When Heaven's Gate was premiered it was so destroyed by the critics that it was withdrawn. New York Times critic, Vincent Canby's destruction of the movie as an unqualified disaster was carried in papers as far apart as Britain and New Zealand.The commentary on Heaven's Gate started not with what the film is actually like, but how much it cost. It was infamous for having cost in excess of $50 million and bringing about the end of the United Artists studio.
Yet Heaven's Gate is as near to a Marxist western as you are likely to get. The motor of the film is the irreconcilable class conflicts between rich and poor, with the forces of the state intervening on the side of the rich.
Heaven's Gate is set in 1890s Johnson County, Wyoming, and tells the story of the Johnson County Wars. Waves of immigrants who had escaped the grinding poverty of eastern Europe arrived via Ellis Island and the railroad. Under the Homestead Act they could claim a plot of land provided they agreed to work it. Many headed west with the dream of being their own boss working their own land. Instead what they found was more grinding poverty, starvation, debts and misery. The only way most could feed their families was by stealing the cattle that roamed the open range.
The newly arrived peasants were pitted against the wealthy stockholders who owned the cattle and the bulk of the land. Rearing cattle was an extremely profitable enterprise with eastern bankers putting up the funds and expecting a good return. The film portrays this contrast very dramatically. In a powerful speech the leader of the stockbrokers, denounces the homesteaders as thieves and anarchists and proposes to solve the problem of the new immigrants stealing cattle by exterminating them. He informs the assembled gathering of cattle barons that he has the backing of the state governor and the US president to send in an assembled death squad to kill 125 people who live in the town of Sweetwater.
Into this setting are cast Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson) as the marshall of Johnson County, Nate Champion (Christopher Walken), a former peasant whose personal escape from working the land has been to become the hired killer of the cattle barons, and Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) who runs the local brothel and is on the death list because she accepts payment of cattle for services.
Both men are in love with Ella and by using this three way love triangle the film shows the motivations of the principal characters as something more than good guys and bad guys. Nate has become the cattle barons' hired gun as a way of trying to escape poverty and working the fields from dawn to dusk. He attempts to emulate better off lifestyles but even he is trapped by the conflicts around him and is forced to turn against the cattle barons when Ella's name appears on the death list.
Averill is a wealthy member of the establishment who has turned his back on his past. The opening scenes of the film show him graduating from Harvard with the sons of the rich. Some 20 years later Averill finds himself in Johnson County as the local upholder of law and order. He is only forced to take the side of the small farmers reluctantly.
The film shows the beauty of the Wyoming countryside and contrasts that to the squalor in which people exist. The first shot of the west shows hundreds of newly arrived immigrants and their families marching in columns along a dirt track. They are carrying everything they possess on the back of handcarts or by hand. The columns are set against a background of the stunning natural scenery, the long plains ending in mountain peaks.
The contrast between the coming of the modern age and the traditional ways of the townspeople is beautifully illustrated in a scene when the immigrants gather in the local hall, called Heaven's Gate, for a dance. They are dressed in the peasant costumes of eastern Europe and the band plays traditional music from the old country. Yet the dancing takes place on rollerskates!
The best part in the film is the way in which the Sweetwater townspeople realise that in order to live they are going to have to bury their differences and fight to stand any chance off winning. The centre of the film is when they gather in Heaven's Gate and debate whether to stand and fight or to try to compromise by punishing the cattle thieves.
The heated arguments go on with the mayor and the slightly better off inhabitants arguing that they should surrender the people on the list as a way of appeasing the rich. Another group argues the only way is to take up arms and fight for their freedom, because the rich will always oppress the poor unless they fight back.
The final battle scene when the townspeople take on the cattle barons' death squad is a classic. It doesn't glorify how horrible such a conflict can be but it does show how people can fight back. Finally, unlike the classic western, the cavalry does not arrive just in time on the side of the good guys. But you will have to see it for yourself to find out what happens.