Days of Heaven (1978)

Film: Days of Heaven

Director: Terrence Malick

Country: USA

Released: September 1978

Runtime: 94 minutes

Genre: Historical Drama

Studio: Paramount

Influenced: Scorsese, Emmanuel Lubezki, Terence Davies, David Fincher, Andrea Arnold

There were two collaborations that were crucial to Malick realising his creative vision for Days of Heaven, one with producer Burt Schneider – who also worked on Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, and who struck a deal with Paramount for total control of the film's final cut – and the other with Spanish cinematographer Néstor Almendros, whose work on Truffaut's 1970 film L'Enfant Sauvage had impressed Malick deeply. Almendros and Malick were both inspired by the use of natural lighting in silent films such as F. W. Murnau's City Girl (1930) and many scenes in Days of Heaven were shot during the "golden hour" (the period shortly after sunrise or before sunset when the lighting conditions are optimal), giving the film an ethereal and dreamlike quality.

Malick and Almendros captured the vastness of the Texas Panhandle and the ever-changing colours of the sky with stunning wide shots of the landscape, and it is the quality of the cinematography (and the Canadian landscape where the film was shot), combined with the musical score by Ennio Morricone, that conjures up the film's dreamlike atmosphere. Set in the early 20th century, the plot of Days of Heaven revolves around a love triangle between Bill (played by a then unknown Richard Gere), Abby (Brooke Adams) and the wealthy farmer, known only as The Farmer (portrayed by renowned playwright Sam Shepard). The story begins in Chicago, where Bill, Abby and Bill's younger sister Linda (Linda Manz) are struggling to make ends meet. To escape their difficult circumstances, they travel to the Texas Panhandle to work as farm labourers during the harvest season.

Upon their arrival, Bill encourages Abby to pretend to be his sister and convince the Farmer to marry her. The plan is for them to inherit the Farmer's wealth upon his death, which they believe is imminent due to a terminal illness. However, as time passes, Abby starts to fall in love with the Farmer, complicating the situation and creating tension between the characters. Days of Heaven is at its core an immigrant story, and the film is so fragmented and impressionistic in style, with so little focus on dialogue or narrative, as if to underline how much emphasis Malick puts on visuals over words. In some cases, like the early scene in the steel mill, the sound of heavy industry masks the dialogue. Malick is showing us visually how the rhythm of the Industrial Age was not in tune with that of the natural world.

Of the many visually sumptuous moments in the film, perhaps the most memorable is the scene with the swarm of locusts. Malick imported thousands of locusts for the scene, which were bred to be flightless to ensure they would stay within the desired shooting area, and dropped peanut shells from helicopters to recreate the image of locusts swarming in the air. Almendros employed sweeping wide shots to depict the vastness of the swarm, combining them with close-ups of individual locusts and the destruction they cause to the crops, with the sound design enhancing the intensity of the scene. The film won the Oscar for Best Cinematography and solidified Malick's reputation as a visionary filmmaker. 

"Come the time the sun went up till it went down, they was working all the time. Non-stop, just keep going. You didn't work, they'd ship you right outa there"