To give some idea of the excess: The real ‘Johnson County War’ killed, like, two people. Towards the end of Heaven’s Gate, there’s a gunfight that is, essentially, a battle sequence. We’re talking hundreds of people riding around shooting everything in sight. Cimino’s always loved battle scenes, and this one looks like Custer’s Last Stand, only longer.

Early on, there’s a lovely college graduation sequence, supposedly set at Harvard, I believe (I haven’t seen the film in nearly 30 years). But it was actually filmed in Oxford, England (I attended a summer session at the specific college, so I recognized it). To make the scene authentic, they trucked in tons and tons of dirt and spread it all over the streets for blocks, so the extras could walk and dance through it.

As for the incoherence, I also remember the scene when Kris Kristofferson finally arrives Out West and we need a little exposition — to understand where we are and why Kris is here. And Cimino puts this vital bit of news into the mouth of the train conductor. Who has a thick accent (Irish, if I remember correctly). With a cigar in his mouth. And the conductor naturally attempts to mutter and shout his information while the train is still chuffing and shrieking to a halt. It’s all pretty much noise and gibberish.

The film is so lovely (the big country dance is a sepia-toned wonderland) that it actually made me angrier at it: All that care for detail, all that extravagant beauty, and no one could get a basic thing like plot or character coherence even close to right.