Monday, March 17, 2025

Book review - " Cimino:The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision" (2022) by Charles Elton

 I'm surprised it took someone so long to do a book on Cimino, I thought he'd be a natural, but I guess he was uncommunicative and lived a long time (thus better able to sue). Elton tackled the job with admirable enthusiasm, with his best "get" being he contacted Joan Corelli but also a close friend when Cimino was transitioning and Steven Bach's exec partner at UA (who slags off Bach a lot, not unexpectedly - but it doesn't discount Bach's version).

Elton makes a lot of minor errors, mostly about the history of Hollywood - he's prone to saying things were "unprecedented" when they weren't, and stuff like Something's Got to Give was completely shut down when Fox filmed it as Move Over Darling. I think he's also a little too forgiving of going over budget - the "well David Lean did it" argument.  

It's not definitive but it's really good and Cimino is such a fascinating character.

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