Distinctly Montana Magazine

65 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m studio, a threat he would make often in the next two years, if they didn't cast Huppert. The main thing that caused the cost of this film to es- calate, however, was Cimino's glacial pace. One week into shooting, Cimino was six days behind schedule, and reportedly had only a minute and a half of usable film. He shot so many takes of each scene, and kept them all, so the costs immediately began increasing exponentially, leaving his production team in the un- enviable position of trying to figure out how to rein in the production without losing the trust of the di- rector. Lee Katz, one of the United Artists executives, said, "We seem to be in the ironic and paradoxical po- sition of not trusting the gentleman with our money and therefore insisting that he take more." But Cimino was so convinced that he was making a masterpiece that he continued to double down each time they tried to re- strain him, often completely cutting off contact with people who displeased him. When the top man at United Artists traveled to Glacier Park to spend a few days on the set, Cimino completely ignored him the whole time he was there. To add to the pressure, he also refused to show them any footage, so they were forced to trust that he was making a product that justified the cost. The film was mostly shot in Glacier National Park; another add- ed cost to production was the fact that the closest lodging to the location, in Kalispell, was a ninety-minute drive, so the entire crew had to be bused to the site every day. Cimino became ob- sessed with getting just the right light for each scene, so after making the long commute, the crew would often spend the en- tire day waiting for the light to hit just the right angles. Robinson remembers many days where they rose at 3:00 in the morning to travel to the set, and then spent most of the day waiting. "But there was something really cool about this project, so even though people sometimes grumbled about it, the mood on the set was mostly positive. I mean, we were on a movie set. And a lot of us got to be really close." Some became closer than others, as was the case with Cimino's on-site producer, a mysterious woman named Joann Cirelli. Ru- Billings Airport Distinctly Montana - 2025 2025 - Fall 1/2 Page Horizontal

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