If you have not seen or are unfamiliar with Terrence Malick's spellbinding masterwork DAYS OF HEAVEN, I strongly urge you to check out this new Criterion Collection dvd. While I have not yet purchased this new disc (I have the original issue from Paramount), I have read that Malick and crew supervised the new anamorphic transfer and that he fiddled around with the already stunning color pallete in this glorious film. Considered one of the most beautiful films ever shot, DAYS OF HEAVEN is a dreamy, romantic, pseudo-Western starring Richard Gere in young-stud mode. A murder, a love triangle, and impossibly sumptuous vistas all factor into DAYS OF HEAVEN. Nestor Almendros's cinematography won the Oscar in 1978, and the film was also nominated for costumes, score, and sound. It was disgustingly overlooked in the picture and director categories. Shameful ommissions.
Anyways, check this film out; like all of Malick's films (BADLANDS, THE THIN RED LINE, THE NEW WORLD), it's so gorgeous to watch it hurts.
2 comments:
I completely agree that this is one hell of an epic movie. The cinematography alone makes this film worth watching. I haven't picked up this masterful Criterion Edition yet, but I would most certainly like to in the near future. You have to applaud Terry Malick for making a film as private as this. While his films are always in an essence an ode to privacy, it is a film like Days of Heaven that creates a scale of privacy that only films by Terry Malick can be judged on. Sure there are other scales of privacy for other directors, but those scales are merely compared to the Malick Scale of Privacy. For a film that came out in the 1970s, it is rather impressive to see how this film as impacted Hollywood and the future of filmmaking. It's use of rapid editing, wild camera angles and a pulse pounding, deafening soundtrack paved the way for modern directors like Michael Bay. I think of Malick whenever I watch a production produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. I mean... come on! Simon West's Con Air... It should have been called Terrance Malick's Con Air because his filmmaking style was all over that film. It was borderline plagiarism. If it weren't for Terry Malick, the world wouldn't have such talent as Brett Ratner or McG. I shutter to think of what the world would be like without the influences of Terrance Malick. It is Terrance Malick that is the reason that Zoolander is still being broadcast weekly. Come to think of it, I think it is Terrance Malick that is responsible for all these wild fires.
Are you high or something? Drunk? Both?
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