One-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has created some of the most visually arresting films of the last century, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler, stands out among them. A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating a timeless American idyll that is also a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.
In the mid-1910s, a Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and flees with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and his little sister (Linda Manz) to the Texas panhandle, where they find work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard).
Reviews
"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." – Roger Ebert
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