Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino
Cimino in 2003
BornMichael Antonio Cimino
(1939-02-03)February 3, 1939
DiedJuly 2, 2016(2016-07-02) (aged 77)
EducationMichigan State University
(BA Graphic Arts, 1959)
Yale University
(BFA Painting, 1961;
MFA Painting, 1963)
Occupations
  • Film director
  • producer
  • screenwriter
  • author
Years active1972–2016
Partner(s)Joann Carelli (1967–1975)[1]
Nongnuj Timruang (1977)[2]
Yvonne Sciò (2002)
Kim Swennen (2008–2009)

Michael Antonio Cimino (/ɪˈmn/ chim-EE-noh[3] Italian pronunciation: [anˈtɔːnjo tʃiˈmiːno]; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. Notorious for his obsessive attention to detail and determination for perfection, Cimino achieved fame with The Deer Hunter (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

With a background in painting and architecture, Cimino began his career as a commercial director in New York before moving to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to take up screenwriting. After co-writing the scripts for both Silent Running (1972) and Magnum Force (1973), he wrote the preliminary script for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), which became his directorial debut, and one of the highest-grossing films of its year.[4]

The critical accolades for co-writing, directing, and producing The Deer Hunter led to Cimino receiving creative control for Heaven's Gate (1980). The film became a critical failure and a legendary box-office bomb, which lost production studio United Artists an estimated $37 million. Its failure was widely blamed as the end of the New Hollywood era, with studios shifting focus from director-driven films towards high-concept, crowd-pleasing blockbusters. In recent decades however, Heaven's Gate has been dramatically reappraised, even being named by BBC Culture as one of the greatest American films of all time.[5]

Having only subsequently made four more films, Cimino grew infamous for the amount of projects he worked on throughout his life that were never made due to his uncompromising artistry.[6] In 2002, Cimino claimed he had written at least 50 scripts overall.[7] Several of his ambitious "dream projects" included adaptations of the novels Conquering Horse, The Fountainhead and Man's Fate as well as biopics on crime boss Frank Costello and Irish rebel Michael Collins.[8]

  1. ^ Sklar, Debbie L. (October 13, 2016). "'Deer Hunter' Oscar director's widow named to oversee multi-million dollar estate". My News LA. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  2. ^ Cimino, Michael (director); Feeney, F. X. (critic). DVD commentary by director Michael Cimino and film critic F. X. Feeney. Included on The Deer Hunter UK region 2 DVD release and the StudioCanal Blu-ray.
  3. ^ Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures. Library of Congress. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  4. ^ "Top Grossing Films of 1974". www.listal.com. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
  5. ^ "The 100 greatest American films". www.bbc.com. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
  6. ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (December 6, 2001). "Michael Cimino: war stories". The Guardian. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  7. ^ Garbarino, Steve (March 1, 2002). "Michael Cimino's Final Cut". Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  8. ^ Elton, Charles (2022). Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision. Abrams Press. ISBN 9781419747113.

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