This is gorgeous looking film very much filmed at dusk and dawn. A film misunderstood upon its time of release and only after Terrence Malick's subsequent films can you now understand what the writer- director was aiming at.
The fact that Malick's next film emerged 20 years later we understand this is a person who wants to tell his story by visuals. Actors talking is just secondary and those scenes end up on the cutting room floor.
Days of Heaven which was shot in 70mm always had a reputation for its Cinematography which won an Oscar.
Now we can marvel at it in our homes on widescreen high definition television. You can really have those close ups of those insects. It is also a surprisingly short film, coming in at just over 90 minutes.
The tale is slight, Gere is a hothead with a girlfriend that is pretending to be his sister and his actual younger sister. They get a job whilst fleeing from Chicago in a farm in Texas where the Farmer played by Sam Shepard takes a shine to the girlfriend and marries her. Gere is aware that the Framer only has a year to live.
Apparently the film took several years to be edited and the narration from the youngest sister had to be added to make the story flow. A similar device was used by Malick in 'The Thin Red Line.'
The film might be seen as slow and maybe hard to fathom because there is relative little dialogue but as mentioned you admire the visuals and at 90 minutes it is not as slow moving as you think.
A brave beautifully crafted film.
