Days of Heaven's glorious pastel skies stretch across the big screen at VIFF's Ragged Glory series, August 28 and 31
Terrence Malick’s infamously troubled production now ranks as one of cinema’s most beautiful masterworks
Glowy skies illuminate the vast Texas Panhandle in Days of Heaven.
Days of Heaven plays at the VIFF Centre on August 28 at 4 pm and August 31 at 6:30 pm
THE MAGIC HOUR: the pinky hued edge between day and night is the Holy Grail of cinematography. And its ethereal, unearthly light is one of the big reasons Days of Heaven—one of the 1970s most discussed and infamous shoots—is so worth seeing on the big screen.
Cinephiles will get that rare opportunity to bask in director Terrence Malick and cinematographer Nestor Almendros’s gorgeous pastel skies over sweeping American West landscapes this weekend during VIFF’s awesome Ragged Glory summer celebration of 1970s cinema.
First, the story: It’s 1916, and Bill (a young Richard Gere), a poor steel mill worker, has unintentionally killed his boss. He goes on the lam, heading to the Texas Panhandle with his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and his sister, Linda (Linda Manz). There, they work the fields of a dying farmer (a mesmerizing Sam Shepard), hatching a plan to inherit his estate.
It turns out Malick’s insistence on that indelible natural lighting for his second-ever film caused part of the rift on the set, many of the crew members leaving the wildly over-budget production. Farm harvesting machinery broke down and so did communication between the director and his team. Entire articles have been written about a single, epic locust sequence. And then there’s the fact that Malick then took a full two years to edit the movie, redoing the script.
After the screening, head out for beers or coffee, over which you can debate whether the film is too damn elliptical, whether the narration works, and whether the acting is too reserved. But here's betting you'll agree that it's one of the most beautiful, and possibly the most melancholy, films you've ever seen.
Delve deeper into the lore surrounding the film at some compelling preshow introductions, by UBC educator Joshua Timmerman on August 28 and by VIFF programmer Sonja Baksa on the 31st. Both nights also include an introduction by production assistant Rick Drew, with never-before-seen test footage by Almendros. Drew hosts a Q&A on the 31st.
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