Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision

Director Michael Cimino is famous for two films: the powerful and enduring Vietnam movie The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards in 1979, and Heaven's Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. In Cimino, Charles Elton delves deep behind the myths of both films, and offers a richly detailed biography of a lightning rod filmmaker who helped define the auteur era and was wrongly blamed for its demise. Based on extensive interviews with the director's peers, collaborators, enemies, and friends, Cimino unravels the enigmas and falsehoods which surround Cimino's life, and sheds new light on his extraordinary career. This is a story of the making of art, the business of Hollywood, and the costs of ambition.