15. Which 1980 Revisionist Western shared its name with a dooms day cult, whose members committed suicide when the Hale-Bopp Comet was at its brightest in 1997?
From Quiz Revisionist Westerns - 80s and 90s
Answer:
Heaven's Gate
The Heaven's Gate cult was founded by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. Thirty-nine members of the group committed suicide on March 26, 1997 when the comet was at its brightest, because they believed the comet to be a sign that the Earth was about to be destroyed and they needed to go to the Next Level of existence.
The movie "Heaven's Gate" was set during the Johnson County War in Wyoming, in the 1890s, a historical case where wealthy landowners hired gunmen to kill small landowners who they considered guilty of rustling. The conflict pitted the gunmen against a sheriff's posse sent to stop them and eventually ended with the intervention of the US Cavalry. The movie featured an all-star cast, including Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur, Terry O'Quinn, Mickey Rourke, and Willem Dafoe. The film was a colossal, critical and commercial failure, ruining the career of an Oscar winning director, Michael Cimino of "The Deer Hunter" fame, and causing the collapse of the United Arists movie studio.
The movie is considered revisionist, not because the history upon which it was based is in dispute, but rather because it brought to light an ugly part of the history of the West. Wealthy landowners became vigilantes by hiring thugs to carry out their own brand of justice and by doing so became outlaws themselves.