Days of Heaven. (15.)
Directed by Terrence Malick. 1978
Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepherd, Linda Minz, Robert J. Wilke. 95 mins.
The BFI is hosting a Malick season at the Southbank and the centre piece is a restored print of his period drama Days of Heaven, his second film and one with a reputation as the one of the most beautiful photographed ever. During the shoot cinematographer Nestor Almendros (and later Haskell Wexler) did a large proportion of the filming during what is known as Magic Hour, that brief period before sunset when the light is at its most beautiful.
The effect is remarkable but it strikes me as a pinched aesthetic. Quite aside from the impracticality of only being able to film for maybe twenty minutes a day there is something overly precious about a film where only the most beautiful, most perfect is tolerated.
The story is casual wisp of nothingness. Set just before World War One it has two lovers (Gere and Adams) who pose as brother and sister for no good reason, escaping from the hell in the city to work harvesting in the country. When the wealthy landowner (Shepherd) takes a shine to her, Gere encourages the relationship under the belief that he is dying. It’s a drab melodrama but none of it matters because everything is subservient to generating the mood.
Days of Heaven has all the trademarks of the Work of Genius – they shot for a year and were editing it for two more – but it also has many of the trademarks of a very bad film. Individual shots don’t really fit together so when two people are talking and it cuts from one face to another you can see that they are not in the same place at the same time. Plus it stars Richard Gere.
Taking a role reportedly turned down by Travolta, Gere is surpassingly bad. His character is marked by a sullen refusal to passively accept his circumstances but Gere takes it so far it becomes a sullen refusal to accept that he is merely a character in a film. Malick has a thing for indulging handsome leading men with inappropriate hair such as Sean Penn in The Thin Red Line or Colin Farrell in The New World who prance through the deprivations of Guadalcanal or a starving settlement with elaborately sculpted coiffures. With his luxuriant barnet, Gere stares into the camera like he is admiring his reflection.
But for all its ramshackle construction it does at least achieve its aim which is that of all period drama – to instil a sense of time passing. Never mind the quality, feel the wistfulness.
Directed by Terrence Malick. 1978
Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepherd, Linda Minz, Robert J. Wilke. 95 mins.
The BFI is hosting a Malick season at the Southbank and the centre piece is a restored print of his period drama Days of Heaven, his second film and one with a reputation as the one of the most beautiful photographed ever. During the shoot cinematographer Nestor Almendros (and later Haskell Wexler) did a large proportion of the filming during what is known as Magic Hour, that brief period before sunset when the light is at its most beautiful.
The effect is remarkable but it strikes me as a pinched aesthetic. Quite aside from the impracticality of only being able to film for maybe twenty minutes a day there is something overly precious about a film where only the most beautiful, most perfect is tolerated.
The story is casual wisp of nothingness. Set just before World War One it has two lovers (Gere and Adams) who pose as brother and sister for no good reason, escaping from the hell in the city to work harvesting in the country. When the wealthy landowner (Shepherd) takes a shine to her, Gere encourages the relationship under the belief that he is dying. It’s a drab melodrama but none of it matters because everything is subservient to generating the mood.
Days of Heaven has all the trademarks of the Work of Genius – they shot for a year and were editing it for two more – but it also has many of the trademarks of a very bad film. Individual shots don’t really fit together so when two people are talking and it cuts from one face to another you can see that they are not in the same place at the same time. Plus it stars Richard Gere.
Taking a role reportedly turned down by Travolta, Gere is surpassingly bad. His character is marked by a sullen refusal to passively accept his circumstances but Gere takes it so far it becomes a sullen refusal to accept that he is merely a character in a film. Malick has a thing for indulging handsome leading men with inappropriate hair such as Sean Penn in The Thin Red Line or Colin Farrell in The New World who prance through the deprivations of Guadalcanal or a starving settlement with elaborately sculpted coiffures. With his luxuriant barnet, Gere stares into the camera like he is admiring his reflection.
But for all its ramshackle construction it does at least achieve its aim which is that of all period drama – to instil a sense of time passing. Never mind the quality, feel the wistfulness.
