Days of HeavenLooking back even only one hundred years, America appears very different. Vast fields of wheat are harvested principally by hand, tended by poor migrant workers making a pittance, working from dawn to dusk. Steam engines grind the wheat into grain, and horse-drawn threshers glide through the rolling plains. A lone mansion looms on the horizon, the spitting image of Edward Hopper's painting, "The House by the Railroad", and railroads roll along, with the poor clamored atop the boxcars. Days of Heaven is a portal into another age, both vivid and natural, but an era where desires and ambitions are just as universal.
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Days of Heaven is the story of Bill (Richard Gere) and Abby (Brooke Adams), two young lovers who are forced to flee Chicago for Texas after Bill accidentally kills a foreman who roused his anger. The two pose as brother and sister to avoid suspicion, but because of their affectionate behavior toward one another, inadvertently does just that. This is also the story of Linda (Linda Manz), Bill's actual younger sister, who largely views the events unfold from afar, and narrates the film. Her narration is the real soul of Days of Heaven, alternating between simple and wise, between grounded observations and distantly introspective contemplations; her testament is like the verse of Robert Frost, pregnant with meaning. From her narration, we are more attached to her than perhaps any other character, aware of her own hopes and wishes more acutely than the desperation Bill and Abby endure. Bill and Abby's misfortune compounds when their seemingly aloof employer, known only as "The Farmer" (Sam Shepard), takes a shine to Abby, and ends up marrying her. In another picture, it might be assumed that the farmer would be a force of malevolence, someone looking to capitalize on the poor woman, making her his. On the contrary, he is shy and even gentlemanly, approaching her with gentility and kindness. It is, however, Bill who asserts that Abby should marry the farmer, because he has overheard from the farmer's doctor that the farmer likely only has a year to live at most, and Abby (and by association, Bill) stand to profit from what he leaves behind for her. It is an insidious plan, one in a string of schemes Bill has likely wrought over time to improve his station, only to fail time and again. Bill has a quiet moment with the farmer, and confides that he always thought he was smarter and deserved more than what life has given him, and he's looking for a way to prosper. Bill does this without tipping his hand, so to speak, but his affection for Abby is not as subtle as Bill thinks, revealing that Bill is truthfully not so smart as he believes, nor is the farmer a dumb man.
There is a class structure in Days of Heaven, evident in the depictions of the migrant workers in their harvest for the farmer, whose accountant declares to be one of the richest men around, although he lives modestly. Yet his vast house looms like a ubiquitous monolith persistently in the background. Bill and the others are instructed not to approach the farmer, although the farmer has already been struck by Abby's beauty, witnessed through his telescope, and makes no objections when she bumps into him chasing peacocks with Linda. Bill feels entitled to deceive the farmer, because the farmer is rich and he is not, his philosophy on the nature of "wealth redistribution" echoed in Linda's narration, claiming that Bill just craved a sense of "equality". Abby is guilt-stricken by the collusion, but does not reveal the truth to the farmer, becoming comfortable in his company, relieved even that his health does not deteriorate. And for Linda, it is all so very matter-of-fact, as though this kind of deception was just the way of the world, her apparent indifference to the love triangle and the passions invoked imbued with a kind of zen-like acceptance. Does that mean that Linda doesn't care? Alternately, she believes that their plot is one which is unnatural, something that doesn't fit in with her understanding of the order of the universe. She talks of how people have "half devil and half angel" in them, something Bill has clearly lost sight of. Following the dire revelation of Abby and Bill's feelings, a literal plague of locusts descends on his livelihood, followed shortly by a raging wildfire, as though it were the biblical manifestation of his despair and his own fury. These are large, powerful emotions, which impress and represent the extent to which Abby and Bill's unfortunate decision have brought devastation down upon not just the farmer, but nearly all around them. The one who seems to take the chaos the most in stride is Linda. The most natural moments in Days of Heaven are those in which Linda converses with a friend she met in Texas (Jackie Shultis). They talk of cigarettes while removing grasshoppers from the fields, and Linda tries to comfort her when her friend discovers that her boyfriend abandoned her after the work was through. They reunite later, and hang out along the train tracks, waiting for Linda's friend's new Army beau, who never shows up. These are the everyday moments which are endowed with as much majesty as the larger moments in Days of Heaven. It's not because of a grand set piece, but because they reflect the simple honesty of human existence, juxtaposed with the elegant poetry of the world we are all a part of, the same world reflected in the vintage photographs which accompany the opening credits.
Recommended for: Fans of a vibrant and gorgeous film which has more in common with a pastoral elegy than a melodrama, filled with lush vistas and breathtaking scenes. It is a meditation, a visual metaphor on emotions like love and ambition, and how we absorb them.
There is a class structure in Days of Heaven, evident in the depictions of the migrant workers in their harvest for the farmer, whose accountant declares to be one of the richest men around, although he lives modestly. Yet his vast house looms like a ubiquitous monolith persistently in the background. Bill and the others are instructed not to approach the farmer, although the farmer has already been struck by Abby's beauty, witnessed through his telescope, and makes no objections when she bumps into him chasing peacocks with Linda. Bill feels entitled to deceive the farmer, because the farmer is rich and he is not, his philosophy on the nature of "wealth redistribution" echoed in Linda's narration, claiming that Bill just craved a sense of "equality". Abby is guilt-stricken by the collusion, but does not reveal the truth to the farmer, becoming comfortable in his company, relieved even that his health does not deteriorate. And for Linda, it is all so very matter-of-fact, as though this kind of deception was just the way of the world, her apparent indifference to the love triangle and the passions invoked imbued with a kind of zen-like acceptance. Does that mean that Linda doesn't care? Alternately, she believes that their plot is one which is unnatural, something that doesn't fit in with her understanding of the order of the universe. She talks of how people have "half devil and half angel" in them, something Bill has clearly lost sight of. Following the dire revelation of Abby and Bill's feelings, a literal plague of locusts descends on his livelihood, followed shortly by a raging wildfire, as though it were the biblical manifestation of his despair and his own fury. These are large, powerful emotions, which impress and represent the extent to which Abby and Bill's unfortunate decision have brought devastation down upon not just the farmer, but nearly all around them. The one who seems to take the chaos the most in stride is Linda. The most natural moments in Days of Heaven are those in which Linda converses with a friend she met in Texas (Jackie Shultis). They talk of cigarettes while removing grasshoppers from the fields, and Linda tries to comfort her when her friend discovers that her boyfriend abandoned her after the work was through. They reunite later, and hang out along the train tracks, waiting for Linda's friend's new Army beau, who never shows up. These are the everyday moments which are endowed with as much majesty as the larger moments in Days of Heaven. It's not because of a grand set piece, but because they reflect the simple honesty of human existence, juxtaposed with the elegant poetry of the world we are all a part of, the same world reflected in the vintage photographs which accompany the opening credits.
Recommended for: Fans of a vibrant and gorgeous film which has more in common with a pastoral elegy than a melodrama, filled with lush vistas and breathtaking scenes. It is a meditation, a visual metaphor on emotions like love and ambition, and how we absorb them.