There's an old Bible story from Genesis about Abraham and Sarah. They head into Egypt and pretend that they're brother and sister rather than husband and wife. I've never really understood why they did this. Apparently, Abraham has some cockamamie idea that this will deflect any unwanted sexual interest in his wife, but I never understood why the 'brother and sister' ruse would be more convincing than the fact that she has a husband. I'm proven right in Genesis, when the Pharaoh takes Sarah for his wife, thinking she's single. Since God like Abraham a lot, he reigns plagues down on Pharaoh. When Pharaoh finds out the truth, he's all like, “WTF, Abraham, if you had just told me Sarah was your wife, I wouldn't have taken her. What were you thinking?”
The Bible never provided a great answer to Pharaoh's question. Days of Heaven, which borrows liberally from this story, does. Days of Heaven is set in the American Midwest during the earliest part of the twentieth century. Bill (Richard Gere, in his best role), a Chicago steelworker, accidentally kills his foreman in a fight, and is forced to skip town with his little sister (Linda Manz) and his girlfriend, Abby (Brooke Adams, of Invasion of the Body Snatchers fame), who he says is also his sister. Whereas Abraham has no discernible reason for the lie, it makes sense in the context of this story, where jobs are scarce, poor people are plentiful, and any extra baggage might stand between you and your next meal. In Days of Heaven, 'Abraham and Sarah' disguise themselves as brother and sister due to socio-economic factors. The trio land a job in the Panhandle region (Texas/Oklahoma) harvesting wheat in the fall for an unnamed rancher (Sam Shepard). Like most of the characters in the movie, we know very little about this rancher, except for what we learn from scant snippets of dialogue. What we're left with is more a 'character tone poem' than any real understanding of who these people are. We know this rancher is dying of some unspecified disease; we know he has the hots for Abby. Bill, seeing a potential escape from the misery of poverty, actually encourages these feelings, with disastrous results seemingly heaven-sent. What, you thought I was making this Genesis correlation up?
As anyone who minored in Film Studies in college can tell you, Days of Heaven's main drawn is the cinematography, credited to Nestor Almendros, with Haskell Wexler – credited for additional photography – often making the contrary claim that over half the film was shot by him. Regardless of who is responsible, the cinematography here deserves every accolade it has received. Me describing it here just won't do. My words would just be poor approximations. Just take a look for yourself:
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are easily three-dozen shots in this movie that make me want to quit any artistic pursuit altogether, because I am confident I will never produce anything as moving and perfect. On top of the masterful composition and use of natural light, director Terrance Malick, Almendros, and Wexler are uncompromisingly brave in the face of elements that notoriously drive other filmmakers insane. Whereas most moviemakers spend a substantial amount of time attempting to control every aspect of location shooting, these guys make an art out of working with the landscape, the seasons, the weather, and the wildlife rather than against it. This embrace of natural landscape, of capturing the magic of seasons, weather, and time of day is ingrained in the the movie itself. There would be no Days of Heaven without these elements.
Sometimes accenting the proceedings, sometimes confronting, Ennio Morricone's score here is one of his best, if not his most iconic. The characters in the movie are often poker faced, and Morricone's score almost seems to communicate more with the environment, with the ebb and flow of the world itself, than with the characters. This invests Days of Heaven with another layer of meaning: all of the melodrama of the primary plot shares equal billing (at best) with the pulsation of humanity and the world at large. Your soul will ache, and you won't know exactly why.
Bill's little sister Linda narrates the movie. This is the missing puzzle piece, the last element that takes the proceedings from something one appreciates and makes it into something you love. I would place Linda as a narrator in the pantheon with Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. Her contribution is that crucial to the success of the movie. Not only does Linda filter the events through the eyes of a ten year old, but she filters them through the eyes of a very strange, possibly disturbed, idiosyncratic ten year old who has no discernment-filter to weed out superfluous ramblings. She often begins commenting on the plot point at hand, but soon spins off on wild tangents. Her monologue toward the beginning of the movie about the guy who told her the world is going to burn is straight classic, and only hints at the narrative genius to come. Her narration on the river raft is as telling as it is haunting.
If I can't convince you with reason, allow me to add that I finally watched Days of Heaven for the first time (I know, I know, long time coming... ) over a week ago. I've watched probably seven movies since then, but this is the one I can't get out of my head. I see it on the inside of my eyelids. I didn't realize as I watched it how much it effected me. If there is a movie version of the 'great American novel,' this is it. But don't let that sound so highfalutin that it scares you away. Days of Heaven, as an experience, will be with me forever.
-Ben