Heaven's Gate: The Butcher's CutOriginal Title: Heaven's Gate (1980)Faneditor: Steven Soderbergh •
TM2YCFranchise: Fanedit Type: FanFix
Fanedit Release Date: 1st August 2014
Fanedit Runtime: 108
Synopsis: Steven Soderbergh made a fanedit of Michael Cimino's much maligned 1980 epic 'Heaven's Gate' back in 2006 (For his own amusement). This year he decided to release it onto the internet via his blog, but the visual quality was very poor, as it was cut from the un-restored DVD (Also compressed for streaming). I really wanted to enjoy Soderbergh's dramatic slashing-in-half of this overlong but beautiful film but the poor quality stopped me. So now I've recreated 'The Butcher's Cut' frame-by-frame based on the restored 2012 'Heaven's Gate' Blu-Ray. It's Steven Soderbergh's fanedit with me just presenting it in the best possible light. 'Heaven's Gate' has many strengths, including some the most beautiful cinematography you're likely to see, a wonderfully poetic script and one of the greatest scores ever recorded. But pacing, strict editing, character motivation and narrative clarity weren't among them. I think Soderbergh has addressed many of these flaws and also reduced the inflated running time down to almost exactly a half.