Trivia for
Days of Heaven (1978) More at IMDbPro »

• Shot almost entirely at "magic hour," the hours between day and night early in the morning and late in the evening. Terrence Malick wanted to have a white sky and no sight of the sun. This was the first film to utilize a new Eastman ultra light-sensitive stock negative which enabled clarified images to be shot in the magic hour; at dawn, at dusk and into the night.
  
  
• Comedian Redd Foxx received special mention in the closing credits, for the use of one of his jokes in this exchange between Bill (Richard Gere) and Linda (Linda Manz): "I saved your life today." "How?" "I killed a shit-eating dog."
  
  
• After filming for a short time, Terrence Malick threw out the script altogether and filmed for a close to a year allowing the actors to "find the story" for the film as they went along.
  
  
• The shot of locusts ascending to the sky was shot in reverse with the helicopter crew throwing peanut shells down, and actors walking backwards.
  
  
• The film's title is a reference to Deuteronomy 11:21 - "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them as the days of heaven upon the earth."
  
  
• The image of Bill falling face-first into water was filmed in a large aquarium in Sissy Spacek's living room.
  
  
• Exteriors for the film were shot in Alberta, Canada. Jack Fisk constructed the outdoor sets from plywood, including the farmer's house.
  
  
• The visual motif of the far-off farmhouse surrounded by wheat fields is reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth's 1948 painting "Christina's World". It is also reminiscent of Reata, the ranch home of the Benedict Family in Giant (1956).
  
  
• Terrence Malick spent two whole years editing this film.
  
  
• After a year of editing, Terrence Malick called Sam Shepard to Los Angeles to shoot inserts. Close-ups of the actor shot under a freeway overpass were cut into the final film.
  
  
• Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who got an "additional photography" credit in the film, complained to Roger Ebert that more than half of the footage was shot by him.
  
  
• Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman turned down the role of Bill.
  
  
• Cinematographer Néstor Almendros was going blind during production. Before each shot, he would have his assistant take a picture with a Polaroid camera and then would view it under a high-powered magnifying glass.
  
  
• When Lynda sits in the farmer's house reading a book that has illustrations of animals, including a tiger, water buffalo, and a snake, the book is an illustrated edition of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Books".
  
  
• John Travolta auditioned for and won the lead role of Bill, but ABC-TV wouldn't let him out of his contract for his series "Welcome Back, Kotter" (1975), and the part was eventually given to Richard Gere.
  
  
• The music behind the titles is "Aquarium," from Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals."
  
  

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