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109 comments in total

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49 out of 55 people found the following comment useful :-
In A Class By Itself, 26 October 2005

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This is truly a unique movie: in a class by itself. I had that opinion the first time I saw it on VHS and still feel the same way years later. It's been at the top of my list of favorite movies since I began compiling a list over a decade ago.

It's very dream-like, surreal, a film I never get tired of watching and I've watched this film more than any other in my large collection. If I had to pin it down to two reasons why, it would be the video and the audio.

The cinematography alone makes this movie worth watching repeatedly. Now that we all have access to a widescreen DVD version of this, the scenes are even more breathtaking. (I never had the pleasure of seeing this in a movie theater.)

The same superlatives can be used when discussing the soundtrack, a haunting music score that gets better and better each time one views this film. In fact, lately it's the music more than anything else I miss when I go periods without viewing this film.

The story is a simple one and is explained by others here. No need to repeat it. I find the narration to be unique, an unusual insight into the characters of the film and the thoughts of the little girl (Linda Manz), who does the narrating. The characters that continually fascinate me are Brooke Adams, as the lead female, and Robert J. Wilke, as the farm foreman. I guess it's their faces that intrigue me. Adams' down-turned mouth and sad look and Wilke's wrinklies catch my attention every time.

The story is interesting, generally low-key but with a few quick violent scenes that are quite memorable. More than that, one gets an incredible feel for the land and for the migrant workers of that time period. Another nice aspect of this film is the very small amount of profanity. Kids probably would be bored with this film but at least I wouldn't be afraid to show it to them.

But as many pluses as the story boasts, that haunting music and those incredible visuals are what drive me back for more. Great, great stuff.

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46 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the most haunting and beautiful films ever made, 27 March 2002

Author: katsat from Hawaii

If any movie could be called filmed poetry, this would be it. From its first opening shot to its last frame, there is such lyricism and emotion and beauty that it almost leaves you speechless. I have not seen this movie in years, but it still affects me and I want to write about it. There is a pervading sadness to the movie, like a memory of something wonderful that could have been, that should have been, that almost was, and is all the more tragic because it was in your hands but slipped through your fingers. This is not a movie for everyone, but if you believe that film can be one of the highest forms of art, this is the film to see.

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53 out of 66 people found the following comment useful :-
Healing and Cathartic, 10 February 2003

Author: SanTropez_Couch

Oh, I better come out and say it: I love Terrence Malick. I think he's one of the few filmmakers who has completely and utterly captured filmic form. "The Thin Red Line" was, to me, an astonishing experience; beautiful, horrific and the best movie of the 90s. "Badlands" is the best lovers-on-the-lam movie I've ever seen (it certainly makes "True Romance" look like a gimmicky fraud of a movie). Malick somehow manages to make everything seem painfully beautiful: his landscape, his actors, his dialogue. There's something always elegiac about his movies.

There's a picture of James Dean I saw from his youth -- a baseball team photo -- and the caption said something about how it captured his face, and in it, wisdom and sadness far beyond his years. That's what Malick does in his films and particularly in this film.

He must have been a fan of James Dean (probably one of the reasons he chose to make "Badlands," as a sort of homage), but not in the sense that coolness comes from a perfectly combed coiffure, a red leather jacket (which it wasn't -- it was a windbreaker) and a dark brood. There's a similar story here to that of "Giant," set on a farm with that remarkable house, two men and one girl. Only "Giant" didn't have a philosophizing and very strange little girl. It was also an overblown soap opera and while this film is, I guess, a melodrama, it certainly isn't melodramatic.

If Malick is anyone in the film, he's Sam Shapard; watching his love through a lens. Malick uses Manz as a sort of channel. If this is indeed some fashion of his own story, Malick tells us through her, with he visualized by Shepard, which is a somewhat brilliant approach. Manz is strangely philosophical; at once blunt and abstract. The story is obviously centered around her -- I don't see why this wouldn't be obvious -- but she's pushed into the background, commenting on the characters and informing us like God from above.

As always with Malick, his film is mesmerizing and hypnotic. I was surprised that the film was only a little over an hour-and-a-half. The great Ennio Morricone created a wonderful score for this film that seems to forebode impending doom. Unlike his more famous spaghetti western scores, it's never overly-flamboyant. And the cinematography, listed as belonging to Nestor Almendros, but well-known to be at least substantially contributed to by Haskell Wexler, is so much like an oil painting that it's just about liquid film. I'd be willing to pay a lot of money to see this one on the big screen.

It might seem obvious to state that this film is a transition between "Badlands" and "The Thin Red Line," after all it was the middle film. But this film has moments, especially in the finale, that are surprisingly close to that of "Badlands" and this is the film where Malick fully mastered his approach of lush, visual poetry told at a languid pace that never seems boring, since you're fully within the film;s grasp.

Pauline Kael said in her review that "the film is an empty Christmas tree: you can hang all your dumb metaphors on it." And Charles Taylor, always following Kael's lead (even from beyond the grave), said of Malick's two 1970s films, "Next to the work of Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma and Mazursky from that period, they're pallid jokes."

What never fails to get me furious is when someone viciously attacks a director, like Malick, for being self-indulgent. Of course it's self-indulgent, he's telling a story that means something to him and trying to share what he feels with us. Malick certainly isn't trying to alienate people, and if you are alienated by his films, well, don't watch them. Malick is a filmmaker like Kubrick, but more fluid and much less abrasive. I mean, if you're going to aggressively attack a filmmaker, aggressively attack someone who is aggressive on his side. Directors like Malick use abstractions to engage their audiences more fully than most. By leaving things -- often feelings -- open to interpretation, the film becomes more intimate.

Certainly one of the most enduring films from the 70s, this is a masterwork.

****

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45 out of 53 people found the following comment useful :-
Up there with Casablanca & Citizen Kane, 1 March 2005
Author: rustyk-5 from South Africa

I can understand why Malick didn't make another movie after he made Days of Heaven. The film was panned by the majority of the critics who could only find the cinematography worthy of praise. However, Malick was hugely misunderstood by these dumb critics.

They complain that the film is ponderously slow. This was the intention. Malick used pause to convey that the characters think. Too many actors rattle off their lines without letting their characters think of them. It also conveys the slow pace of their lives.

Critics complain that the characters are too remote - one feels removed from them and can't get involved. Hello! It is narrated by a 13 yr old and is essentially her view of the events that transpired. Naturally she does not grasp most of the more adult moments between them and thus is herself removed from being fully involved in Bill and Abby's relationship and that is what has to come across.

Then Malick, in a moment of genius, allied the four main characters to the four elements; Earth, Air, Fire & Water. Bill is Fire - he is seen at first in front of the furnaces of a foundry where he works. We can see his temper is volatile. Abby is water - in the very first shot she is scavenging(?) by a stream and she is seen against the backdrop of the river. Linda is Earth - In her narration she says that she is close to the "Oith". The Farmer is Air - constantly tinkering with his weather vane, and his fields of wheat are often seen waving in the wind.

All in all a severely mies-judged film and the critics owe Malick a huge apology. The work is pure genius!

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31 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :-
Quiet passion, quiet beauty, 5 September 2000

Author: Caledonia Twin #1

"Days of Heaven" is a beautiful film with fantastic panoramic cinematography. It's hard to say what it is about this film that captivated me from the start. I didn't expect to enjoy it when I read about the plot. Farm workers? How could that be interesting... But oh, the haunting, heavenly silence of the fields undulating in the wind, a silence not sundered by any garish music. Everything about this film is tangible, real, alive. The dialogue is sparse, believable, the bond between Bill and Abby is one of quiet passion that needs no dramatic proclamations to fuel it. And Sam Shepard's farmer is touching. I don't use that word very often, but I'll venture it here. I have watched this film now several times, and it is a delight each time when the farmer first sees Abby. This perhaps the strongest and most believable love triangle ever put to film, and in my opinion, the most compelling.

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23 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Truly mesmerizing., 31 January 2007

Author: TOMASBBloodhound from Lincoln, NE USA

In merely an hour and a half, Terrence Malick does more with Days of Heaven than most directors could do in a lifetime. In this wonderful film, we see all seven deadly sins play out against one of the most incredible backdrops ever put on camera. Virtually every shot could be framed and hung on your wall as a fine piece of art. Malick even shows us he knows how to film a pheasant hunt!

The story, though at times swallowed up by the cinematography, is also pretty compelling. Richard Gere is the main focus. He plays a down-on-his-luck laborer from the dirty world of pre-WW1 industrialized Chicago. After a dispute with a foreman, which we see but don't really hear, Gere kills the man and is forced to flee the area. Along with him are his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and his kid sister (Linda Manz). The three of them hop on a train, and before you know it, they all have a jobs harvesting wheat on a seemingly boundless Texas farm. The work is difficult to be sure, but once the owner of the farm (Sam Shephard) notices Adams, things take an unexpected turn. All along, Gere has told everyone that Adams is his sister rather than his girlfriend. Shephard likes Adams enough to let the three of them stay on after the harvest is done. Gere overhears the Farmer talking to a doctor in which it is apparently revealed that he has only a year to live. Gere urges Adams to marry the farmer so hopefully the three of them will get his money after he quickly passes. Adams agrees, setting the table for nothing but tragedy and betrayal.

The story is narrated by Linda Manz who plays Gere's kid sister. In her words and in her voice we hear clear evidence of just what kind of difficult lives the three of them have lived, and what a wonderful opportunity their new situation seems at first to provide. Her character is one of the most authentic that this critic has seen in a film in many years. She even has an odd beauty about her, if the camera catches her in the proper light. Notice one scene in particular when she is watching a friend jump a train and the sun is setting behind her.

Gere, Adams, and Shephard are also as good as ever. It would be so easy for their performances to get lost within the aesthetic beauty of this film, yet they stand out in well-defined characters. I don't recall us ever being told Shephard's name in the film. He's only referred to as "the farmer". Is he really dying? We can never be quite sure. Does Adams really love Gere or Shephard? Maybe. Maybe not. There is much left to the imagination about each of these characters.

Towards the end, all hell breaks loose, as you might expect. Secrets are found out, fortunes are lost, and lives are taken. The last fifteen minutes look like something out of the book of revelations, as they were most likely intended to. And for some of the characters, new lives are forged, but they are another story. And it's a story we can only imagine. Days of Heaven is a triumph on all levels. It is simply unforgettable. Certainly one of the best films this critic has seen in a long, long time.

10 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
In the Magic Hour, 31 July 2006

Author: MacAindrais from Canada

Days of Heaven (1978) ****

"Nobody's perfect. There was never a perfect person around. You just have half-angel and half-devil in you."

This line delivered by Linda Manz in Terrence Malick's gorgeous masterpiece, 'Days of Heaven,' sums up everything you need to know about life on earth. Much of Malick's themes have been devoted to man versus nature, and the idea of perfection is not outside that realm - imperfection is the nature of mankind.

Richard Gere, in his greatest performance, plays Bill, a hot headed, lower class worker, who in a moment of mistake accidentally kills his boss in a Chicago factory. We see that the boss is hassling Bill, but we never know why, we just see faces but no distinguishable voices over the roar of the factory. Bill, his sister (Manz) and his girlfriend Abby, played by Brooke Adams, take off for the panhandle, hitching a ride on a train. Bill and Abby tell everyone that they are all brothers and sisters, because as you know, "people talk." They find work on a farm owned by the rich farmer, played by Sam Shepard. Many other films would make the farmer the bad guy, giving him trade mark heel characteristics, but Shepard's farmer, who we learn is dying, is soulful, and yearning for love. He see's Abby, and is interested, and eventually will ask her to stay - after Bill hears the doctor tell him he has about a year to live. They decide to stay, and after some persuasion from Bill, Abby will marry the dying farmer so that they can be heir to his fortune. Suspicions arise, and hearts and lives are broken, and the Days of Heaven will come to a halting end.

The cinematography is some of the most breathtaking ever captured on film. 'Days of Heaven' could even considered a masterpiece for its aesthetic beauty alone, if the story were not so terrific. Everything about the film is magnificent. Ennio Morricone's score is haunting and beautiful. You will remember it forever, along with Linda Manz' unforgettable narration, likely one of the greatest voice overs in film history. Many have criticized Malick's distancing techniques and muted emotions. We are always kept at arms length away. But these people don't realize that the story is a memory, a memory from the real main character - Linda. Also, in a method that Robert Bresson used, by distancing us emotionally, it leaves us to add our own emotions and imaginations in the story, heightening the power of the film, as long as you are willing not to be spoon-fed what to think.

Terrence Malick is a filmmaker who came out of nowhere with his talents already fulfilled, and he has not stopped since. His films are filled with such heartbreaking beauty and symbolism, and he is one of the few living filmmakers who truly are creating art, rather than just entertainment. He had one of the greatest debuts ever, in the mesmerizing and haunting 'Badlands,' the deepest and most philosophical 'The Thin Red Line,' which is likely the greatest contemporary war film (as suggested by the late Gene Siskel)and the stunningly beautiful 'The New World.' His films are deep and meaningful, and to get into the underlying symbolism and themes of them here would be pointless, and better saved for a long essay.

Days of Heaven is one of the greatest, and most beautiful films ever made. Cinema is at a low point recently, but as long as Terrence Malick is still making films, we still have some heavenly art to look forward to.

PS - Hopefully someone like Criterion will create a new DVD, as the current one has some soundtrack problems. Imagine seeing it restored, visually and audibly.

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18 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Full surprise within the American film universe., 28 February 1999

Author: Nuno Miguel Sousa from Santo André, Portugal

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.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A seminar on cinematography, 6 March 2001

Author: josh-162 from Madison, Wi.

A single amazing shot demonstrates what makes "Days of Heaven" so great: for ten seconds the camera focuses on wheat rolling in the wind like the surface of the ocean before a storm. Trouble is coming, and no amount of narration or expository dialogue could sum the situation up better. Brooke Adams, Sam Sheppard and Richard Gere are all excellent, but the real stars of this movie are Director Terrence Malick and Cinematographer Nestor Almendros. After reading the plot summary on imdb, you could watch this movie with the sound off and enjoy it just as much.

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12 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
What I See, 20 July 2004
Author: Angry_Arguer from Shermer, Illinois

As I walk through my local video rental franchise and see the overwhelming wave of "sanitized for your protection" junk that floods the market, I can be at ease knowing there's a special place in my heart for this diamond.

Malick's vision works like 'Catch-22' but with less irony. He accomplishes in one shot what Oliver Stone would do in twenty and, more importantly, he examines everything. The fact that what he examines is stunningly gorgeous is a wonderful bonus.

More important, though, than the photography is Weber's editing. As I said in my 'Beverly Hills' review, he's one of the top in the field. He's handled all three of Malick's films, what other qualification do you need? Granted there was the noisy Bruckheimer work, but every career has its sags. Fortunately, he knows he isn't the most important person here, so he eases back and allows us to absorb what we see.

Story? What use is that? You want story, watch Scorsese. As with his other work, Malick uses perspective, not planning on paper. I think Shepard caught on to that, making his role as Chuck Yeager even weightier.

Final Analysis = = Learn from this...

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