Days of Heaven

Spoilers herein. de Palma invests in the eye, using the narrative as an excuse. Kubrick works at trying to create a visual counternarrative. But Malick is the most interesting, a synthesis of these. He uses the story as a framework for images -- images which create their own parallel narrative. Always underscored by the voiceover. As a philosopher, Malick's intent comes from a specific theory of additive abstraction -- abstraction that purifies and focuses, but does not simplify, instead registers in a larger richer metaphoric context. Clarity made real by its distance from reality. Meaning through the eye. Abstraction up, not down. Same general notion Sam Shepard would get the Pulitzer for the next year. This changes everything. Everything. Picture a `New Yorker' cartoon where a shadowmaster casts a shadow puppet, but the light that casts the shadow is held by the puppet. Imagine Bill imagining Abby imagining Linda imagining a world, and our images are from the farmer in that world.

"Days of Heaven" is a beautiful film with fantastic panoramic cinematography. It's hard to say what it is about this film that captivated me from the start. I didn't expect to enjoy it when I read about the plot. Farm workers? How could that be interesting... But oh, the haunting, heavenly silence of the fields undulating in the wind, a silence not sundered by any garish music. Everything about this film is tangible, real, alive. The dialogue is sparse, believable, the bond between Bill and Abby is one of quiet passion that needs no dramatic proclamations to fuel it. And Sam Shepard's farmer is touching. I don't use that word very often, but I'll venture it here. I have watched this film now several times, and it is a delight each time when the farmer first sees Abby. This perhaps the strongest and most believable love triangle ever put to film, and in my opinion, the most compelling.

If any movie could be called filmed poetry, this would be it. From its first opening shot to its last frame, there is such lyricism and emotion and beauty that it almost leaves you speechless. I have not seen this movie in years, but it still affects me and I want to write about it. There is a pervading sadness to the movie, like a memory of something wonderful that could have been, that should have been, that almost was, and is all the more tragic because it was in your hands but slipped through your fingers. This is not a movie for everyone, but if you believe that film can be one of the highest forms of art, this is the film to see.