How many westerns do you know that open with a graduation ceremony at Harvard?  I can only think of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate.

Today’s scene that I love comes from the controversial 1981 epic western.  Some people feel that Heaven’s Gate is a secret masterpiece.  I’m not quite one of those people but I do think the Harvard graduation scene was a great way to launch Cimino’s idiosyncratic vision of the Old West.