AM I THE ONLY ONE DRAWN TO UNMITIGATED DISASTERS?

Let's say it's Friday evening. You're in the mood for a movie. Your options are: Rob Marshall's Oscar-winning Chicago, or the newly-released, 140-minute Director's Cut of Michael Cimino's The Sicilian, the 115-minute cut of which is considered one of the most unwatchable movies of all time. Which would you choose? I have this terrible, nagging feeling that the majority of persons would go with the former choice. After all, it won a plethora of Academy Awards, critics loved it--it's overall safe entertainment. Also, unlike The Sicilian, Chicago doesn't star Christopher Lambert. Who in their right mind would rather sit through a long cut of an Italian action-melodrama starring the squinty star of Highlander, and directed by the guy who made the ridiculously expensive, ridiculously pointless (So I've read) Heaven's Gate? Strangely enough, I would.

Now, I'm familiar with the trajectory of Michael Cimino's career. The Sicilian was made in 1987, almost a decade after Cimino had success with The Deer Hunter. This is also after Heaven's Gate, which nearly killed Cimino's career overnight. And yeah, sure, he bounced back a little with Year of the Dragon in 1985 (penned by Oliver Stone.) But it is a testament to the enduring notoreity of Heaven's Gate that no one talks about the fiasco that was The Sicilian. It's actually the lesser of two disasters. Any credibility Cimino had left after Dragon was wiped out by this western-style drama, based on a novel by Mario Puzo, which, like Heaven's Gate, ran long into production and way over-budget, due to the director's incurable habit of excess and need for perfection. Now, there is talk that the original, 144-minute version of this film actually makes total sense. Many European critics on the web, who have seen the longer cut, have even cited it as Cimino's other masterpiece, next to The Deer Hunter. But legend has it that the American studio who financed the picture demanded that it be cut down to under 2 hours. Never one to compromise, Cimino supposedly made a 117-minute cut of the film that was deliberately confusing and unwatchable (Apparently, even more so than Heaven's Gate.) He never expected the studio to release the horrible 117-minute cut; he figured his original version would ultimately be released.

But the joke was on Cimino. The edited-down Sicilian was released to hostile reaction (Though amazingly, not as hostile as the reaction to Heaven's Gate.) It would be years before Cimino would get an offer to direct a remake of The Desperate Hours. This 1990 film, starring Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins, would also bomb, more or less shoveling the dirt onto the gravemound of Michael Cimino's career.

Yet the movies he made survive. The Deer Hunter is considered a classic, and The Sicilian might also be one. There's also Heaven's Gate, which I would also rather sit through than Chicago, because safe entertainment is just too damn safe sometimes.