“Year of the Dragon” Trivia
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 28 Things We Learned from Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
8. While set primarily in New York City, much of the film was shot in North Carolina including the sequences on the streets of Chinatown. They recreated streets with attention to detail up to and including the angled grade of their Mott Street — the “main” street in NYC’s Chinatown — which is not actually flat. They took plaster casts of curbstones and recreated the grade for authenticity, something he says most NYC reproductions on film don’t achieve. “If you look at Ragtime, it’s flat, and that’s why it doesn’t look like New York [City]. It’s a very rocky little island.” He’s proud of their accomplishment as it even fooled Stanley Kubrick. The legendary director was given a screening in London where he told Cimino that “Chinatown looks so great.” Cimino told him the truth, and after a little bit of back and forth Kubrick realized he’d been duped. “If you can fool Kubrick, who had the best eye in the world, you can fool anyone.” The sets have been reused in dozens of films in the years since.
12. He feels Lone and Mickey Rourke compliment each other well and achieve his goal of confusing “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” He says the bad guy is attractive and likable, the good guy is neither of those things, and viewers are ultimately forced to like the good guy because of what he does.
18. He credits Clint Eastwood with his career. Cimino’s debut as writer/director, 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, only got made thanks to Eastwood’s belief in him. The contract gave Eastwood the right to fire him after the first three days of shooting, and thankfully he never felt compelled to do so.
