Myth and Anti-Myth

Myth & Anti-Myth

Myth and Anti-Myth
1)Mast and Kawin offer the example of
   a)Field of Dreams (1989) and
   b)Eight Men Out (1988)
       to show the contrast between myth and anti-myth.

Field of Dreams - Myth
1)Field of Dreams dispels the political corruption of the 1919 World Series scandal
    through the idea of following one’s dream.
2)The failures of the past (the fixed World Series, Watergate) are forgiven in heaven
   (the myth of America). 

Eight Men Out - Antimyth 
1)Eight Men Out tells the story of the 1919 World Series in a more realistic style.
2)Mast and Kawin claim Eight Men Out deals authentically with idealism.
3)The film portrays moral conflicts as something to be understood, not set aside. 

Anti-Myth Films - Other anti-myth films include:
1)Full Metal Jacket and
2)Heaven’s Gate, the film that effectively ended the auteur era of the Hollywood
   Renaissance.

Intro to Film of Dreams Clip
1)In Field of Dreams, Ray (Kevin Costner) builds a baseball diamond in a cornfield in
   Iowa.
2)The film involves romantic time travel and the idea that dreams come true if one
   follows them.
3)In the following clip, baseball allows one to relive childhood innocence.

Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989):
Clip we saw in class -ending of the film. 

Click Here

Wonderful tell-all from Heaven's Gate Film 

One of several Hollywood westerns that flopped at the box-office during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Others included Barbarosa (1982), The Mountain Men (1980), The Villain (1979), Goin' South (1978), Hard Country (1981), The Frisco Kid (1979), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), and The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981).

The amount of film stock that was used amounted to approximately 1.5 million feet of film. Over one million feet of the stock was processed in the film labs.

The budget escalated from 11.6 million dollars to forty million dollars.

This movie is notorious for the amount of animal abuse that took place during production, including real cockfights and decapitated chickens. Horses were tortured, and at least four died. The outcry prompted the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers to contractually authorize the American Humane Society to monitor the use of all animals in all filmed media.

This is considered one of the most notorious screen disasters in the history of film. After struggling with personal movies that went nowhere, Michael Cimino finally got to make The Deer Hunter (1978), which brought him critical and commercial success and earned five Academy Awards. Afterward, United Artists was willing to allow him anything he wanted. According to Steven Bach's "Final Cut", Cimino got $11.6 million to make his next project, a western about a land war in Johnson County, Wyoming, featuring a first-rate cast. It went over budget almost immediately, mostly due to Cimino's insistence on absolute perfectionism. Stories abounded that he was tearing down sets for no reason, and hiring and firing crew members almost weekly. Many of the stories were exaggerated, but the cost ballooned to a then-astronomical $40 million ($125 million in 2020 dollars). When Cimino presented the movie to United Artists, it ran well over five hours. After some squabbling, he agreed to trim it down to less than three hours. The movie was a commercial and critical disaster that destroyed Cimino's career as a director. It nearly bankrupted United Artists, which merged with MGM. That year, MGM had a hit in For Your Eyes Only (1981). Cimino didn't work for another five years, and his career never recovered. When Waterworld (1995) was being made, its production encountered so much difficulty, and Kevin Costner received so much negative press concerning the shooting, it was called "Kevin's Gate"

One of the most egregious examples of Michael Cimino's abuse of the budget was the construction of an irrigation system under the battlefield to assure the grass would be vividly green before it was turned red by the blood of the ensuing carnage.

Tom Noonan called this movie one of the worst experiences of his life. He claimed that Michael Cimino abused the actors, actresses, and the crew, including holding a loaded gun to Noonan's head during a dispute.

Isabelle Huppert was cast as Ella over the objection of United Artists executives. Michael Cimino insisted on casting her, and threatened (not for the last time) to take this movie to Warner Brothers, and United Artists capitulated. Even afterwards, Steven Bach, at one point, told Cimino to his face, that his leading lady was so unappealing, that the audience was going to wonder why Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken "weren't fucking each other, instead of her". Cimino told him to go fuck himself.

Michael Cimino's contract stated that he would not be penalized for any cost overruns incurred in completing and delivering the movie for its December 1979 release date, so while costs spiralled, he was protected from breach-of-contract lawsuits.

The shot of Kris Kristofferson waking from a drunken sleep and cracking a whip at the group of men that woke him took 52 takes and a full day of filming. That single shot lasts about a second in the final cut.

At one point during filming, Michael Cimino decided that the spacing of the buildings on one set didn't look right, even though it had been built to his exact specifications. He ordered both sides of the street to be raised and rebuilt, at a cost of $1.2 million dollars, over the objections of his crew, who reasoned that it would be easier and cheaper to knock down one side of the street and rebuild it twice as far away.

The movie's effect on United Artists is sometimes overstated, but it was an influential factor in its parent company, Transamerica, deciding to sell United Artists to MGM in 1981, ending its 62-year existence as an independent studio.

The first edit of this movie that includes all the footage shot, was five hours and twenty-five minutes long. This has created a rumor that a long-lost five hour and twenty-five minute Director's Cut exists somewhere. It doesn't. The three hour and thirty-nine minute version, is Michael Cimino's Director's Cut of the movie.

The skating rink featured in this movie is called "Heaven's Gate". That is the only connection this movie appears to have to its title.

One of very few movies whose 70mm prints kept it in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio (letterboxed within the 70mm 2.20:1 frame), instead of simply being cropped to 2.20:1, as was done with most widescreen movies blown-up to 70mm.