9. Michael Cimino
His recent passing has only marked how no director in history has self-destructed so spectacularly thanks to his own work than Cimino. As part of the wave of new styled directors in the 1970s, Cimino got his break with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a crime hit. He followed it up with The Deer Hunter, an acclaimed drama about the Vietnam War that won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken). Cimino had Hollywood eager to give him whatever he wanted for his next film and chose a script that would become Heaven’s Gate. The stories have become legend from celebrating setting the record for the most feet of film ever shot (due to roughly 50 retakes of a single scene) to wasting four hours a day driving cast and crew to locations. Cimino’s ego was out of control, pushed by his success and the result was a film that is the epitome of self-indulgent filmmaking (As United Artists executive Stephen Bach put it “It’s all beautiful. It’s also unwatchable.”) The film was savaged by critics and thanks to its $44 million budget (a massive sum back then), it ranked among the biggest flops in history. Cimino’s career never recovered and while some claim Gate isn’t that bad a movie today, the failure hung around his neck for the rest of his life and a sad fall for not only him but the other directors of his time.
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