When Michael Cimino died at age 77 last weekend, obituaries recalling the controversial writer-director’s achievements focused on the obvious.
While they acknowledged his genius, referencing his 1978 anti-war masterwork The Deer Hunter, they also recalled the egocentric Italian-American filmmaker’s reckless creative perfectionism.
We were reminded that Cimino’s triumphs were matched by colossal failures, notably his infamous period western Heaven’s Gate, made in 1980.
What they didn’t mention was how the taskmaster also unwittingly prepared B.C.crews for the dizzying challenges of servicing many more Hollywood mega-projects when he shot Year of the Dragon here in 1984.
“It was madness,” recalled Colleen Nystedt, production co-ordinator for scenes filmed in Victoria that fall for Cimino’s $25-million fourth feature, his first film since the Heaven’s Gate debacle.
His gritty crime drama, starring Mickey Rourke as a New York detective chasing Asian druglord Joey Tai (John Lone), developed a cult following.
Vancouver and Victoria were the B.C. locations for the movie that Cimino’s international crew, including legendary cinematographer Alex Thomson (Excalibur), also shot in New York, North Carolina and Thailand. Nystedt, whose family’s home on Mount Tolmie had doubled a year earlier as a Laurel Canyon mansion in Stuart Margolin’s HBO cop drama The Glitter Dome, caught the film bug during its production.
Although Nystedt’s background was in urban planning, Year of the Dragon’s production manager Randolph Cheveldave, the Victoria film production industry pioneer, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
The urban geographer was hired to set up its Victoria production offices at Executive House Hotel and handled tasks including the “complexities” of settling Rourke and his colourful entourage into the Empress.
“Planning movies looked way more fun than planning underground-parking garages,” laughed Nystedt, who amassed dozens of production credits before becoming CEO of her Vancouver tech company PlaceSpeak Inc.
Before shooting began, the producers held an open casting call seeking “street types, ethnic types and those with an Oriental look.”
Cimino shot his Victoria sequences in the oak-panelled B.C. legislature office of then-Intergovernmental Relations Minister Garde Gardom, masquerading as the New York police commissioner’s office, and in the catacombs of the Empress Hotel, doubling as an underground Chinese mung bean factory.
Cimino’s obsession with authenticity made for a memorable experience for the late Ted Balderson, the Empress hotel’s general manager.
“Somehow there was a miscommunication, and the cleanup crew didn’t come in as quickly,” Cheveldave recalled. “The mung beans just sat there … rotting.”
I got in on the action myself as a background performer, posing as a lawyer in the New York police commissioner’s office scene.
This was before I realized it’s the first assistant director — in this case Brian Cook, the flamboyant, quick-witted British Stanley Kubrick collaborator — who is most visible on set.
It was also a sign of the times that the lanky 1st A.D. invited smokers to light up, jokingly expressing shock when no one did.
“Don’t any of you Canadians smoke?” Cook bellowed “No wonder you keep winning gold medals!”
Cimino, diminutive and boyish-looking, was far less obtrusive, quietly puffing on a cigar.
“Michael was a very quiet guy, pretty intense,” recalled Cheveldave. “Actually, he was stoned most of the time.”
The film’s unpredictable star was another story, said Nystedt, who had to summon a physician to patch up Rourke’s hand after he became obsessed with a nail protruding from a two-by-four.
“He suddenly slammed his hand down on it,” Nystedt recalled. “He had to get a tetanus shot.”
She laughed as she recalled the location Rourke chose for his wrap party — the stripper bar at the Drake, the notorious Downtown Eastside hotel.
“We got there and it was full of Hell’s Angels,” recalled Nystedt, who admits she was “flying by the seat of my pants” as she dealt with one mind blowing challenge after another.
“Cimino would not allow you to have a full script. You could only have ‘sides’ ” [individual dialogue pages] she said.
“I can understand that with actors, but when you’re trying to get locations you need more to go on.”
Cheveldave said it’s a miracle Year of the Dragon got off the ground at all considering Cimino’s bad luck.
Just days before filming was scheduled to start at elaborate Chinatown sets constructed at Dino De Laurentiis’s studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, a hurricane blew in and destroyed them.
“They said: ‘OK, who can be ready next?” so we had to pull out all the stops to be ready to start shooting in two weeks,” said Cheveldave, who hired carpenters to work around the clock on a Chinese restaurant on Hastings Street that was to double as Joey’s office.
When he later pulled up with Cimino and 100 others for a locations survey, he was shocked to see that “the place had burned to the ground.”
The good news was Cimino won a wager with De Laurentiis. If Cimino finished on budget, the producer promised him the luxurious Mercedes that Joey Tai drives. If not, Cimino would forfeit $50,000 of his salary.
“It was four days over schedule, but $130,000 under-budget,” Cheveldave said.
“These were the movies where we learned how not to do things, but it was a great ride,” laughed Nystedt.