Hollywood legend Michael Cimino spoke with emotion at the Venice film festival on Thursday as he unveiled a new director’s cut of his Heaven’s Gate – one of the biggest flops of all time.

Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird occupation in and of itself

Mr Cimino’s 1980 film was panned when it came out after his Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter and it helped bring down Hollywood giant, United Artists.

But many now blame harsh editing and the digitally re-mastered version of the epic Western shown for the first time on Thursday was overseen by Cimino.

“My first reaction was: ‘I don’t want to revisit Heaven’s Gate’. I’ve had enough rejection for 33 years,” Cimino said before the screening in which he joined viewers saying he had not seen it in a cinema since it first came out. “Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird occupation”.

Cimino has lived as a virtual recluse in Hollywood for many years.

“Because of the digital technology that did not exist at the time, I was able to make editorial changes, colour changes... Seeing it through the digital equipment, it was like a new movie,” said the spiky-haired Cimino.

The director, who was awarded the Persol Prize by the Venice festival organisers, also gave a moving tribute to his historic producer Joann Carelli who was in the audience saying that the film “would not exist without her”.

The new version of the film, which stars Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt and Jeff Bridges, is 216 minutes long compared to the 149-minute edition that was originally released in cinemas.

It focuses on the conflict between poor European immigrants and cattle barons in rural Wyoming in the 19th century and features sweeping landscape shots of the American West shown in all its beauty and brutality.