Michael Cimino died
The famous American director, screenwriter and producer Michael Cimino has died in Los Angeles at the age of 78. Director of Cannes Film Festival Thierry Fremaud tweeted this sad news and was confirmed shortly thereafter by the Associated Press .Cimino was born in New York on February 3, 1939. Although as a child, Michael was considered a child prodigy, he often got into various troubles due to his friendship with bullies and his own rebellious nature. With age, Cimino settled down and became interested in drawing and architecture. He first graduated from Michigan State University, and then received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University. In his native New York, Cimino became a popular ad director, with clients including Eastman Kodak , United Airlines and Pepsi . Having achieved significant success in this field, Michael decided to conquer Hollywood. In the early 70s, he co-authored the plot of the post-apocalyptic film Silent Flight, which was supported by the studio Universal . Then, along with cult film maker John Milius Cimino , he worked on the script for the action movie "High Power," starring Clint Eastwood.  It was the friendship with Eastwood that helped Cimino make his debut as a feature film director. Clint was planning to personally start implementing the script " Thugs and Walkers ", but as soon as he got to know the author of the text better, he decided to transfer Michael the post of the steering project ... The first film, Cimino , was not only financially successful, but also earned Jeff Bridges a Oscar nomination. The next tape Cimino became the most striking achievement in his film career. After the success of " Thugs and Runners ", he did not lack suggestions from the studio bosses, but chose to wait a couple of years in search of a really interesting project. In 1976 he came across a script application about gamblers in USA roulette, on the basis of which he wanted to create a film about the Vietnam War. In those days, almost all Hollywood studios were afraid to raise this topic, and therefore the magnificent " Deer Hunter " managed to produce the effect of an exploding bomb in American society. The tape quickly gained cult status, and at the 51st Oscars, it was presented in nine nominations at once. As a result, the creators of the drama won five cherished statuettes, two of which went to Cimino himself. He won one for Best Director and the other for Best Film of the Year.  It seemed that the director had a great future ahead of him, but the career of Cimino was broken by the failure of the large-scale drama “ Gates of Heaven ”, on the set of which a huge conflict broke out between the crew and representatives of the studio system. As a result, the original version of the film with a timing of 325 minutes never saw the light, and the cut-down version released on the screens managed to earn only $ 3.5 million at the box office with a budget of $ 44 million ... The failure of the western eventually led to a change in all of Hollywood, because from that moment the film companies began to tightly control costs and reoriented to creating lucrative blockbusters.  In subsequent years, Cimino directed the films Year of the Dragon, The Sicilian, The Hours of Despair and The Sun Catcher, but none of them was able to generate the same interest among viewers and critics as the legendary " Deer Hunter ". Unfortunately, Michael never managed to recover from the failure of Heaven's Gate and regain the location of the major studios. During his life, he wrote more than 50 scripts, but was never able to begin adapting Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment , the biopic of the mafia boss Frank Costello, a musical based on the opera Porgy and Bess b>”, a historical drama about the Xinhai Revolution and many other intriguing projects.  The last work in the filmography of Cimino was the almanac "Everyone has his own cinema", where in 2007 his short film " Translation is not required " was included. Five years later, MGM released a 216-minute director's cut of Heaven's Gate , which finally convinced critics that the original film could well deserve to be called a true masterpiece of cinematic art. The Topic of Article: Michael Cimino died. |
