Chris|title = Movies and the Reagan Presidency: Success and Ethics|year=2003|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780275979676|page=110}}

Several other unproduced projects followed, including a collaboration with Steven Spielberg and Gary David Goldberg on a script titled Reel to Reel, which he was going to direct for Columbia Pictures,{{cite news|last=Broeske|first=Pat H.|title=Look Who's Back With a New Movie: 'The Deer Hunter' made Michael Cimino a winner, but his next film was the legendary failure 'Heaven's Gate.' With 'Desperate Hours,' the stakes have never been higher.|date=7 October 1990|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-07-ca-3191-story.html|access-date=1 August 2019|quote=Cimino also worked with Steven Spielberg and Gary David Goldberg (creator of TV's "Family Ties") on the script for "Reel to Reel," which he was going to direct for Columbia in 1983. But according to Goldberg, the script--based on a semi-autobiographical story by Spielberg, about a young director making his first picture--was never satisfactorily developed. "It became darker under Michael," he recalled.}}{{cite web|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2015/10/the-lost-unmade-projects-of-steven-spielberg-112055/|title = The Lost & Unmade Projects Of Steven Spielberg|first=Oliver|last=Lyttelton|date=14 October 2015|website=IndieWire|access-date=17 April 2020|archive-date=24 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024120157/https://www.indiewire.com/2015/10/the-lost-unmade-projects-of-steven-spielberg-112055/|url-status=live}} and a second collaboration with Raymond Carver on a film which they gave the elliptical title of Purple Lake.{{cite news|last=Weber|first=Bruce|title=Raymond Carver: A Chronicle Of Blue-Collar Despair|date=June 24, 1984|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/24/magazine/raymond-carver-a-chronicler-of-blue-collar-despair.html|access-date=April 24, 2023|quote=He has a novel underway, but it is incomplete and dormant at the moment. And last fall, he completed a long screenplay with the director Michael Cimino, about the rehabilitation of juvenile felons.}} The latter of the two was written partly from a CBS documentary found by Joann Carelli called VisionQuest which was the name of an unorthodox social program to rehabilitate delinquent teenagers by sending them on a wagon train across the Rockies.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=213-215}} Cimino also apparently tried to revive his Fountainhead adaptation again, even attracting the interest of Barbra Streisand for the role of Dominique Francon.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=223}}{{cite news|last=Brody|first=Richard|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/a-new-biography-of-michael-cimino-is-as-fascinating-and-melancholy-as-the-filmmaker-himself|title=A New Biography of Michael Cimino Is as Fascinating and Melancholy as the Filmmaker Himself|newspaper=The New Yorker|date=May 22, 2022|access-date=July 29, 2023}}

In August 1983, after Ronald F. Maxwell was dismissed as the director of The Pope of Greenwich Village, Cimino was named as a possible replacement.{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57168-THE-POPEOFGREENWICHVILLAGE?sid=f2eed8c5-f7bd-4e8f-bae1-0bfd752b358e&sr=12.514768&cp=1&pos=0|title=AFI|Catalog - The Pope of Greenwich Village|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Cimino wanted to finesse its screenplay with some rewriting and restructuring, which would have taken beyond the mandated start date for shooting. Instead, as a favor to the producers who were on a deadline, Cimino generously went over his copious notes written on the script with the new director they hired, Stuart Rosenberg.{{sfn|Heard|2006|p=42}}{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=224}} According to MGM president Freddie Fields, Cimino's contributions to the film were invaluable; "He's been a terrific consultant."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=53tZAAAAMAAJ|last=Bart|first=Peter|title=Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM|year=1990|publisher=Morrow|isbn=9780688084608}}

In the summer of 1984, an old project Cimino had been attached to finally seemed to be moving toward production.{{Cite news |date=July 14, 1984 |title=Dustin Hoffman's Tour De France |page=11 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/arts/dustin-hoffman-s-tour-de-france.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230316180829/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/arts/dustin-hoffman-s-tour-de-france.html |archive-date=March 16, 2023}} The film was The Yellow Jersey, based upon a novel by Ralph Hurne about an aging, woman-chasing professional cyclist who nearly wins the Tour de France. The rights had been optioned back in 1973 by film producer Gary Mehlman, who then made a development deal with Columbia Pictures. In 1975, Cimino had been brought on board to direct the film and visited the Tour for the first time, for research.{{cite web|last=McKay|first=Feargal|title=The Curse Of The Yellow Jersey – The Cycling Film Hollywood Loved But Could Never Make|url=https://www.podiumcafe.com/book-corner/2015/10/4/9448769/the-curse-of-the-yellow-jersey-the-cycling-film-hollywood-loved-but|website=Podium Cafe|date=October 4, 2015|access-date=May 30, 2023}} Over the next decade, the film generated expenses of nearly $2 million, and been in development with four studios and several independent production companies. Then, when Dustin Hoffman indicated an interest in starring in it, Mehlman took it back to Columbia in 1983. With Hoffman coming off the success of Columbia's Tootsie, "the film would have gone [into production] the moment he was ready," said Mehlman.{{cite news |last=Matthews |first=Jack |date=September 19, 1986 |title=The 12-Year Cycle To Green-Light 'The Yellow Jersey' |work=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-19-ca-10697-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230316180656/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-19-ca-10697-story.html |archive-date=March 16, 2023}} By then, Colin Welland and Carl Foreman were brought aboard as scriptwriters, as well as Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth (who had made the 1976 bicycle-racing documentary A Sunday in Hell), as Hoffman's research adviser. Cimino said that production was long controlled by Foreman, who died in June 1984. The following month, Mehlman, Leth, Cimino, Welland and Hoffman went to France for the Tour, for yet more research. Shooting with the Tour de France was initially scheduled for 1980 and nearly every year since. Welland was still working on the script and hoped to have a draft by October of that year. It has been rumored that Hoffman fired Cimino from the production,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=41WRDwAAQBAJ&q=michael+cimino+dustin+hoffman+tour+de+france&pg=PA97|last=Bennett|first=Bruce|title=Cycling and Cinema|year=2019|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781906897994}}pages 97-98 although multiple sources claim that the deal simply "fell apart with Cimino". After he exited, none of the replacement directors that Mehlman or the studio suggested were satisfactory to Hoffman, so he too left and the film continued to sink further into development hell.

After working on a script about the role of Chinese immigrants in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the American West,{{cite web|last=Brumagne|first=Françoise|title=Michael Cimino en 1985, "L'année du dragon"|date=July 5, 2016|publisher=RTBF|url=https://www.rtbf.be/article/michael-cimino-en-1985-l-annee-du-dragon-9345819|access-date=April 20, 2023|quote=He tells the story of the project: his first intention was to make a western that would tell the role of Chinese immigrants in the construction of the American railroad, but the project had not succeeded, among other things, because he did not know no Chinese-American actor capable of taking on this kind of role. It is under the impulse of the producer Dino de Laurentiis, that he will adapt the novel by Robert Daley, to make the film "The Year of the Dragon", with Mickey Rourke in the main role.|language=FR}}{{cite news|author=Camy, Gérard; Viviani, Christian|issue=December/January 1985–1986|title=Entretien avec Cimino|language=fr|work=Jeune cinéma|page=n171}} Cimino finally accepted Dino De Laurentiis' offer to adapt Robert Daley's novel Year of the Dragon into a feature film, due to similarities in subject matter. Cimino accepted under the conditions that the book be nothing more than a point of departure, that he keep the freedom to tell the story his way and to change characters, and De Laurentiis agreed.{{sfn|Heard|2006|p=225}} Since the project already had a set start date for shooting, Cimino enlisted the help of Oliver Stone in writing the screenplay. The two apparently did over a year of research for the film, frequenting several Chinatown nightclubs and bars each night "to insinuate ourselves into their life."{{cite web|last=Pelan|first=Tim|url=https://cinephiliabeyond.org/married-to-the-enemy-the-pathological-obsession-beneath-michael-ciminos-year-of-the-dragon/|title=Married to the Enemy: The Pathological Obsession Beneath Michael Cimino's 'Year of the Dragon'|website=Cinephilia & Beyond|date=March 14, 2018 |access-date=August 5, 2023}} "With Michael, it's a 24-hour day," Stone later said of working with Cimino. "He doesn't really sleep... he's truly an obsessive personality. He's the most Napoleonic director I ever worked with." At this time, Cimino was simultaneously doing extensive work for the production of The Yellow Jersey. Several actors were considered for the lead role of Stanley White, including Jeff Bridges, Christopher Walken and Nick Nolte. Cimino eventually settled on Mickey Rourke after collaborating with him briefly on the production of The Pope of Greenwich Village, as well as Heaven's Gate several years prior. "Mickey is a true original," Cimino said of Rourke, "He's like a slugger, a battler... Mickey's like Joe Frazier and John [Lone] is like Ali." Cimino took note of the design of other Chinatowns throughout the world, and used the research to replicate New York's Chinatown and Mott Street for a detailed backlot which was constructed in Wilmington, North Carolina. Since its construction, the set for the film has been re-used extensively for other Hollywood film productions. The street was re-created in such extraordinary detail that even Stanley Kubrick (who was born in the Bronx), thought it had been the real Chinatown. Cimino, who often liked to shoot interiors in one city and exteriors in another, also filmed parts in New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, Bangkok, Thailand and Chiang Rai. Confident that he'd deliver on time and within budget, Cimino had a wager going with De Laurentiis that if he didn't go over budget, he would get the luxurious Mercedes that John Lone's character drove in the film. If not, Cimino would forfeit $50,000 of his salary. "It was four days over schedule, but $130,000 under-budget," said production manager Randolph Cheveldave, so Cimino collected. Upon its release, Year of the Dragon was sharply criticized for what many saw as offensively stereotypical depictions of Chinese Americans,{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58428-YEAR-OF-THE-DRAGON?cxt=filmography|title=AFI|Catalog - Year of the Dragon|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=August 5, 2023}} but still managed to turn a profit at the box office. Afterwards, De Laurentiis signed a picture deal for Cimino to direct a film adaptation of the Truman Capote novella, "Handcarved Coffins".{{cite news|last=Pond|first=Steve|title=Dateline Hollywood|date=1 August 1985|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/08/01/dateline-hollywood/fdce166f-4f06-4642-b862-0f28a74974c9/|access-date=1 August 2019}} De Laurentiis had planned to release the film in 1986 following his purchase of Embassy Pictures.{{cite news|last=Harmetz|first=Aljean|title=De Laurentiis to Market own films|date=4 October 1985|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/04/movies/de-laurentiis-to-market-own-films.html|access-date=1 August 2019}}

In 1986, Cimino accepted the deal to direct the adaptation of the best-selling Mario Puzo novel The Sicilian, after Dino De Laurentiis cancelled the production of Hand Carved Coffins.{{cite news|last=Pond|first=Steve|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/02/06/dateline-hollywood/21850996-df11-4159-8217-e91fb9e36183/|title=Dateline Hollywood|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=February 6, 1986|access-date=July 20, 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57813-THE-SICILIAN?sid=e1caf80a-63a1-41ae-b196-f7540f411c42&sr=7.066699&cp=1&pos=0|title=AFI|Catalog - The Sicilian|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=August 5, 2023}} The Sicilian had been offered previously to directors Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, who all declined.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=229}} At the time Cimino boarded the project, it initially had Michael Corleone set up as a character, but due to rights issues, all Godfather references were removed. There had already been a screenplay by Steve Shagan, but since Cimino felt the film needed more "political bite", he brought aboard novelist Gore Vidal to help rewrite the script. Around 80 pages of material were added to Shagan's initial draft, either by Cimino himself or Vidal, who later sued the Writers Guild for receiving no credit. According to film critic F. X. Feeney, Cimino's first casting choice for Salvatore Giuliano was Daniel Day-Lewis,{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=230}} but since he was relatively unknown at the time, the producers suggested Christopher Lambert, whom Cimino accepted because his name guaranteed financing.{{cite web|title="The Sicilian", 1987, por F.x. Feeney |url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=Kn7GNXk96MQ&si=BmXXofMcSgrwWlAY |website=YouTube |access-date=March 19, 2023 |date=March 8, 2017}} During production, Cimino worked closely with Umberto Tirelli (a frequent collaborator of Luchino Visconti's, whom Cimino admired) on the period wardrobe required for the film. Cimino had specifically requested that he work with him directly during the fitting, much to Tirelli's chagrin, who exclaimed in rage, "Goddamn it! I promised myself when Luchino died that I would never work this hard again!" Cimino said this was the best backhanded compliment he ever received in his career. Filming began in Sicily that July, shot extensively in the capital city of Palermo as well as in the mountains of western Sicily. Soon after production ended in September, Cimino turned in his cut of the film, which ran over the agreed runtime of 105–125 minutes stipulated in his contractual obligation. When Gladden tried to re-edit the film, Cimino filed a lawsuit to stop them. Cimino's contract granted him final cut privilege as well as two test screenings of his longer version, which he was never given. Cimino lost, and the film was released a year later, in October. When released in 1987, the film did poorly, but received some critical acclaim, notably by F. X. Feeney, who saw Cimino's director's cut, released only in France.

In 1987, before the release of The Sicilian, Cimino began work on an epic saga chronicling the life of the Irish patriot Michael Collins, based on a screenplay by Eoghan Harris. After disagreements with Harris over Collins as a character, his draft was heavily rewritten by Cimino with the assistance of Robert Bolt, which the two developed in London.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=236-237}} Their script, now titled Blest Souls, was described by the Los Angeles Times as "a love story set against the backdrop of the Irish rebellion". Joann Carelli assisted with casting for the project; finding Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton for the leads.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=237}} Cimino started scouting for locations in Edinburgh, Liverpool and in Ireland.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=237}} While there, him and his team of production managers sought permission from the Irish Government to use their army for the production, which they got. Bono and Bob Geldof were also signed on to compose the music.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=237}} The film was backed by Nelson Entertainment and would have re-teamed Cimino with his Deer Hunter co-producer Barry Spikings. David Puttnam of Columbia Pictures reportedly gave Cimino the green light to begin shooting,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U4tpXVrFnAQC&q=michael+cimino+michael+collins&pg=PA51|last=Pramaggiore|first=Maria|title=Neil Jordan|year=2008|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252075308|page=51}} however due to the corporate meddling of Coca-Cola who wanted to go for something decidedly more mainstream, he would be forced to compromise his vision for the film. Instead, Cimino quit, and a separate script by Neil Jordan later resurfaced and was made into a film in 1996 starring Liam Neeson as Collins. Bolt later admitted he didn't know what came of the project or their script: "Yes, he [Cimino] fled back to America, and all of a sudden, that was that. I don't know what happened."{{cite news |last=Gritten |first=David |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-09-ca-670-story.html |title=Twelve years ago Robert Bolt, right,... |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 9, 1991 |access-date=July 3, 2023}}

Less than three weeks after the Collins biopic was cancelled,{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=238}} Cimino started pre-production work on Santa Ana Wind, a contemporary romantic drama set in L.A. offered to him by Barry Spikings. Budgeted at roughly $15 million, the set start date for shooting was early December 1987. The screenplay was written by Floyd Mutrux and the film was to be bankrolled again by Nelson Entertainment. Cimino's representative added that the film was "about the San Fernando Valley and the friendship between two guys" and "more intimate" than Cimino's previous big-budget work like Heaven's Gate and the then unreleased The Sicilian.{{cite web|last=Klady|first=Leonard|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-04-ca-32706-story.html|title=Checking On Cimino|work=Los Angeles Times|date=October 4, 1987|access-date=May 4, 2023}} However, Nelson Holdings International Ltd. cancelled the project after disclosing that its banks, including Security Pacific National Bank, had reduced the company's borrowing power after Nelson failed to meet certain financial requirements in its loan agreements. A spokesman for Nelson said the cancellation occurred "in the normal course of business," but declined to elaborate.{{cite web|last=Cieply|first=Michael|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-26-ca-38457-story.html|title=Firm Cancels New Cimino Film Project|work=Los Angeles Times|date=January 26, 1988|access-date=May 5, 2023}} The film, also intended for distribution by Columbia, did not feature any major stars.

Cimino finished out his picture deal with Dino De Laurentiis in 1989 when Mickey Rourke suggested he direct the remake of the 1955 home invasion thriller The Desperate Hours.{{cite news|last=Klady|first=Leonard|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-09-ca-5008-story.html|title=Red Light, Green Light|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=July 9, 1989|access-date=August 5, 2023}} The film had been in preparation for several years with directors Christopher Cain and William Friedkin attached at different points.{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/58473|title=AFI|Catalog - Desperate Hours|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Rourke only agreed to do the film if Cimino would direct it due to his ability to transcend the material, "Michael's one of the few directors able to elevate beyond what an actor's capable of doing."{{cite news|last=Van Gelder|first=Lawrence|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/08/movies/at-the-movies.html|title=At the movies|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 8, 1989|access-date=August 1, 2023}} Since Alex Thomson was unavailable, Cimino enlisted the services of rookie cinematographer Doug Milsome, whom he got to know through Stanley Kubrick. While shot on 35 mm film, Desperate Hours is the first of Cimino's works not to be photographed in his preferred Anamorphic aspect ratio.{{cite web|url=https://directorsseries.net/2016/07/21/michael-ciminos-desperate-hours-1990/|title=Michael Cimino's "Desperate Hours" (1990)|website=The Directors Series|date=July 21, 2016|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Principal photography began in October 1989 at Trout Lake near Telluride, Colorado. From there, the production moved to Salt Lake City. Like many of Cimino's works, the film was shot in a variety of locations, mainly in Utah. Although Cimino was allegedly shooting from his own separate script,{{cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/desperate-hours-original-script-3853156801|title=

Desperate Hours Original Script Michael Cimino Micky Rouke Joseph Hays |website=WorthPoint|access-date=August 6, 2023}} Writers Guild arbitration established that since the first draft by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal (along with the original author Joseph Hayes), was the one Cimino agreed to, his name was removed from the credit. The interior house from the film, which was also designed by Cimino, was built at the Ventura Entertainment Center in Orem, Utah, with fully constructed rooms in order to create a look and feel of claustrophobia. It was also designed "with complete fluidity of movement, in any direction" featuring hidden compartments and passages so that the camera could be placed anywhere throughout the house. According to Cimino, co-star Anthony Hopkins would often get angered by Rourke's unprepared habits and improvisations on set: "Mickey's been shot in the head with Brando. This whole 'I don't have to know my fucking lines' thing. Tony Hopkins wanted to kill him."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=240}} Filming wrapped that December, five days ahead of the schedule. De Laurentiis took a two-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter congratulating Cimino for finishing on time and within budget, dubbing the film "a picture of shattering importance."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=241}} After poor previews however, De Laurentiis apparently edited out several scenes, including an intense, eight-minute confrontation between Lindsay Crouse and Kelly Lynch in "a huge, empty football field" because test audiences "read lesbian overtones" into their relationship.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=240}} Cimino's original cut apparently lasted over two and half hours. The only known evidence of additional footage are from a few stills, which seemingly show a few of them.

In 1991, Cimino participated in that year's Avoriaz Fantasy Film Festival, where he served as jury president{{cite magazine|title=Laying Low|date=20 January 1991|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1991/more/news/laying-low-99124731/|access-date=30 July 2019|quote=Director Brian De Palma turned down an invitation to head the jury at the Avoriaz Fantasy Film Festival currently underway in the French Alps, and Michael Cimino took the post. Organizers say De Palma begged off because of a skiing accident.}} and awarded director John Harrison with the Grand Prix for his film Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.

Following the poor reception of Desperate Hours, Cimino wrote an original screenplay called Heaven Is a Sometime Thing which he began submitting to studios circa 1992.{{cite news|last=Pond|first=Steve|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/04/24/columbuss-rough-sail/ed2d466e-3230-47a0-8b83-6d4c69c07043/|title='Columbus's' Rough Sail|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=April 24, 1992|access-date=July 20, 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/unproduced-screenplay-michael-cimino-1862099794|title=Unproduced Screenplay Michael Cimino "Heaven Is A Sometime Thing" 1992 Vintage |website=WorthPoint|access-date=June 27, 2023}}{{cite magazine|last=Archerd|first=Army|title=Perry making new friends in rehab|date=June 4, 1997|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/perry-making-new-friends-in-rehab-1117863081/ |access-date=May 31, 2023|quote=He is happily working on many projects, including two indies set in L.A. The first is the largest Korean-financed pic, about Korean gangsters in the U.S. during the Al Capone era. The other is titled "The Dreaming Place." He is also writing a screenplay about pro golf. If this isn't enough Cimino's writing his first novel, "Sailing to Byzantium."}} It was conceived with Joann Carelli and told the story of a New Mexico mine-worker named C.J. who becomes a brilliant golfer and is estranged from his working-class waitress girlfriend when he meets an heiress and is taken up by high society. F. X. Feeney, who helped him with the script, compared it to the triangle of Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=258}} The Washington Post reported that Cimino had developed the project at Paramount. He later resurrected the script and was able to publish it in France as a short novel.

Taking on "writer-for-hire work" in Hollywood, Cimino wrote an adapted script for Clint Eastwood's Malpaso Productions from the 1993 novel Paradise Junction, which Eastwood would have either directed/starred in.{{cite magazine|last=Marx|first=Andy|title=Rich snaps up four more books for project library|date=October 21, 1992|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1992/film/news/rich-snaps-up-four-more-books-for-project-library-101032/|access-date=April 2, 2023|quote=Phillip Finch's soon-to-be published "Paradise Junction" was purchased by Rich and Clint Eastwood's Malpaso Prods. The thriller is being written by Michael Cimino. Asked if Cimino would possibly direct the film, Rich gave an emphatic "No."}}{{cite magazine|last=Archerd|first=Army|title='Melrose,' '90210' spell success for creator|date=December 16, 1992|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1992/voices/columns/melrose-90210-spell-success-for-creator-1117862097/|access-date=April 2, 2023|quote=Also, Michael Cimino's scripting "Paradise Junction" for Clint Eastwood and Rich's banners. Eastwood would direct or star or both.}}{{cite magazine|last=Moerk|first=Christian|title=Oscared pair on Rich slate|date=July 8, 1993|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1993/film/news/oscared-pair-on-rich-slate-108511/|access-date=April 2, 2023|quote=Another Eastwood project slated for WB distribution is "Paradise Junction," which Michael Cimino is adapting from Philip Finch's book. It's about a tough, working-class guy who gets recruited into a criminal scheme by a bunch of yuppies, but turns the tables on them. Sources said it has not been decided if Eastwood will also helm the project, which the Oscar winner's Malpaso and Rich Prods. acquired together.}} He was also writing a script for filmmaker John Woo based on his story titled Full Circle, which Woo claimed would "have a similar style to The Killer."{{cite magazine|last=Sandell|first=Jillian|title=Interview with John Woo|date=1 January 2001|magazine=Bright Lights Film Journal|url=https://brightlightsfilm.com/interview-john-woo/#.XVSTgOhKjIU|access-date=14 August 2019}}

In the mid-90s, Oliver Stone encouraged producer Mario Kassar to help fund Cimino's ambitious Conquering Horse project.{{cite web|url=https://www.culturopoing.com/cinema/entretiens-cinema/interview-de-jean-baptiste-thoret-pour-michael-cimino-un-mirage-americain/20220118|title=Interview de Jean-Baptiste Thoret pour " Michael Cimino, un mirage américain "|date=January 18, 2022|website=Culturopoing|quote="About the script that Oliver Stone talks about, a Western in the Sioux language that he wrote for Cimino, he says 'We had found 12, 13, 14 million dollars to do it, he could have done it if he had wanted.' When we see the film we say to ourselves that a part of him still wanted to shoot between '95 and the moment of his death and another part did not want to anymore. When Stone says that a guy who puts so much energy so that a film that could be made does not happen, it almost says something about him, he is right. When you spend time with someone from morning to night, you learn things, a kind of humanity even at times almost a little naive. Like Ford, which he talked about every day."|access-date=April 2, 2023|language=FR}} However, as Stone recalled, "He [Cimino] was too difficult to deal with. He was arrogant, and I don't know that he ever gave it up. He never could eat humble pie or didn't seem to."{{cite news|last=Fleming|first=Mike Jr.|title=Oliver Stone on his Coming-of-Age Memoir 'Chasing the Light,' The Challenge in Making a President Trump Movie & Times He Nearly Got Killed Making his Early Films – Q&A|date=28 July 2020|magazine=Deadline Hollywood|url=https://deadline.com/2020/07/oliver-stone-interview-memoir-chasing-the-light-donald-trump-movie-nearly-getting-killed-platoon-salvador-scarface-midnight-express-1202996565/|access-date=27 June 2022}}

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| source = —Michael Cimino

| quote = There is nowhere in the world that you go that is not interesting, and my approach is to insinuate myself into the culture as much as I can. That's why, sometimes, it's hard for me to remember certain things because when I'm doing gangs in L.A., I'm really into the gang culture. I mean, I got to where I could read graffiti on the walls. I would go to rap clubs, and I mean, that's all that would be on [in] my car is rap music. And I'd drench myself in the culture, and it's hard to un-drench yourself. And just as you're doing that, you're inserting yourself into yet again a new culture.

}}

In 1995, Cimino was approached by Regency producer Arnon Milchan to helm The Sunchaser, which would ultimately become Cimino's last feature-length film.{{cite web|title=Cimino, Michael – Senses of Cinema|url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2023/great-directors/cimino-michael/|website=Senses of Cinema|date=January 2023}} A spiritual road odyssey, the film stars Woody Harrelson as a Los Angeles doctor who is held at gunpoint by a teenage convict dying of abdominal cancer (played by Jon Seda), and forced to drive into Navajo Country in search of a sacred mountain lake with healing powers. The script by Charles Leavitt (which had been offered previously to Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson), was virtually rewritten by Cimino.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=241}} Incorporating elements of his unproduced screenplays for both Conquering Horse and Purple Lake into it, the film had a personal resonance to Cimino; "When I was very young, I was lucky enough to spend some time... with the tribe of the Dakota Indians," he said. "I immersed myself so heavily in their culture that, in a way, it became my religion—a religion based on a very simple idea: a stone, a cloud, a rock, everything has spirit, is life. Sunchaser allowed me to return to this."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=242}} Jack Nitzsche was the original composer but Cimino fired him after the two didn't get on well.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=243}} Instead, he hired Maurice Jarre, who orchestrated a bombastic, old-school score.{{cite web|url=https://indiefilmhustle.com/michael-cimino/|title=Ultimate Guide To Michael Cimino And His Directing Techniques|date=October 21, 2022}} The Sunchaser made its debut at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it screened in competition for the Palme d'Or.{{Cite web|url=https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/sunchaser/|title=Sunchaser|website=Festival de Cannes}} However, unsupported by its distributor, the film was released theatrically only in a few theaters in the southwest, where it played for a week, grossing roughly $30,000 on a budget of $31 million."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=244}}

Cimino was to follow the film up with An American Dream in 1997, about the first Asian immigrant to join Al Capone's mob. Jason Scott Lee was attached to star and The Hollywood Reporter indicated that the film was to shoot in Chicago, San Francisco and South Korea.{{cite web|last=Michael|first=Dennis|title=Hollywood Minute|url=http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9705/14/hollywood.minute/index.html|website=CNN International|date=May 14, 1997|access-date=February 26, 2023|quote=Actor Jason Scott Lee is about to join Al Capone's Chicago mob. The Hollywood Reporter trade paper indicates the actor will star in "An American Dream," based on a true story about the first Asian immigrant to become a powerful player in Capone's operation. Michael Cimino will direct in Chicago, San Francisco and South Korea.}} That same year, Cimino was reported to direct The Dreaming Place for Trimark Pictures. Originally titled Law of the Jungle, Variety reported that the film, which was in the early stages of development, was to be a male vigilante story along the lines of Paramount's Eye for an Eye. Rodney Patrick Vaccaro wrote the screenplay under the supervision of Cimino, and Jonathon Komack Martin was to executive produce the film.{{cite news|author=Variety Staff|title=Trimark's 'Dream' helmer: Cimino|date=July 1, 1997|work=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1997/film/news/trimark-s-dream-helmer-cimino-1116677556/|archive-date=July 30, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190730233445/https://variety.com/1997/film/news/trimark-s-dream-helmer-cimino-1116677556/}} The planned budget was not revealed, however, it was Trimark's attempt to make a bigger-budgeted film than usual which is ultimately why it was never produced. According to Vaccaro, he and Cimino apparently collaborated on two projects in total together over a period of four years.{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-dec-16-ca-540-story.html|title=Don't Demonize Cimino|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=December 16, 2000|access-date=April 6, 2023}}

In July 1997, Cimino served as president of the international competition jury at the 42nd annual Taormina Film Fest.{{cite web|last=Rooney|first=David|url=https://variety.com/1997/film/markets-festivals/taormina-returns-to-summer-slot-1116679297/|title=Taormina returns to summer slot|website=Variety|date=June 18, 1997|access-date=May 4, 2023}}

As early as 1997, Cimino was attached as the director of a film called Brasil 1500, planned to debut in the United States under the title Gonçalo, after the main character.{{cite news|last=Oliva|first=Fernando|url=https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq300629.htm|title=Hollywood filma o descobrimento|work=Folha de S.Paulo|date=June 30, 1997|access-date=June 27, 2023|language=Portuguese}} Variety magazine incorrectly referred to the film's title as 1500.{{cite magazine|author=Variety Staff|title=Cimino set to go back in time with '1500'|date=16 March 1999|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1999/film/news/cimino-set-to-go-back-in-time-with-1500-1117492359/|access-date=5 October 2022}} This Brazilian-American co-production intended to portray the events of the day of the arrival of Pedro Álvares Cabral's flagship in Santa Cruz Cabrália on April 21, 1500. Written by first-time Brazilian scribe Fábio Fonseca, the film was to have been told through the eyes of a fictional character (similarly to Titanic), named Gonçalo, a Portuguese sailor from Cabral's fleet. Antonio Banderas was eyed as a possible star, with a supporting cast planned to be composed largely of Brazilian natives. Cimino and producer Ilya Salkind were also interested in casting several British actors for the project, chief among them being Paul Scofield. A budget of $35 million was estimated, with principal photography initially set for January and February 1998. Filming was then pushed back to early 1999, for a planned release in 2000, coinciding with the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil. That year, Cimino was in Brazil to choose sets and scout locations, which included Porto Seguro and Portugal. For research, he read the famous epic poem Os Lusíadas, about the discovery of a sea route to India.{{cite news|last=Ribeiro|first=Pedro|url=https://www.publico.pt/1999/02/12/jornal/alvares-cabral-versao-hollywood-129519|title=Álvares Cabral, versão Hollywood|work=Público|date=February 12, 1999|access-date=June 27, 2023|language=Portuguese}} Speaking at a press conference in Lisbon, Cimino said that unlike the films made about Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas, this film would follow a young man as its protagonist, "in a story very similar to that of Lawrence of Arabia," he said. He also claimed that an exact replica of Cabral's flagship had been constructed for the production. The film was not made due to producers Ilya Salkind and Jane Chaplin's failure to secure a deal with an international investor.

After Gonçalo was rejected by Warner Bros., Paramount and Disney,{{cite web|url=https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=701342.html|title=Incroyable casting pour M. Cimino|website=AlloCiné|date=September 3, 2001|access-date=November 13, 2023|language=fr}} Cimino began to work on writing his first novel, titled Big Jane. Set in 1951, and 173 pages in length, the story follows a "dynamite-looking, six-foot blonde who wears blue jeans, a Miss Universe of muscle," who travels by motorcycle across America and ends up fighting in the Korean War alongside a brigade of women.{{cite news|last=Macnab|first=Geoffrey|title=Michael Cimino: war stories|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/dec/06/artsfeatures|work=The Guardian|date=December 6, 2001|access-date=March 26, 2023}} Initially conceived as a screenplay, Big Jane was meticulously translated from English to French and published on September 5, 2001, by publishing house Éditions Gallimard. Cimino later tried seeking interest from U.S. publishers, to no avail. He first appeared with the screenplay treatment (written in prose at novel length), at that year's Venice Film Festival, where he conducted a staged reading from the piece and proclaimed that the next time he would return with a film made from the story.{{cite web|last=B.|first=Scott|url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2002/08/26/featured-filmmaker-michael-cimino|title=Featured Filmmaker: Michael Cimino|website=IGN|date=August 26, 2002|access-date=November 13, 2023}} Cimino was then honored at Deauville, where he received the Prix littéraire Lucien-Barrière, an award that previously went to Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. "Oh, I'm the happiest, I think, I've ever been!" he said in response.

In September 2001, it was reported that Cimino would return to the director's chair to make Man's Fate, a 3-hour epic set against the backdrop of the Chinese Revolution. Based on French author André Malraux's 1933 novel, the film, as described by Cimino, was to have depicted "the deep, emotional bonds that develop between several Europeans living in Shanghai during the tragic turmoil that characterized the onset of China's Communist regime." The roughly $25 million project was to have been shot wholly on location in Shanghai in June of the following year and would have benefited from the support of China's government, which said it would provide $2 million worth of local labor costs. The film's producer, Mirko Ikonomoff was in early talks to pre-sell Man's Fate to several European groups, including Italy's RAI and France's TF1, but failed in his attempts. Actors Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Malkovich and Alain Delon were all in negotiations as possible stars for the project, as well as Uma Thurman or Nicole Kidman as the female lead.{{cite magazine|title=Michael Cimino Discovers 'Man's Fate' in Shanghai|url=https://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/michael-cimino-discovers-mans-fate-shanghai-1699|date=September 4, 2001|magazine=Home Media Magazine|access-date=February 8, 2023}} After failing to raise money elsewhere, Cimino took his script to Martha De Laurentiis who passed on it. "If you edit it down, it could be a very tight, beautiful, sensational movie," De Laurentiis said, "but violent, and ultimately a subject matter that I don't think America is that interested in." Cimino however, felt differently, "There was never a better time to try to do Man's Fate," he said, "because Man's Fate is what it's all about right now. It's about the nature of love, of friendship, the nature of honor and dignity. How fragile and important all of those things are in a time of crisis." In a March 2002 interview for Vanity Fair, Cimino called the screenplay "the best one I've ever done," adding that he had "half the money; [we're] trying to raise the other half." Up until his death, Cimino tried to get the film off the ground several times, struggling to secure financing.{{cite web|last=de Guilhermier|first=Marine|title=Michael Cimino : son projet avorté avec Taylor Swift|date=October 4, 2016|website=Orange S.A.|url=https://cineday.orange.fr/actu-cine/michael-cimino-son-projet-avorte-avec-taylor-swift-CNT000000uEfeU.html|access-date=April 1, 2023|language=FR}} In what would be his last interview in March 2015, Cimino had said he still hoped to make the film someday.{{cite news|last=Abramovitch|first=Seth|title=Michael Cimino: The Full, Uncensored Hollywood Reporter Interview|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/michael-cimino-full-uncensored-hollywood-778288/|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=March 2, 2015|access-date=March 26, 2023}}

Cimino was attached to produce the independent film The Silk Curtain about Empress Dowager Cixi, who ruled China for 47 years until 1908. Consulina Wong was to have directed from her own screenplay, and was to have starred as Cixi. Jason Scott Lee was also considered for a role. Cimino said he was drawn to The Silk Curtain by the strength of the characters and "the intimate story about their relationships played out against one of the most tumultuous periods in China's history." The film was to have been produced by COJODA Productions, and a private reading was held at the Kumu Kahua Theatre in Honolulu in 2002, but the project failed to pique interest from potential investors.{{cite news|last=Ryan|first=Tim|url=https://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/04/05/features/index6.html|title=Investors gather for stage reading|newspaper=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=April 5, 2002|access-date=August 6, 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://goldsea.com/Personalities/LeeJS/leejs2.html|title=Jason Scott Lee: Primal Man|website=Goldsea}}

In 2003, Cimino published his second novel, a two-volume work; the first a partially fictitious memoir called Conversations en miroir (English translation: Shadow Conversations) which he co-authored with Francesca Pollock, and the other a short story called A Hundred Oceans.Cimino, Michael; Pollock, Francesca (writer) (2003). Conversations en miroir (in French). Paris: Gallimard. The latter of the two Cimino adapted from his pre-existing feature-length screenplay Heaven Is a Sometime Thing. Neither this, nor his first novel Big Jane were released in the states. Cimino has mentioned in interviews that he wrote a third book called Sailing to Byzantium (named after the poem by W. B. Yeats), about a dying tycoon who reflects on his life. He began writing it as early as 1997, and it still to this day, remains unpublished. Cimino had apparently sent an early draft of the novel to a friend, requesting later that they burn their copy: "I want to hear every page going into the incinerator."{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=256}}

{{quote box

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| source = —Michael Cimino

| quote = I can't write without placing my characters in space, I need to see in three dimensions inside my head, to have a three-dimensional space. I don't make flat movies. I don't work in a two-dimensional plane, I want to take down the wall of the screen, to bring the public inside the story and the adventure, through their eyes. I need to pre-imagine the film's architecture, the film's space, even the space of the room to create my characters. I need to see before I can write, and if I can't see I can't write. In other words, it has to be real and three-dimensional inside my head before I can put it on paper.

}}

In 2004, after Terrence Malick exited as director of the Che Guevara biopic, Cimino apparently pitched himself to direct it.{{cite web|last=Jagernauth|first=Kevin|url=https://theplaylist.net/lost-projects-michael-cimino-wanted-make-movie-taylor-swift-20160923/|title=Lost Projects: Michael Cimino Wanted To Make A Movie With Taylor Swift|website=ThePlaylist.net|date=September 23, 2016|access-date=April 1, 2023}} Steven Soderbergh was eventually chosen as the film's director.

In 2007, Cimino was asked by Cannes director Thierry Frémaux to contribute a 3-minute short segment for the collective film To Each His Own Cinema, celebrating the 60th year of the Cannes Film Festival.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=278}} The project consisted of 34 short films by 36 acclaimed directors. Representing five continents and 25 countries, the filmmakers were invited to express "their state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theatre".{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/index.php/en/archives/event/4440561 |title=To Each His Own Cinema, The 60th Anniversary Film of the Festival de Cannes |access-date=2007-12-28 |last=Jacob |first=Gilles |publisher=Cannes Film Festival }} {{Dead link|date=October 2010|bot=H3llBot}} Cimino's segment depicts a cigar-smoking French filmmaker who films a Cuban pop star's music video in a movie theater. Later, when she is shown the footage, she is angered by his editing decisions and begins to strangle him.{{cite web|url=https://vimeo.com/25729328|title=A Chacun Son Cinema (To Each His Own Cinema)|publisher=Gabriel Reed|date=June 28, 2011|access-date=April 7, 2023}} While spoken entirely in different languages, the film has no subtitles. But as its title, ("No Translation Needed") suggests, they are not necessary.

In the early 2010s, French film producer Vincent Maraval worked on various projects with Cimino, none of which came to fruition. One film, an original screenplay by Cimino himself titled Cream Rises, followed the daily lives of two young female models, (whom Maraval compared to Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie) who are "completely disconnected from reality" and live a hedonistic life in Los Angeles filled with empty sex and boozing. Cimino wanted Taylor Swift to play one of leads, but since she was unknown at the time, Maraval passed on it. Halfway through the film, the more timid of the two girls is murdered and the other heads to the countryside to find her uncle, "An old cowboy farmer with very Western values", whom Christopher Walken was to embody. "It was something very contemporary," Maraval explained, "About the world of today and its confrontation with the world of yesterday. As if the cinema of Cimino looked at the cinema of today. It was very moving." The script for Cream Rises was also read by the TV channel Arte, who were apparently "enthusiastic" about possibly investing.{{cite news|last=Père|first=Olivier|title=Le Canardeur de Michael Cimino - Olivier Père|date=November 19, 2014|website=Arte|url=https://www.arte.tv/sites/olivierpere/2014/11/19/le-canardeur-de-michael-cimino/|access-date=April 1, 2023|language=FR}}

Other projects Cimino worked on with Maraval later in his life include a feature adaptation of the Tennessee Williams short story "One Arm"{{cite web|last=Pallaruelo|first=Olivier|title=Quand Michael Cimino voulait faire un film avec Taylor Swift|date=October 3, 2016|website=AlloCiné|url=http://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18656428.html|access-date=April 1, 2023|quote=Among the other projects mentioned by the CEO of Wild Bunch is also One Arm, a dark story of a boxer losing an arm in a car accident.|language=FR}} as well as a film about the history of America from the point of view of the Native Americans.{{cite web|last=Pallaruelo|first=Olivier|title=Quand Michael Cimino voulait faire un film avec Taylor Swift|date=October 3, 2016|website=AlloCiné|url=http://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18656428.html|access-date=April 1, 2023|quote=That of a film which was to tell the History of America from the point of view of the native Americans. "A film about the genocide and then about a life both protected, on the reservations, and humiliated by the good American conscience confronted with the original crime. The film therefore had to be made in their language, otherwise it would have been like a betrayal, but that prevented him from counting on stars, reason for which he could not do it".|language=FR}}

At the persistence of Joann Carelli, Cimino meticulously supervised a restoration of Heaven's Gate frame-by-frame, for The Criterion Collection, where he restored the original film's color.{{cite web|last=Davis|first=Edward|url=https://theplaylist.net/michael-cimino-says-resisted-criterion-restoration-heavens-gate-10-years-32-minute-talk-20160711/|title=Michael Cimino Says He Resisted Criterion Restoration Of 'Heaven's Gate' For 10 Years & More In 32-Minute Talk From 2012|website=ThePlaylist.net|date=July 11, 2016|access-date=August 6, 2023}} Cimino said, while at first hesitant to revisit the film, that his instincts quickly took over:

"The minute I sat down at the editing console, something else in me took over, and my hands began to work. My brain began to work. And before I knew it, I was working on this restoration, which I swore I would not do... The more I worked on it, the more I became absolutely blown away by the commitment of people like Kris [Kristofferson], and Chris Walken, Isabelle Huppert, all the actors. The intensity that they brought to every moment that they were on film, and off film. I owe a great debt to them because they dedicated the better part of a year to this enterprise. And when we first showed it, of course, in New York, it was like we all got guillotined at the same time. And I was always especially upset at the fact that the actors' work was never recognized. You know, for some reason I was singled out."

In 2012, at the 69th Venice Film Festival, the restored director's cut was screened and was met with a standing ovation.{{cite news |url=http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/venice-film-festival-michael-cimino-revisits-heavens-gate/ |title=Venice Film Festival: Michael Cimino Revisits 'Heaven's Gate' |date= August 31, 2012 |access-date=October 28, 2012 |author=Lim, Dennis |newspaper= The New York Times}} The film was also shown at the New York Film Festival, a return to "the scene of the crime" said Cimino, where it received subsequent acclaim, even being dubbed by critics as a misunderstood masterpiece.{{cite news|last=Chang|first=Justin|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-michael-cimino-appreciation-20160703-snap-story.html|title=Michael Cimino, a 'Hunter' in pursuit of an uncompromising vision|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=July 3, 2016|access-date=August 6, 2023}} Cimino was deeply moved by the positive reception at the film's re-release, "All of those years, I felt like Heaven's Gate was a beautiful, fantastically colored balloon tied to a string fastened to my wrist, so the balloon could never fly," he said.

Despite previous mentions of his distaste for the genre,{{cite magazine|last=Mourinha|first=Jorge|url=https://filmmakermagazine.com/99041-interview-michael-cimino-2005/#.Yy47CHbMLIU|title="I Never Knew How to Make a Film": Michael Cimino in 2005|magazine=Filmmaker|date=July 5, 2016|access-date=April 2, 2023|quote="I think the world is far too interesting for us to try and make up a new one. For me, the dimensions of human art are measureless. Like Coleridge says, 'caverns measureless to man, spaces measureless to man.' There's so much of interest in real life and most people who write science fiction are running away from life to create a fictional world. I'd rather have real life."}} Cimino revealed through his Twitter account in late 2012 that he had "Recently finished a sci-fi script," but no further details were reported.{{cite news |last=Yamato |first=Jen |title=From 'Heaven's Gate' To 'Star Wars,' Must-Read Tweets From Michael Cimino's First 24 Hours On Twitter|date=7 December 2012 |website=Yahoo! |url=https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/news/heavens-gate-star-wars-must-read-tweets-michael-000031932.html|access-date=27 June 2022}}

In 2015, he was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno Film Festival, for his life's work achievement.{{cite news|last=Vivarelli|first=Nick|url=https://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/michael-cimino-to-get-lifetime-achievement-award-from-locarno-film-fest-1201535905/|title=Michael Cimino to Get Lifetime Achievement Award From Locarno Film Fest|work=Variety|date=July 8, 2015|access-date=August 6, 2023}} After receiving the award, the following day Cimino took part in a discussion about his career in front of an audience in one of his last public appearances. When asked if he was working on another project, he replied, "Always. I never stop. If you stop, you die."

Cimino was confirmed dead on July 2, 2016, at age 77, at his home in Beverly Hills, California.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/movies/michael-cimino-director-of-the-deer-hunter-and-heavens-gate-dies-at-77.html|title=Michael Cimino, Director of 'The Deer Hunter' and 'Heaven's Gate,' Dies at 77|last=Itzkoff|first=Dave|date=2016-07-02|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-07-03}} No cause has been disclosed officially to the public.{{cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/peter-biskind-michael-ciminos-twisted-910101|title=Peter Biskind on Michael Cimino's Twisted, Tortured Legacy: "A Mystery in Death as He Was in Life"|work=The Hollywood Reporter|first=Peter|last=Biskind|author-link=Peter Biskind|date=July 13, 2016|access-date=April 14, 2020}} Since his death, many directors, actors, and other public figures paid tribute to him, including Robert De Niro, Thierry Frémaux, Edgar Wright, William Friedkin, Paul Rust, Christopher McQuarrie, Kelly Lynch, Jason Reitman, Mark Romanek, Jay Baruchel, Mark Harris and Sophie Marceau.{{cite web|title=Hollywood Remembers 'The Deer Hunter' Director Michael Cimino|url=https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/hollywood-remembers-deer-hunter-director-michael-cimino-050014295.html|date=July 3, 2016|access-date=October 8, 2022}}{{cite magazine|last=Nolfi|first=Joey|url=https://ew.com/article/2016/07/03/michael-cimino-dead-film-community-pays-tribute/|title=Michael Cimino dead: Film community remembers Deer Hunter director|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|date=July 3, 2016|access-date=August 6, 2023}} Film critic F. X. Feeney (a close friend of Cimino's) wrote:

"A few weeks before his death, Michael consulted a physician about a mild respiratory complaint but otherwise suffered no signs of ill health. When I last had lunch with him on June 19th, he was full of energy and plans. Nevertheless, because he was an intuitive man, I feel certain looking back that he had an inkling his life was drawing to a close. He took deliberate care to mend fences with as many people as he could in the last year of his life, and with me that last day he was more reflective than I'd ever known him to be about his early life. He was full of amused memories centered on his dad's fierce perfectionism. Friends and loved ones found him impossible to reach after the 28th of June, and – when the police entered his house after several days – the officer who found him tucked in his bed described him as "peacefully deceased." His heart had apparently stopped without trauma, in sleep. There was no funeral or public memorial thereafter, and he needs none. His monuments are onscreen."{{cite web|last=Feeney|first=F. X.|title=Movies on the big screen: The Cimino legacy, by F.X. Feeney|url=http://americancinematheque.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-cimino-legacy-by-fx-feeney.html|website=American Cinematheque|date=July 29, 2016|access-date=September 24, 2022}}

His work has been lauded by such filmmakers as Stanley Kubrick, Agnès Varda,{{cite web|last=Dhruv Bose|first=Swapnil|title=Agnes Varda named her 50 favourite films of all time|url=https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/agnes-varda-50-favourite-films/|date=January 25, 2022|access-date=October 12, 2022}} Martin Scorsese,{{cite web|last=Baker|first=Kevin|url=https://kevinbaker.info/interview-with-martin-scorsese/|title=Interview With Martin Scorsese|website=KevinBaker.info|date=September 8, 2002|access-date=December 1, 2023|quote=Yeah. I mean, "Heaven's Gate" has got some wonderful things in it. Some really, really amazing things. Talk about detail, authenticity, staging. Just staging people in the frame, in a wide frame! It's just phenomenal. But what happened just had to happen. Hollywood's in the business of getting—ideally—a return at the box office. You know, somebody gives you $40 million to make a picture, you should think about making money.}} Francis Ford Coppola, Miloš Forman,{{cite web|last=Leatham|first=Thomas|url=https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/milos-forman-10-favourite-films/|title=Miloš Forman's 10 favourite movies|website=Far Out|date=March 6, 2023|access-date=December 12, 2023}} Spike Lee,{{cite web|last=Summers|first=Megan|url=https://screenrant.com/spike-lee-unknown-trivia-about-iconic-filmmaker-da-5-bloods/#after-watching-the-deer-hunter-lee-decided-he-wanted-to-make-movies|title=Spike Lee: 10 Things You Never Knew About The Iconic Filmmaker|website=Screen Rant|date=July 10, 2020|access-date=September 12, 2023}} Olivier Assayas,{{cite web|url=https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/237-olivier-assayas-s-top-10|title=Olivier Assayas's Top 10|website=The Criterion Collection|date=May 29, 2015}} Greta Gerwig,{{cite news|last=Hess|first=Amanda|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/movies/little-women-inspirations.html|title=How Greta Gerwig Built Her 'Little Women'|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 20, 2019|access-date=September 13, 2023}} Steven Soderbergh,{{cite news|last=Jagernauth|first=Kevin|title=Watch: Steven Soderbergh's "Butcher's Cut" Of Michael Cimino's 'Heaven's Gate'|url=https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/watch-steven-soderberghs-butchers-cut-of-michael-ciminos-heavens-gate-86889/|publisher=IndieWire|date=April 21, 2014|access-date=May 31, 2023}} Brett Ratner,{{cite news|last=Clement|first=Nick|url=https://variety.com/2017/film/spotlight/brett-ratner-walk-of-fame-1201963875/|title=Walk of Fame Honoree Brett Ratner's Love of Cinema Is a Driving Force in His Career|work=Variety|date=January 19, 2017|access-date=June 29, 2023}} David Gordon Green,{{cite web|last=Meares|first=Joel|title=David Gordon green's five favorite films|url=https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/david-gordon-greens-five-favorite-films/|date=October 13, 2021|access-date=October 12, 2022}} James Gray{{cite web|title=The Auteurs: Michael Cimino|url=https://cinemaaxis.com/2014/07/24/the-auteurs-michael-cimino/|date=July 24, 2014|access-date=October 12, 2022}}{{cite web|last=Perez|first=Rodrigo|title=Interview: James Gray Discusses Harvey Weinstein, Cinematic Influences, His Career, 'Die Hard' & More|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2014/05/interview-james-gray-discusses-harvey-weinstein-cinematic-influences-his-career-die-hard-more-85847/amp/|website=IndieWire|date=May 15, 2014|access-date=February 2, 2023}} and Quentin Tarantino.{{cite web|title=Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds Plays Cannes|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2009/05/tarantinos-inglourious-basterds-plays-cannes-186634/|date=May 20, 2009|access-date=October 24, 2022}}Joyce, Paul (Director/Producer); Rodley, Chris (Director/Producer). (1994). Tarantino on Robert De Niro. [Television Production]. UK: Channel 4. Full video on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Vg6up_IS0 Part 1], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0u4POopKo0 Part 2] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERaqk2W7Vo0 Part 3].Clarkson, Wensley (2007). Quentin Tarantino: The Man, The Myths and His Movies (Hardcover ed.). London, England: John Blake Publishing Ltd. p. 313. {{ISBN|978-1-84454-366-3}}.

The director was the subject of the 2021 documentary Michael Cimino, un mirage américain, featuring audio recordings conducted by French critic Jean-Baptiste Thoret. Reflecting on the time he spent with him, Thoret said:

"I understood that he [Cimino] had a terrible time inhabiting the present, the reality of the life of every day. Physically but also in his way of thinking: he was always elsewhere. Not in an ethereal or disconnected way. He was in a very precise past and therefore also a bit in a fantasy... he fantasized about a relationship with America, with John Ford."{{cite web|url=https://www.culturopoing.com/cinema/entretiens-cinema/interview-de-jean-baptiste-thoret-pour-michael-cimino-un-mirage-americain/20220118|title=Interview de Jean-Baptiste Thoret pour " Michael Cimino, un mirage américain "|date=January 18, 2022|website=Culturopoing|access-date=April 2, 2023|language=FR}}

Joann Carelli and her daughter Calantha Mansfield have been the proprietors of Cimino's legacy following his death. According to biographer Charles Elton (who published a book on the late director in 2022), Carelli currently resides in Europe where she spends her time looking for funding for films based on some of Cimino's unpublished writings.{{sfn|Elton|2022|p=313}}

At some point between the releases Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and The Deer Hunter, Cimino attempted to write an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/07/03/michael-cimino--obituary/|title=Michael Cimino – Obituary|date=July 3, 2016|access-date=May 30, 2023|website=The Telegraph}}

In the month before he gave the pitch for The Deer Hunter, Cimino was briefly attached to helm James A. Michener's adventure novel Caravans, set in contemporary Afghanistan.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} The film had spent roughly a decade in development before it was released.{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56234-CARAVANS?cxt=filmography|title=AFI|Catalog – Caravans|website=AFI Catalog|access-date=August 6, 2023}}

In 1976, Cimino met Oliver Stone who offered him the chance to direct his script adaptation of Midnight Express (before the book had even been published), which he loved. Cimino declined however, as he was already doing extensive pre-production work for The Deer Hunter, but the two remained in touch and would collaborate on several other projects.{{cite web|last=Shirey|first=Paul|title=The best movie you never saw: Year of the dragon|date=25 April 2014|publisher=JoBlo.com|url=https://www.joblo.com/movie-news/the-best-movie-you-never-saw-year-of-the-dragon|access-date=31 July 2019}} A few years later, he met Stone again, who was optioning his screenplay for Born on the Fourth of July. Al Pacino was attached to star as Ron Kovic. At that time, Cimino was eager to make another film about Vietnam and the stories of returning veterans, even going as far as to offer to work for free. However, the producer, Martin Bregman, declined. The film was later resurrected in 1989, and directed by Stone himself.

Sometime after Cimino finished post-production work on The Deer Hunter, he gave a "unique pitch" to direct The Empire Strikes Back. "Everyone was pitching ideas for Star Wars," he said in 2012, "Mine was simple: A straight Western, but with lasers."{{cite web|last=Jagernauth|first=Kevin|url=https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/michael-cimino-says-he-made-a-unique-pitch-to-direct-star-wars-episode-v-the-empire-strikes-back-103182/|title=Michael Cimino says he made a "Unique Pitch" to direct 'Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back'|website=IndieWire|date=December 7, 2012|access-date=July 5, 2023}}

It was rumored that Cimino had been in early discussions with producer Robert Stigwood to direct the adaptation of the musical Evita at EMI, after he had finished The Deer Hunter. However, following the disastrous reception of Heaven's Gate in New York and Hollywood, a spokesman with Stigwood claimed that Cimino had never been involved with Evita at any capacity and that they "planned to seek a retraction from Time magazine," which had listed him as the film's director.{{cite news|last=Brown|first=Peter H.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1989/03/05/desperately-seeking-evita/7e1bf1d8-49cc-439a-be8c-9ddf5c1ad24b/|title=Desperately seeking Evita|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=March 5, 1989|access-date=July 20, 2023}}{{cite news|last=Harmetz|first= Aljean|date=May 15, 1981|title=Movie rights to 'Evita' bought by Paramount|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/15/movies/movie-rights-to-evita-bought-by-paramount.html|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 11, 2023}}

Producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the film rights to the horror novel The Dead Zone after Stanley Donen left the project as director, at Lorimar. De Laurentiis approached Cimino to direct, and was very briefly attached but was championed by author Stephen King to be replaced after disagreements over the rewriting of the script when King attempted to adapt it himself.{{cite web|last=Lambie|first=Ryan|title=Why the Dead Zone is one of the best Stephen King films|date=21 February 2015|publisher=Den of Geek|url=https://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-dead-zone/33989/why-the-dead-zone-is-one-of-the-best-stephen-king-films|access-date=2 July 2019}}

For a period of time in 1984, Cimino agreed to produce Platoon for Oliver Stone, with Emilio Estevez attached at that time to star as Staff Sgt. Barnes.{{cite magazine|last=Nashawaty|first=Chris|title=Oliver Stone Platoon Charlie Sheen|date=24 May 2011|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|url=https://ew.com/article/2011/05/24/oliver-stone-talks-platoon-and-charlie-sheen-on-the-vietnam-films-25th-anniversary-exclusive/|access-date=29 July 2019}} Stone then signed on to co-write Cimino's Year of the Dragon for Dino De Laurentiis under the condition that he would next finance Platoon as a result. Cimino moved on after the project fell through with De Laurentiis at MGM, and from there the script was passed to John Daly and released in 1986. According to Stone, it was Cimino who had encouraged him to bring back his script for the film when Stone had given up on it: "He said 'It's going to come back', and I'm glad he said that."

Around the same time he was doing Year of the Dragon for Dino De Laurentiis, Cimino had a deal to direct a biopic at Embassy Pictures based on the William Kennedy novel Legs.{{cite magazine|last=Barnes|first=Mike|title=Character Actor Leonard Termo Dies at 77|date=2 November 2012|magazine=The Hollywood Reporter|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lenny-termo-mickey-rourke-seinfeld-384835|access-date=30 July 2019}} Mickey Rourke was attached to play the gangster Legs Diamond, and had told the Chicago Tribune in 1985 that, "One side's waiting for a rewrite, the other side's waiting for the money for a rewrite," but felt that it still would be made eventually.{{cite news|last=Hackett|first=Pat|title=Versatile young actor Mickey Rourke gets his candor up about his|date=16 August 1985|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-08-18-8502230810-story.html|access-date=30 July 2019}} Leonard Termo was also attached to the project, as Diamond's bodyguard.

One of Cimino's hopes since first arriving in Hollywood was to helm a big-budget, old-fashioned Hollywood musical loosely inspired by the Porgy and Bess opera. In a 1985 interview for Cahiers du cinéma, Cimino said that he wanted to reimagine it as a romantic tale of a young, black Gospel-singing girl from the South (loosely based on Eva Jessye) who falls for a white Juilliard concert pianist (loosely based on George Gershwin). Together, the two struggle to stage a Broadway production of Porgy and Bess. In the same edition, Cimino discussed his love for the work of Ayn Rand, expressing interest in someday adapting her novel Atlas Shrugged for the screen, in addition to The Fountainhead.

{{quote box

| width = 275px

| align = right

| bgcolor = CornSilk

| tstyle = font-size:100%

| source = —Michael Cimino

| quote = I'm much more intrigued by a good building than by a good movie. I'm much more interested in a big bridge or a great new novel or a great painting. When I'm asked about my influences, instead of rolling out 20 filmmakers, I say Frank Lloyd Wright, [Edgar] Degas... [Gustav] Mahler...

}}

Cimino has shown great admiration for Luchino Visconti, John Ford and Akira Kurosawa, dubbing them "The Holy Trinity of movies."{{cite web|url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Ds-VrE3Uz8&si=JRzB1emyjKVNRXz4|title=Oh, Cimino!|publisher=Locarno Film Festival|website=YouTube|date=August 10, 2015|access-date=April 2, 2023}}Andrews, p. 248.Hickenlooper, p. 88. He has also praised the work of film director Vincente Minnelli and "his attention to detail, especially in the musicals." He once named his literary influences as Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Gore Vidal, Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy, the classics of Islamic literature, Frank Norris and Steven Pinker. Cimino also said that he liked to begin research for a new film by reading that country's poets; Li Bo (China: Year of the Dragon) and W. B. Yeats (Ireland: Blest Souls).

In 1992, Cimino participated in the Sight & Sound film polls. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Cimino's choices were:{{Cite web|url=https://www.oocities.org/the7thart/directorlist.html|title=Directors' Top10|access-date=May 20, 2023}}

{{div col | colwidth=25em}}

• The Leopard (Italy, 1963)
• They Were Expendable (USA, 1945)
• Ludwig (Italy/France, 1973)
• The Searchers (USA, 1956)
• La Strada (Italy, 1954)
• Children of Paradise (France, 1945)
• My Darling Clementine (USA, 1946)
• La Dolce Vita (Italy, 1960)
• Rocco and His Brothers (Italy, 1960)
• Seven Samurai (Japan, 1954)

{{div col end}}

Cimino's films have been noted for their controversial subject matter and striking visual style. Elements of Cimino's visual sensibility include shooting in Anamorphic widescreen, painterly compositions, jittery tracking shots and wide vista establishing shots that emphasize the Earth's landscape and nature.{{cite web|last=Nemcik|first=Marc|url=https://filmmakermagazine.com/99469-watch-michael-cimino-wide-shot/|title=Watch: "Michael Cimino / Wide Shot"|website=Filmmaker|date=August 9, 2016|access-date=September 7, 2023}}{{cite news|last=Gillet|first=Sandy|title=Michael Cimino - Paris Heaven's Gate Master class|date=July 20, 2005|work=EcranLarge|url=https://www.ecranlarge.com/films/interview/900858-michael-cimino-paris-heaven-s-gate-master-class|access-date=March 28, 2023|quote="I like large screens. Western America is full of large landscapes and in a way, they require a large screen. If you diminish the ratio, you are limited. That's why a movie you watch on TV is a different movie."|language=FR}} Cimino's films are also slowly paced, focusing less on story and more on characters, allowing the viewer to observe their nuances and the setting. The subject matter in Cimino's films frequently focuses on aspects of U. S. history and culture, notably disillusionment over the American Dream.[http://www.michaelcimino.fr/portrait-michael-cimino-3.php "Michael Cimino, canardeur enchainé / réalisateur de Voyage au bout de l'enfer, La Porte du Paradis, L'Année du Dragon ..."] (in French). michaelcimino.fr. Retrieved May 4, 2011. Other trademarks include love triangles between main characters, sudden bursts of violence in seemingly tranquil or naturalistic settings and the casting of non-professional actors in supporting roles.

Frequent collaborators of Cimino's included actors Mickey Rourke, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Bauer and Caroline Kava, writers Deric Washburn, Oliver Stone, Thomas McGrath, Rodney Patrick Vaccaro and Raymond Carver, producers Joann Carelli, Dino De Laurentiis and Barry Spikings, cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond, Alex Thomson and Doug Milsome, composer David Mansfield, and assistant director Brian W. Cook.{{cite news|last=Matheson|first=Craig|url=https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/being-stanley-kubrick-20060609-ge2hbd.html|title=Being Stanley Kubrick|newspaper=The Age|date=June 9, 2006|access-date=February 12, 2024}}

Cimino developed a reputation for giving exaggerated stories about himself, his background, and his filmmaking experiences. "When I'm kidding, I'm serious, and when I'm serious, I'm kidding," said Cimino in a 2002 interview. "I am not who I am, and I am who I am not."

Following The Sunchaser, Cimino became more reclusive; spending the majority of the last two decades of his life retreating to his home in Beverly Hills where he wrote incessantly: "Books and screenplays. Sometimes songs." He even claimed he kept track of how many pages he wrote day-to-day, "One page one day, five the next. Sometimes zero. Those are the hard days because you still have to get your butt in the chair and keep writing."{{cite web|last=Göttler|first=Fritz|url=https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/filmemacher-michael-cimino-im-sz-interview-fuerst-aus-einer-anderen-zeit-1.2605338|title=Michael Cimino im SZ-Interview: Fürst aus einer anderen Zeit|work=Süddeutsche Zeitung|date=July 3, 2016|access-date=August 6, 2023|language=German}}{{cite web|title=Michael Cimino à La Filmothèque du Quartier Latin le 23 février 2013 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxLSKHaIIQM |website=YouTube |access-date=August 6, 2023 |date=February 25, 2013}} Cimino's agent, Mike Wise, called him "the Howard Hughes of Hollywood."

Due to his reclusive habits and fluctuations in his physical appearance, Cimino had several rumors circulating him over the course of his life, with people claiming he had dressed in drag, gotten plastic surgery, and even gone through a sex change.Thomson, p. 179.

Beginning in 1997, a columnist with Variety magazine devoted an item to dispelling unspecified "reports" that he had changed his name to "Michelle" and his gender via surgery.{{cite magazine|last=Archerd|first=Army|title=Perry making new friends in rehab|date=June 4, 1997|magazine=Variety|url=https://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/perry-making-new-friends-in-rehab-1117863081/|access-date=May 31, 2023}} Cimino explained that he had not had nor intended to have a sex change and that he was not a cross-dresser, suspecting a former girlfriend of his to have started the rumors. His change in appearance was attributed to weight fluctuations, saying in 2002 that he'd gained weight while editing The Sunchaser; "They're always ordering food. You're in there [the editing room] for twenty hours a day, seven days a week, getting no sleep." With the help of Sunchaser star Woody Harrelson, Cimino began fasting and lost roughly eighty pounds: "He had me on fat-free foods, yoga, etcetera... I am now back to my college wrestling weight," said Cimino.

Known commercials

• 1965: "Come Alive!" for Pepsi
• 1967: "Take Me Along" for United Airlines
• 1967: "Yesterdays" for Eastman Kodak
• 1968: "I Am the Soft Drink Expert" for Canada Dry{{cite news|author1=Lees, David|author2=Berkowitz, Stanley|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/04/15/taking-aim-at-the-academy-awards/bc8f094f-4eeb-45c4-8805-2d189aed7b63/|title=Taking Aim at the Academy Awards|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=April 14, 1979|access-date=August 22, 2024}}
• 1969: "The Coffee Moment" for Maxwell House

Original screenplays (unpublished)

{{div col | colwidth=25em}}

• Kef (with Thomas McGrath)
• Paradise (with Thomas McGrath)
• Perfect Strangers
• Proud Dreamer (with James Toback)
• Head of the Dragon
• Reel to Reel (with Steven Spielberg and Gary David Goldberg)
• Purple Lake (with Raymond Carver)
• Untitled Transcontinental Railroad epic
• Blest Souls (with Robert Bolt and Eoghan Harris)
• Heaven Is a Sometime Thing (story by Joann Carelli)
• Full Circle (story by John Woo)
• Cream Rises

{{div col end}}

• 2001: [https://books.google.com/books?id=PjiLZwEACAAJ Big Jane]. Paris: Gallimard. {{ISBN|978-2070417605}}.
• 2003: [https://books.google.com/books?id=AzoYnQEACAAJ Conversations en miroir]. Co-authored with Francesca Pollock. Paris: Gallimard. {{ISBN|978-2070313150}}.
• 2006: Byzantium (unpublished){{cite web|last=Neri|first=Valentina|url=https://cinecittanews.it/18-51-cimino-il-cacciatore-e-pieno-di-errori/|title=18:51 – Cimino: "'Il cacciatore?' E' pieno di errori"|website=Cinecittà News|date=June 7, 2006|access-date=September 27, 2024|language=Italian}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DESPzgEACAAJ|last=Elton|first=Charles|title=Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision|year=2022|publisher=Abrams Press|isbn=9781419747113}}
• {{cite book|last=Heard|first=Christopher|date=2006|title=Mickey Rourke: High and Low|location=London, England|publisher=Plexus Publishing Ltd|isbn=978-0-85965-386-2}}
• {{cite book|author-last=Medved |author-first=Harry |author-last2=Medved |author-first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Medved |title=The Hollywood Hall of Shame: The Most Expensive Flops in Movie History |publisher=Angus & Robertson |date=1984 |url=https://archive.org/details/hollywoodhallofs0000medv |isbn=0207149291}}

{{colbegin|colwidth=32em}}

• Adair, Gilbert (1981). Hollywood's Vietnam (1989 revised ed.). London: Proteus. {{ISBN|0434045802}}
• {{Cite book|last=Andrews |first=Nigel |author-link=Nigel Andrews |orig-year=August 11, 1983 |chapter=Michael Cimino

|title=Talking Films: The Best of the Guardian Film Lectures

|year=1991

|editor=Andrew Britton

|edition=Hardcover

|location= London, England

|publisher=Fourth Estate Ltd

|pages= 245–266

|isbn= 1-872180-17-5}}

• Bach, Steven (September 1, 1999). Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists (Updated ed.). New York, NY: Newmarket Press. {{ISBN|978-1-55704-374-0}}.
• Bliss, Michael (1985). Martin Scorsese & Michael Cimino (Hardcover ed.). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press Inc. {{ISBN|0-8108-1783-7}}.
• Carducci, Mark Patrick (writer); Gallagher, John Andrew (editor) (July 1977). "Michael Cimino". Film Directors on Directing (Paperback ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. {{ISBN|0-275-93272-9}}.
• Deeley, Michael (April 7, 2009). Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies (Hardcover ed.). New York, NY: Pegasus Books LLC. {{ISBN|978-1-60598-038-6}}.
• Elton, Charles (2022). Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision. New York City, New York: Abrams Books {{ISBN|978-1-4197-4711-3}}.
• Hickenlooper, George (May 1991). "Michael Cimino: A Final Word". Reel Conversations: Candid Interviews with Film's Foremost Directors and Critics (1st ed.). Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel. pp. 76–89. {{ISBN|978-0-8065-1237-2}}.
• Kael, Pauline (1989). "The Great White Hope". Hooked (Hardcover ed.). New York, NY: E.P Dutton. pp. 31–38. {{ISBN|0-525-48429-9}}.
• Marchetti, Gina (1991). "Ethnicity, the Cinema and Cultural Studies." Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the American Cinema. Ed. Lester D. Friedman. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. {{ISBN|0252061527}}
• Marchetti, Gina (1993). "Conclusion: The Postmodern Spectacle of Race and Romance in 'Year of the Dragon.'" Romance and the "Yellow Peril": Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0520079744}}
• McGee, Patrick (2007). "The Multitude at Heaven's Gate". From Shane to Kill Bill. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. {{ISBN|1405139641}}
• McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. London: HarperCollins. {{ISBN|0-00-638354-8}}.
• McNall, Bruce; D'Antonio, Michael (July 9, 2003). Fun While It Lasted: My Rise and Fall In the Land of Fame and Fortune (1st ed.). New York, NY: Hyperion. {{ISBN|978-0-7868-6864-3}}.
• Powers, John (writer); Rainer, Peter (editor) (1992). "Michael Cimino: Year of the Dragon". Love and Hisses. San Francisco, CA: Mercury House. pp. 310–320. {{ISBN|1-56279-031-5}}.
• Thomson, David (October 26, 2010). The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Fifth Edition, Completely Updated and Expanded (Hardcover ed.). Knopf. {{ISBN|978-0-307-27174-7}}.
• Thoret, Jean-Baptiste. Le Cinéma américain des années 1970, Éditions de l'Étoile/Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006. {{ISBN|2-86642-404-2}}
• Thoret, Jean-Baptiste. Sur la route avec Michael Cimino, large profile and interview published in Cahiers du Cinéma, October 2011.
• Thoret, Jean-Baptiste (October 9, 2013). Michael Cimino, les voix perdues de l'Amérique. Groupe Flammarion. {{ASIN|B00FYIVW1Y}}
• Wood, Robin (1986). "From Buddies to Lovers" + "Two Films by Michael Cimino". Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan and Beyond. New York. {{ISBN|0231129661}}
• Woolland, Brian (1995). "Class Frontiers: The View through Heaven's Gate." The Book of Westerns. Ed. Ian Cameron and Douglas Pye. New York: Continuum. {{ISBN|0826408184}}

{{colend}}

{{commons category|Michael Cimino}}

• {{IMDb name}}
• [http://www.michaelcimino.fr/ MichaelCimino.Fr] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090628014918/http://www.michaelcimino.fr/ |date=June 28, 2009 }}, French fan-created website
• [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2023/great-directors/cimino-michael/ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database]
• [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4136-a-tribute-to-michael-cimino A Tribute to Michael Cimino]
• {{Vimeo|27653792|The Director's Cut: What Happened to Michael Cimino}}, 25-minute documentary by Lucy Walker
• Early commercials for [https://youtube.com/watch?v=oJwE6iNTWvg&si=3_KkgDbPKTGteqfU Pepsi], [https://youtube.com/watch?v=79KY3SEm2rs&si=myIkASwQ9R_vNjsH United Airlines], [https://youtube.com/watch?v=kctoFpIZN2c&si=uvyb9ygzqzQSFEfD Eastman Kodak] and [https://youtube.com/watch?v=6wBA5v3OhJ0&si=hmNjoeOV25G2cLzl Canada Dry] on YouTube

{{Michael Cimino}}

{{Navboxes

|title = Awards for Michael Cimino

|list =

{{AcademyAwardBestDirector 1961-1980}}

{{DirectorsGuildofAmericaAwardFeatureFilm 1960-1979}}

{{Golden Globe Award for Best Director 1966–1990}}

{{Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director}}

{{Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Director}}

}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cimino, Michael}}

Category:1939 births

Category:2016 deaths

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American screenwriters

Category:American male screenwriters

Category:Television commercial directors

Category:Western (genre) film directors

Category:Age controversies

Category:American people of Italian descent

Category:Best Directing Academy Award winners

Category:Combat medics

Category:Directors Guild of America Award winners

Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners

Category:Writers from Los Angeles

Category:Writers from New York (state)

Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)

Category:Film producers from New York (state)

Category:Film directors from New York City

Category:Screenwriters from California

Category:Film producers from California

Category:Film directors from Los Angeles

Category:People from Old Westbury, New York

Category:People from East Hampton (town), New York

Category:Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award

Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Category:United States Army soldiers

Category:Yale School of Art alumni

Category:United States Army reservists

Category:Directors of Best Picture Academy Award winners