66
D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 5
mors had swirled even on the set of The Deer Hunter about
Cimino and Carelli being involved in a romantic relation-
ship, and even Charles Elton, who spent hours interviewing
Carelli for Cimino, was never able to get a straight answer
about whether they were ever involved. But many people
on the crew were shocked to learn, late in the production,
that Carelli had secretly married the composer for the film,
David Mansfield, who also had a role as the roller skating
violinist in several dance scenes. The couple would even-
tually have a daughter that Cimino often claimed to be his
own later in life, after Carelli and Mansfield divorced.
Heaven's Gate was initially slated to be released for Christ-
mas of 1979, when studios like to release their Oscar con-
tenders, but even when they agreed to this date, everyone
knew that Cimino was never going to meet that deadline.
He wasn't even close. So production continued for several
more months, with the producers fighting and usually fail-
ing to nail Cimino down on a finish date. When Cimino fi-
nally announced that he had an early cut that he was ready
to show the production team, they made their way to Mon-
tana, anxious to finally see the finished product. Cimino
warned them that he probably needed to cut about fifteen
minutes, but that didn't prepare them, when they sat down
to watch… and were still sitting in their chairs five hours and
twenty-five minutes later. The battle scene that provides
the climax of the film was an hour and a half long.
