Days of Heaven

Getting back to Sam Shepard, he made his film debut in Terrence Malick's 1978 film, Days of Heaven, which I had somehow not seen until last night. It's a film that has been re-evaluated over the years, and is now considered a great film, especially the Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros.

It was Malick's second film and took three years to make. Set in the Texas Panhandle in 1916, it's a love triangle, a kind of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot story in fields of wheat. A very naturalistic film, Almendros used mostly natural light, often shooting in what is termed "the magic hour," that time when the sun has set but there is still light in the sky.

Richard Gere stars as a steel-worker from Chicago who accidentally kills his boss. He, his girlfriend (Brooke Adams), and younger sister (Linda Manz) hightail it out to the West, getting jobs harvesting wheat on the large farm of Shepard, who is known only as "The Farmer." He seems to have inherited the land, because he lives alone and doesn't care much about it, even when he's told he's the richest man in the Panhandle. His foreman (Robert J. Wilke) runs things.

Shepard is captivated by the beautiful Adams. Gere overhears that Shepard is dying and only has a year to live. He and Adams have been traveling as brother and sister, so Gere encourages Adams to accept Shepard's proposal, since he figures he'll die and she'll inherit the money. But two things interfere with his plan--Shepard maintains good health, and Adams starts to fall in love with her husband.

When Shepard suspects that Gere is more than a brother, things come to a head, climaxing during a locust swarm and subsequent fire.

Days of Heaven is an exquisitely beautiful film. Shots of amber waves of grain, plus the main house (modeled after one in an Edward Hopper painting) are breathtaking. The story is a bit thin--there isn't much dialogue (Malick and Almendros shot it like a silent film), but it's short, so it doesn't get particularly boring.

This is one of Gere's first major films, and he's terrific, a scoundrel. Wilke doesn't trust them (he calls them con artists to Shepard's face, even after he's married her) and he plays the role very slippery. It's interesting that Shepard would go on to play many all-American cowboy types, but here is a meek, ineffectual man. He seems tentative, but when he gets angry he flowers into a great character.

Malick wouldn't make another film for twenty years (The Thin Red Line).