MOVIE REVIEW: Days of Heaven (1978)

If Badlands showed the promise of Terrence Malick's career with a remarkably unique "lovers on the run" crime film, 1978's Days of Heaven is where the director really started to find his style that would only continue to evolve with each subsequent film. Many of the director's trademarks - such as the painterly cinematography, beautifully composed musical scores, an emphasis on the natural world and how it overshadows human beings, etc - are placed at the forefront in this film, whereas they were comparatively minimized in his feature debut. The film opens with a title sequence that immediately sets the tone for the film, using the song "Aquarium" by French composer Camille Saint-Saens to evoke an ethereal atmosphere that will hang over the remainder of the picture. This sequence also informs the audience with a sense of the time period that the story takes place in, showing photographs of the American working class as well as Woodrow Wilson during his presidency, indicating that this is set not long after the turn of the century.

The story opens with Bill (Richard Gere) working at a steel mill in Chicago, where he comes into conflict with his boss and knocks him to the ground, killing him. Shocked and unsure of what to do, he runs out of the steel mill and convinces his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and sister Linda (Linda Manz) to go off with him to the Texas Panhandle and look for work. They eventually find work as seasonal workers on a farm, where Bill and Abby pretend to be brother and sister in order to avoid any gossip about their origins. The man who owns the farm, who is simply called the Farmer (Sam Shepard) in the story, finds out that he is terminally ill and has about one year left to live. Upon hearing this, Bill encourages Abby to marry the Farmer, who has taken a liking to her, in order to eventually inherit his money and land. The seasons change, suspicions arise between characters, and tragedy ensues.

That is pretty much the story for Days of Heaven, which is told through Linda Manz's narration. Much like Sissy Spacek's narration in Badlands, there's a distance in Linda's voice when she speaks of the events that take place in the love triangle between her brother, Abby and the Farmer. In many ways it's as if the story is being recounted as a memory, which is aided by the film's dream-like quality. Upon first viewing Days of Heaven several years ago, I found this approach to be somewhat alienating from the love story as it muted the emotions that would normally be expected in this kind of drama. Having seen this film several times over the years, however, has made me appreciate Malick's decision to have the film told from Linda's perspective instead of the main characters'. Terrence Malick has never been one for conventionality, and it only makes sense that he would bring a different kind of approach to what would otherwise be a fairly by-the-numbers and straightforward drama. In fact, based on what is known about the production, the film's script was indeed a much more conventional romantic melodrama. It was in the editing room that Malick significantly altered the film's tone and rhythm, much to the surprise of the cast members upon first seeing it.

The way Malick chose to tell the story ends up being a far more interesting one than what was originally conceived. He keeps dialogue to a minimum, sometimes even drowning it out by amplifying other noises (as seen in the confrontation between Bill and his boss in the steel mill) and relying purely on visuals to tell much of the story. With this reliance on visuals and Ennio Morricone's musical score brought to the forefront, it becomes increasingly evident that Malick was influenced by films from the silent era during the the filming and editing processes. Cinematographer Nestor Almendros confirmed as much in his memoir that the usage of natural light from those films was a primary inspiration when shooting Days of Heaven.

One of several creative aspects that stick out when watching this film is how different it is from most Hollywood period pieces. As with any genre, there were certain conventions that were expected to be inherent within a film of its kind, and Days of Heaven still has some of them. The costumes and sets very much fit this standard, but the way the film was shot set it apart from others. The handheld camerawork more closely resembles the style of the French New Wave or urban dramas, not costume dramas or period pieces made in the American studio system. The editing techniques are similarly distinct from such films, with Malick and editor Billy Weber relying more on imagery and symbolism rather than dialogue to convey the characters' emotions. It's this impressionistic style that makes Days of Heaven such a sensory experience, which leaves a more lasting impression than several lines of dialogue could hope to achieve.

The inspiration for the film's look reached beyond cinematic influence, with works by artists such as Edward Hopper (The House by the Railroad) and Andrew Wyeth (Christina's World) have a similar aesthetic to Malick's film. Along with Linda Manz's narration, Nestor Almendros' cinematography (with additional footage from Haskell Wexler) helps to give the film a rich period detail that creates the impression of watching a painting in motion, similar to what Stanley Kubrick achieved in his own period drama Barry Lyndon just three years prior. Much of this is due to the film being largely shot during "magic hour," the time of day that is either shortly before sunrise or right before sunset, to get a certain kind of lighting that only enhances the film's ethereal quality.

As with many films in the director's output, there is a certain amount of religious symbolism present in the story. The farm itself can be seen as an Eden-like setting, with the purity and beauty of the landscape overwhelming everything inhabiting it. This setting gives the film a mythic quality that makes it seem as if it stands outside of time and exists in its own world altogether. The human drama at the center of the story is almost constantly being dwarfed by the landscape and seemingly at odds with the natural environment. Perhaps the most overtly religious imagery used in the film is toward the end with the fire in the wheat fields, symbolizing the wrath and vengeance of the Farmer as he discovers what Abby and Bill have really been up to. In fact, it could be argued that the seven deadly sins are explored through the love triangle, particularly as their actions lead to what culminates in the destruction of the Farmer's Eden that the characters have inhabited throughout the film.

It's also worth singling out Ennio Morricone's score. Considering the legendary composer has created some of the most iconic music in movies, ranging from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as well as Once Upon a Time in the West) to period dramas (The Untouchables, The Mission) along with several others, his work for Days of Heaven has always been among my favorite movie scores. Since so much of this movie relies on the images and sounds to tell the story rather than dialogue, Morricone's work plays a huge part in setting the atmosphere as well as assisting in the more emotional scenes. It's the kind of music that you'll remember after you've finished watching the film, and deserves to be mentioned in the same conversations with his scores for Sergio Leone as being among the best work of his long and prolific career.

Even though the film wasn't much of a financial success upon release, it's reputation has grown over the decades and is now considered to be one of the best movies to come out of the 1970s. Days of Heaven won the Oscar for Best Cinematography in 1979, with three other nominations (Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Original Score). Malick also won the Best Director prize at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, losing the Palme d'Or to a tie between Apocalypse Now and The Tin Drum. Following the film's release, Malick essentially disappeared from the Hollywood scene for the next two decades until resurfacing in 1998 with the World War II epic The Thin Red Line, an adaptation of the James Jones novel of the same name. With the release of that film, it was clear that Malick had begun pushing his style further and incorporating more metaphysical themes into his work. However it was in Days of Heaven where his directorial style really started to form, as he began to experiment with unconventional methods of storytelling that relied heavily on visuals to convey his themes and philosophical underpinnings.

Rating: 4/4