Word: malick
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...masterpiece (and I use the term advisedly) of the year is Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven. It did rather pathetic business at the Charles for several weeks, and unfortunately if you didn't see it there, you probably won't see it satisfactorily. It's a 70 millimeter Dolby extravaganza, and I'm not insulting the film when I say you must see it on a wide screen in a theater with a good sound system to appreciate it. If Days of Heaven comes to your town (and it hasn't had a wide release yet), make sure they...
Days of Heaven. A stupendously beautiful film, as visually and aurally rich as any ever made. And forget the other critics--the elemental storyline and characterizations are perfect. No one has ever used a moving camera more effectively than director Terence Malick (Badlands), and the compositions recall the early Russian classics. Magnificent music and performances. This film will be discussed in far greater detail at a later date, but see it now, fast--it's a Barry Lyndon that breathes...
...this slender tale, which pointedly recalls Theodore Dreiser's novels of the period, Malick constructs a complex web of moral ambiguities. He invites us to sympathize with the criminal Bill and Abby, who have a right to revolt against poverty. But he also arouses our affection for the privileged farmer, a kind and sickly man whose riches pay off only in loneliness and boredom. To Malick, all these people are victims of their innocent faith in a warped American dream. Their tragedy is that they blame themselves, rather than their false ideals, for the misery of their lives. Though...
...help carry out his spellbinding vision, Malick has turned to some of the most talented figures in European film making: Cinematographer Nestor Almendros (Claire's Knee) and Composer Ennio Morricone (1900). Their work is stunning; yet there is no mistaking Days of Heaven for anything other than an American movie. Malick's ability to capture the terror in plain, homespun settings recalls the spooky vistas of Painter Edward Hopper. The film's naive narration-recited in deadpan colloquialisms by the teen-age Linda-is right out of Ring Lardner's sardonic stories. In the tradition...
...farm to a bustling nearby town of 1917. Suddenly we are in the death throes of oldtime America: smiling dough boys hop on trains to the blare of brass bands. At that moment Days of Heaven effortlessly transcends its own story to prefigure the history of an era. As Malick's characters lost their innocence on a ravaged wheatfield in Texas, so would a nation on the bloody battlefields of the first World War. - Frank Rich