“The Movies”: A joyride through the post-auteur era
As the 1980s began, movie moguls were still in their ’60s/’70s haze.
Perplexed by the new generation, they’d written big checks to “auteurs” — directors who looked and sounded hip and artful. Then “Heaven’s Gate” happened.
“It was a shot through the heart of the auteur era,” journalist Chris Connelly says in the opener of “The Movies,” CNN’s blitz-paced series.
“Heaven’s Gate” cost $44 million and made $3.5 million in North America. Its director (Michael Cimino, fresh from the Oscar-winning “Deer Hunter”), would go five years before his next movie … its studio (United Artists) would collapse … and Hollywood would regress. That was in 1980, a convenient starting point for this opener. It eyes the ’80s, the post-auteur era. Read more…