Susan Bridges Brings Rare Photos from ‘Heaven’s Gate’ Set to Santa Barbara’s Tamsen Gallery

Offering a rare and intimate look into the creation of one of Hollywood’s legendary epics, the Tamsen Gallery presents Inside Heaven’s Gate: Behind the Scenes with Susan Bridges, an exhibition that highlights both cinematic history as well as Bridges’s personal journey as a photographer whose lens brought out the emotion in the production.

Heaven’s Gate, with Academy Award–winning director Michael Cimino, producer Joann Carelli, and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction/Set Direction in 1982. The breathtaking scenery and grand sets provided an amazing backdrop for Bridges to shoot.

Bridges, whose husband, Jeff Bridges, was one of the film’s stars, was allowed in by the famously private director Cimino, and she was able to, almost invisibly, capture the essence of the grand sets and those involved in the film. “I was just around all the time,” she said. “They forgot about me a little bit. I was able to go places that I wouldn’t have gone without my camera…. I just went where I felt like going, where I thought there would be an interesting shot. It was so much fun.”

Set in 1890s Wyoming, the film tells the story of immigrants who clash with wealthy landowners who want to drive them out, loosely based on the events of the real Johnson County War. Bridges shared that the photos she took still resonate today as they are “a continuation of the immigrant’s story,” echoing the challenges modern immigrants face.

Though she has shown her work before, this exhibit at the Tamsen Gallery holds special meaning, as Santa Barbara is Bridges’s hometown.

Beyond the sweeping Montana and Idaho landscapes and stirring sets, Bridges’s photos carry a personal legacy. She described the photos as having “survived a lot,” lasting through earthquakes, fires, and years in storage. For her, their survival highlights a message that she hopes her audience will take away, that “it’s never too late.”

Speaking of legacies, her path extends beyond Heaven’s Gate. Bridges worked as a special still photographer on The American Success Company and as an associate producer for the crime comedy Cold Feet. She has photographed many iconic individuals, such as Orson Welles, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bud Cort, Peter Fonda, and more. She’s been published in numerous magazines and newspapers, and she has also collaborated with her husband, Jeff, to bring back to life the Widelux camera, a fully mechanical swing-lens panoramic camera.

Her photographs feature the impressive sets in the film, like the immigrant town that stood out to her, as well as tender portraits. The photos, as well as a Widelux camera, will be on view from September 19 through December 31 at the Tamsen Gallery (1309 State St.). See tamsengallery.com.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to note that the Widelux camera on view is not a prototype.