Days of Heaven (1978)

Director:

Terrence Malick

Writer:

Terrence Malick (written by)

Release Date:

13 September 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Your eyes... Your ears... Your senses... will be overwhelmed.

Plot:

A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.

Plot Keywords:

Farmer | Love | Farm | Harvest | Jealousy

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 10 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Richard Gere	...	Bill
Brooke Adams	...	Abby
Sam Shepard	...	The Farmer
Linda Manz	...	Linda
Robert J. Wilke	...	The Farm Foreman (as Robert Wilke)
Jackie Shultis	...	Linda's Friend
Stuart Margolin	...	Mill Foreman
Timothy Scott	...	Harvest Hand (as Tim Scott)
Gene Bell	...	Dancer
Doug Kershaw	...	Fiddler
Richard Libertini	...	Vaudeville Leader
Frenchie Lemond	...	Vaudeville Wrestler
Sahbra Markus	...	Vaudeville Dancer
Bob Wilson	...	Accountant
Muriel Jolliffe	...	Headmistress

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Iceland:12 | Netherlands:16 | Australia:PG | Brazil:12 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG (certificate #25199) | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Spain:18 | UK:PG | West Germany:12 | Portugal:M/12

Filming Locations:

Raymond, Alberta, Canada

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The music behind the titles is "Aquarium," from Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals."

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: At about 7:25 into the movie, we see a bucolic farmyard scene, with a group of white ducks waddling by...yet we hear sound effects of Canada Geese.

Quotes:

Linda: This farmer, he had a big spread, and a lot of money. Whoever was sitting in a chair when he'd come around, why they'd stand up and give it to him.
Linda: Wasn't no harm in him. You'd give him a flower, he'd keep it forever.

Movie Connections:

References City Girl (1930)

Soundtrack:

Enderlin

Full surprise within the American film universe.

This movie was a full and happy surprise for me. This man, Malick, stood twenty years out of business because he had to be, afterwards, after such a beautiful movie he couldn't and shouldn't return with any other thing shorter than this.

Days Of Heaven is absolutely perfect cinema, the plot is not important, Malick simply wants to fill your senses and he achieves it.

I haven't had the chance to watch it in a theatre, I was four years old at the time, I've watched it on television, and I understood immediately, this man is a hero for building up such a magnificent film in the United States, in Hollywood.

A true director builds a universe of his own, with its own "time flow" and dreams and that is what Malick achieved with this film, magic, sacral art. Some sequences are "almost" (a big almost) Tarkovskyand this is a big commendation.