Chapter 7 - Short Circuit: Michael Cimino’S Heaven's Gate

Summary

In Heaven's Gate, Isabelle Huppert is pink, ginger and milky white, a gentle balance between a sweet and a sugary candy. The cakes that she excels at baking for her lovers have essentially one ingredient: Nestor Almendros’ lighting, collecting and objectifying its sentimental effects. “I have never loved you so much! I had oceans of cream in my soul” (Flaubert, letter to Louise Colet). The nudes of Isabelle Huppert date to the nineteenth century, the period when unclothed bodies were found on ornaments and in images. The twentieth century enters the film with the appearance of Christopher Walken (a creature imposes itself from the void that haunts her). When the two characters embrace, we are moved the way we are before cathedral facades that feature juxtaposed figures that do not belong to the same chisel, time period or world.