Talent alone couldn’t keep the lights on
Of all the downfalls in Hollywood history, Michael Cimino’s haunts me the most, destroyed by his artistic ambitions in a corporate town whose rules he didn’t want to play by. Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich may come close, but they never ruined an entire movement or destroyed a film studio. In a single stroke of hubris and artistic obsession, Cimino burnt down the New Hollywood that created him with just one movie: Heaven’s Gate (1980).
