Days of Heaven | | Cast : | Richard Gere, Brooke Adams | | Director : | Terrence Malick | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | January 01, 1978 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 13, 2005 | | Summary | A highly stylized piece of whatever | Content
 | I wish I could have seen this on an actual screen. I get the impression that a home viewing of Days of Heaven pales in comparison to what the movie initially looked like in the seventies. The backdrop includes lots of wide open spaces, heavy use of gold, and an awful lotta purty-lookin' sunsets.
But watching this at home, yeesh. The fruits of Terrence Malick's labor come across very flat and pale. Visually, it ends up looking like a lot of things that were shot in the 70s. Music provided by guitarist Leo Kottke sounds like it was recorded into an Edison phonograph. Some of the young girl's narrative is a bit difficult to understand from time to time. The dialogue of others is reduced to a secondary volume.
Days of Heaven is an example of style over substance, since the story isn't all that thrilling or original (guy and girl go out west in search of work, son of boss falls in love with girl, she fakes a relationship and the two guys have to duke it out). So style rises to the occasion, using the wide open fields of middle America as a canvas.
And it is possible to appreciate/absorb this aesthetic value, but to a limited degree. The size of film used to shoot Days of Heaven just couldn't translate to video. This movie just needs a major overhaul in the restoring department. It's enough of a cult classic that people would gladly go and re-watch it in the theaters. I know I would. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 20, 2005 | | Summary | Widescreen BUT NOT WIDESCREEN ENOUGH! | Content
| I was very disappointed when I finally began watching this DVD, which should have an aspect ration of about 2.3 to 1 and saw it was 1.85 to 1. I saw this film in the theater and know its proper width. Moreover, a picture on the back of the DVD shows a proper width frame. Especially since this is probably the most visually beautiful film ever made, cutting the visual experience just makes zero sense. Hope Criterion or somebody opts to put out the correct version. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 17, 2005 | | Summary | Another Great One | Content
| You can only begin to really appreciate Terence Malick's ''Days of Heaven'' narrative when you realize that Linda Manz has stolen the film, and when you realize that this was Malick's intention. I imagine that he spent more time directing her than all the other cast members combined. Manz's "Linda", like Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird", is both narrator and character in the story. But Malick takes this even further as she also serves the same off-screen narrator function that Orsen Welles did in "The Magnificent Ambersons"; providing more of a parallel commentary than just a narration. And like "Ambersons", the authority of her commentary is sometimes challenged by the images on the screen. This makes the tone and content of her narration an element of the film's message and significance, not just the definitions of them found in "TKM".
Basically the entire story is told by her, speaking sometime after the events have taken place and commenting about them as they were seen from her naïve perspective at the time. Manz was 16 when the film was made, convincingly playing a character of about 12. Her face and voice combine to present a child who has already experienced and survived at lot. She has seen the worst and it has made her resigned and emotionless; seemingly beyond surprise. But her face has a subtle expressiveness that visually communicates a hidden depth of feeling, and the attentive viewer understands that rather than being mired in despair she was full of wonder at the things she was then experiencing.
As someone commented earlier, watch for how the four principal characters represent the four elements; earth (Linda), water (Abby), fire (Bill), and wind (the farmer), with Earth the least transitory and the one that remains at the end. And watch how Linda follows or chases after everyone to whom she becomes close-even in the closing scene with her new friend.
Just understand, as you watch "Days of Heaven", that it is the story of Linda and that the actions of the three adult characters (who are actually on-screen more than Linda) are significant only for the impact on her; and are presented from her subjective, somewhat distanced and detached perspective.
The film inspired amazing comments by Roger Ebert:
"Children know that adults can be seized with sudden passions for one another, but children are concerned primarily with how these passions affect themselves: Am I more or less secure, more or less loved, because there has been this emotional realignment among the adults who form my world?"
"This is a movie made by a man who knew how something felt, and found a way to evoke it in us. That feeling is how a child feels when it lives precariously, and then is delivered into security and joy, and then has it all taken away again--and blinks away the tears and says it doesn't hurt. "
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| Rating | | | Date | February 16, 2005 | | Summary | tranced | Content
| I can't think of another film of such trancelike enchantment. It takes place during the Great Depression; it's about poverty and the bleak fates of people during that time. But Terence Malik is a cinematic magician who takes these elements and creates a poetic mood, an elegiac masterpiece. Amazing. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 17, 2004 | | Summary | Pretty and Boring (Pretty Boring) | Content
| I'd like to preface my review by saying that I admire the work director Terrence Malick did in "Badlands" and for the most part in "The Thin Red Line". This film, though, really misses the mark. It seems more concerned with shots of nature and wheat fields than it is with plot or character development. But the wheat fields sure are pretty. I don't want to say that Richard Gere and Brooke Adams as the young couple on the run give bad performances because the film doesn't allow them to stretch themselves. Only Sam Shepard as the doomed farmer gives anything amounting to a multi-layered performance. See this film, if you must, for it's stunning cinematography but don't expect anything special. |
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