DAYS OF HEAVEN
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 6.5 Alternative Scale: **1/2 out of ****
United States, 1978 Screening: Best of the Ritz Film Festival, 9/21/96 Running Length: 1:35 MPAA Classification: PG (Mature themes) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz, Robert J. Wilke, Jackie Shultis Director: Terrence Malick Producers: Bert Schneider and Harold Schneider Screenplay: Terrence Malick Cinematography: Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler Music: Ennio Morricone U.S. Distributor: Paramount Pictures
One thing that certainly can be said about Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN: it's not sentimental or manipulative. Unfortunately, it's also not particularly involving. By keeping the characters at arm's length, the movie is reduced to so many moving images. The cinematography won an Academy Award, but just because a movie is filled with vibrant photography doesn't mean it has a soul.
To his credit, Richard Gere gives a solid, believable performance here (one of the top two or three in his career), playing an early-20th century itinerant worker wandering the rural Midwest, looking for a job. Gere's Bill is a hot-head, though, and this is why he has never been able to settle down. Bill doesn't travel alone. He is accompanied by his younger sister, Linda (Linda Manz), from whose viewpoint the story is told, and his lover, Abby (Brooke Adams). To eliminate the inevitable questions and complications resulting from their unmarried status, Bill and Abby pretend to be siblings.
Complications of a far different sort arise, however, when the trio stops over on a Texas wheat farm for the Fall harvest. The landowner (Sam Shepard) falls for Abby. After overhearing a conversation indicating that the farmer has a terminal illness, Bill encourages Abby to marry their host. Once he's dead, they'll have the farm and the money to themselves. After the union takes place, however, Bill is unable to contain his jealousy, especially when Abby shows genuine affection for her husband. For his part, the farmer begins to suspect that something unhealthy is going on between his wife and her "brother."
From an aesthetic point-of-view, this is a tremendous motion picture. The cinematography is wonderful, from shots of swarming grasshoppers to images of a fire that threatens to rage out-of-control. The strains of Ennio Morricone's score form the perfect accompaniment to the lush visuals. If movies were only about looking at a screen and being enraptured by photography, DAYS OF HEAVEN would be a top-notch production.
Unfortunately, on a more basic level, the film isn't as successful. Despite quietly effective performances from the adult actors, the characters never click -- not with each other or with the audience. The movie's tone is so austere that we find ourselves losing interest in the protagonists. There are supposed to be powerful emotional forces at work here, bubbling just beneath the surface, but, even when they explode, they seem muted. DAYS OF HEAVEN uses low-key methods to tell a melodramatic story, and the conflict between content and style distances the viewer. From an intellectual standpoint, we're curious to see what happens, but we haven't made an emotional investment in the outcome.
DAYS OF HEAVEN is inferior to Malick's previous film, the powerful and unsettling BADLANDS. Despite the crisp cinematography and evocative score, it feels like there's something missing. I wanted to care about what was happening, but DAYS OF HEAVEN left me completely unconcerned. The film has too much surface beauty not to earn it a recommendation, but DAYS OF HEAVEN satisfies only on a sensory level.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net ReelViews web site: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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