Died Michael Cimino – Kommersant

On Saturday, at his home in Los Angeles on 78 th year of life died, Michael Cimino. He will remain in history as the last of the directors, swinging on the epic tragedy of the death of the “American Dream.” “Dream,” it does not forgive: directing disaster Cimino comparable catastrophes such classic Hollywood giants like Eric von Stroheim and Orson Welles

Like Stroheim, he did. what to itself did not refuse on the set. The legend became history grueling filming the episode “Paradise Gate” (1980). Cimino calmed down at the 52nd duplicate, on which the installation has retained one second.

Like Wells, he suggests not hesitate shadow on the fence. “The Deer Hunter” (1978) was blamed for the phantasmagoric image of the Vietnam War (after the “Apocalypse” Coppola anyone would like accusations and did not come to mind): they say, did not force the Vietnamese prisoners Yankees play Russian roulette. Cimino, who spent life six months at the army training camp, in response lied that he served as a doctor at the “Green Berets” and “un-teach-me-live».

Like Wells, disembodied ideas (including adaptation of “Crime and punishment”), he has left many times more than a film. One can only dream sadly how to Cimino filmed “Human Condition” Andre Malraux and “Source” Ayn Rand related to the number of the main ideological and moral manifestos of the twentieth century. It is possible that these films would have been catastrophic, but certainly catastrophic brilliant

The main thing that unites Cimino with the great losers of the past -. Inspired megalomania and megalomania, non-conformism and faith in movies like avatar ancient Greek tragedy. Like any great American artist, he is eager to find out relations with the “American dream” and, like many great predecessors, knew that wicked people have stolen, have changed a great dream, but with these Koshcheev should face off

Cimino, not for myself sick soul – for” them. ” New York italoamerikanets from an artistic family identified with America’s stepchildren – Eastern European immigrants. With steelmakers of Pennsylvania, burnt in hell of Vietnam ( “The Deer Hunter”). With farmers, which – to encroach on their modest plots – protopili bloodbath cattle “barons” defame their victims rustler and anarchists ( “Gate of Paradise”). With the police, a Pole who survived in the same Vietnam only in order to turn into a battlefield of the street New York Chinatown: fight, we note with the same “foreign”, as he himself – with Chinese immigrants ( ” Year of the dragon “, 1985).

Real Cimino with the kidnappers dreams ended predictably. The last three Cimino film – “The Sicilian” (1987), “The Hours despair” (1990), “Sunchaser” (1996) – even uncomfortable to watch. They shot the director, if not dead, then turned into a shadow of itself. It’s only in Hollywood movies losers become stars. In the life of Hollywood, everything happens exactly the opposite.

After moving to Hollywood, a successful director of television advertising (bosses admired fantasy Cimino, but tore his hair from his incredible slowness) was the reputation of the first the same film. Picaresque gangster ballad “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” (1974), which cost 4 million, earned at the box office 25 million “The Deer Hunter” – the first film in which Cimino found his voice – won five “Oscars”:. Cimino received carte blanche than not fail to take advantage. Such large-scale directing suicide, as “the gates of Paradise,” Hollywood has long had never seen

In all senses of the word surpassing “The Deer Hunter”, Western political varied his three-part structure:. Prazdnik- massacre-hangover. But if the presence at “Vietnam syndrome” and the need to heal him America acknowledged the revision Cimino sacred genre westerns from the standpoint of class fratricide was seen as sacrilege.

Author’s version of an incredible length (219 minutes), which went through the box office a week, Cimino had to be cut for the re-release – an hour – for a living. Rezai it with undisguised disgust to this procedure that the film, to put it mildly, not benefited: only at the 2012 Venice Film Festival revealed the original version.

film critic trampled before output rental: Cimino, forever ukryvshy their eyes from the world of the black glasses the next ten years, I do not talk to the press, and later talked a matter of times. The audience broke a movie. Costing unimaginable 40 million “The Gates” have gained 3.5 million. Studio United Artists, one of Hollywood’s sacred cows, Cimino simply go bankrupt. Five endless years he walked as a plague-stricken, not yet had an opportunity to remove the “Year of the Dragon”, which hit the hypocritical accusations of racism. On the larger forces at Cimino it was no more, and the “American Dream” is still waiting for the one who will free it from the “Koshcheeva eggs».

Michael Trofimenkov