Â
BYÂ
MIKEÂ THOMAS
.
"Days
of Heaven,â€Â director Terrence Malick’s second feature, signified the perfection of his stylistic vision and unique approach to filmmaking wherein the movie is drastically reshaped in the post-production process. While his
astonishing debut, “Badlands,†marked the arrival of a singular new talent, it
was a conventionally structured film, loosely based on the Charles Starkweather
killing spree and very much in the tradition of “You Only Live Once,†and
“Thieves Like Us†and “Gun Crazy.†What made “Badlands†so original is that
Malick‘s dispassionate approach to his two main characters, neither of whom had
an ounce of self-awareness. There were no moral judgments about them or blaming
a society gone wrong, the two misguided lovers simply followed their dim,
uncomprehending natures and played out their murderous passion play until they
were finally captured. No last minute revelations or deathbed histrionics for
these two, just a flat acceptance of their fate. And the film is pretty much all
there on the pages of the script.
But
with "Days of Heaven†Malick perfected his unique style that he would develop
further with “The Thin Red Lineâ€Â by taking years in the editing room to shape
and resturcturing the film, adding a voice-over (or in “Line’s†case multiple voice
overs that gave the audience a kind of omniscient, God-like view of the
proceedings). With the flat, sometimes absurd voice-over by a young girl in her
teens, echoing Sissy Spacek’s in “Badlands,†Malick’s characters are all
strangers in a strange world, unable to fully describe the complexities of our
strange existence. Terrence Malick is the poet laureate of what Van Morrison
has called the inarticulate speech of the heart. Reading the script of "Days of
Heaven'' is a revelation, it gives absolutely no indication of the nuances and
emotional power of the finished film, in fact, the script reads like an edition
of the Farmer’s Almanac. It shows how crucial the post-production process in
Malick’s films. And one of the most important components of the film’s power was
supplied by Ennio Morricone’s haunting musical score, which gives voice to the feelings that the
characters are unable to express. It is Linda Manz’s flat, unemotional New York
accented delivery juxtaposed against the majestic cinematography of Nestor
Almendros and Haskell Wexler that creates an internal friction between image and
sound. And though the film is invariably called “most beautiful film of all
time,†the remarkable sound design is frequently given short shrift. Sounds rise
and fall, drifting in and out of the majestic score and was quite revolutionary
at the time, though now its pioneering mix has been copied and become more
commonplace.
What
was so astonishing about "Days of Heaven'' when it was first released in 1978
was its near complete jettisoning of plot in favor of mood, an insistence of
visual poetry over narrative and character, mood over meaning. I once conducted an
interview with Martin Scorsese for a DVD commentary and during a break we
discussed Malick’s films, and he pointed out that what Malick was really doing
was going back to the silent era, using visuals to tell the story and embracing
a lost art form - that of a cinematic lyricism that was pioneered by Griffith
and many of the other cinematic pioneers, notably the films of Russian
director Alexander Dovzhenko. As the Academy’s recent screening of Douglas
Fairbanks “The Gaucho†demonstrated, even action films in the silent era had a
spiritual component sadly lacking in contemporary films.
The
slender story begins outside Chicago when Richard Gere’s character gets in a
fight with a steel mill foreman and kills him, fleeing to Texas where he and
his sister (Linda Manz) and girlfriend (Brooke Adams) get jobs as day laborers
on a vast wheat farm. The farm’s owner, (a magnificent performance by
playwright Sam Shepard in his film debut), falls in love with Abby, Gere’s
girlfriend, and asks her to stay after the harvest is over. Bill overhears a
conversation between the farmer and a doctor, and learns that the farmer has
perhaps a year to live. Thinking that the farmer will soon die, Gere and Abby
pretend to be brother and sister, and that soon he and Abby will at last have
money enough to live happily. But Shepard does not die and after catching Gere
and Adams in an intimate scene begins to suspect something is amiss. He
confronts Gere, who then leaves the farm. while Abby, the farmer and the young
sister live happily for a year. Just as Gere returns at harvest time a plague of
grasshoppers invade the farm. While fighting the plague, Gere kills Shepard and
he and the two girls flee. Gere is killed in a shootout with police and Manz and
Adams go their separate ways.
At
 the Wednesday Nov. 12th screening of the film at the Academy, the panel of
actress Brooke Adams, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, sound designer Barry
Thomas, editor Billy Weber, casting director Dianne Crittendenm and set
decorator revealed some fascinating stories about the creation of this modern
masterpiece. One revelation was that the film’s three leads might have been John
Travolta, Genevieve Bujold and Tommy Lee Jones had not Travolta (Malick’s
original choice for Gere’s role) been unable to break free from “Welcome Back,
Kotter.†Bujold quit the film after forming a dislike for one of her co-stars
and although Tommy Lee Jones had been strongly considered for the dying farm
owner until Malick met Shepard and offered him the role on the spot. Wexler
spoke of his often overlooked role as “additional†cinematographer, he has
always maintained he shot half the film when the shooting schedule ran long and
Almendros had to leave for a prior commitment to Truffaut. But Wexler graciously
pointed put that he shot very much in the style Almendros had created and their
footage blended together seamlessly. Wexler also pointed out Malick’s
fascination with animals, is essential to Malick’s recurring theme - the role of
man in nature, forever trying (and failing) to transcend his physical being
while dreaming of a better, more spritual existence.Â
Brooke
Adams spoke of Malick’s unorthodox direction of his actors and editor Billy
Weber spoke of the long post-production process where the film was arduously
shaped and created. Because so much of the film’s elegiac tone is created by the
numerous inserts, Weber gave credit was given to 2nd unit cameraman Paul Ryan
who shot so many of the cutaways of animals. In fact several shots were filmed a
year after the film had wrapped including the shot of Gere’s face splashing into
the river which was shot in production designer Jack Fisk’s aquarium, as was my
own personal favorite insert, a close up of a drinking glass at the bottom of a
stream. And sound mixer Thomas praise Malick’s use of time during the shoot with
the surprising anecdote that Linda Manz’s narration was recorded in a car while
driving to a Canadian location!
Moderator Ellen Harrington was a superb interviewer, drawing out
illuminating stories from the panelists with her gracious presence and
penetrating questioning. The panelists were in agreement that Terence Malick is
a genius and working on "Days of Heaven'' was a unique and transformative
experience in their careers. The only disappointment was that the new print
supplied by Paramount lacked the visual splendor of the previous prints I'd
seen. Since so much of the film had been shot at dusk, the blue shadows of the
magic hour has been muted, turned into a dark ebony and the rich, vibrant colors
of the pastoral landscape had been reduced to a near monochrome in certain
scenes. A friend who had never seen the film before was puzzled by the film’s
reputation as one of the most beautiful of all time and had I never viewed it
before I would have been forced to agree.Â
This
is a disturbing trend that seems to be taking place at the major studios -
desaturating the color, sharpening the contrast so that areas that could
previously be seen are now darkened into a silhouette and pumping up the volume
of the soundtrack  to please contemporary tastes - these are things that I have
witnessed in new prints of classic films like “North by Northwest,†“The
Searchers,†“The Sand Pebbles.†Movies, as my old film professor Manny Farber
used to tirelessly impress upon his students, is a visual art just as much as
painting and the image is as crucial to the aesthetic experience of film as
plot, acting or dialogue. Hopefully, the powers that be will soon realize thatÂ
their mission should be to preserve the original film’s intentions not alter
them to suit modern fads. That "Days of Heaven'' would be selected by the
National FIlm Registry of the Library of Congress in 2007 should be proof enough
that Terence Malick’s majestic carnival of the animals deserves to be seen by
future generations as it was intended for it is a film for the ages. Having
dwelt in these “Days of Heaven†once is to have entered the gates of cinematic
Paradise forever.
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