Think of the long, winding road that you traveled down with your family. From the backseat, trees sweep past, and flecks of sunlight, and then starlight, flit on and off your triggered pupils. You have no idea where you are, or even where you’re going, but that’s ok. Surrounded by the beauty of the frontier, you relish the sights and sounds of the wind and animals in the grass, no matter how quickly you pass. Perhaps you even roll down the window to smell the lilacs. There’s a melancholy that comes and passes with each tree along the road, each ear of corn and potato’s eye. It’s all so appetizing.
These brief, granular scenes are trademark in Terrence Malick’s Days Of Heaven (Malick, 1978), and provide a realistic rather than holistic look into the travels of characters Bill (Richard Gere), Abby (Brooke Adams), and Linda (Linda Manz). Their encounter with the Farmer (Sam Shepard) is fleeting, on par with each shot. We’re only allowed a glimpse into their lives at a time, as is fitting for life. It is their story, after all.
Film audiences love a good story, but they want it easy. America is used to sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. Everything is immediate, whether it is complementary or controversial. American cinema has a standard of voyeurism – the viewer expects to sit and be fed the film. The introduction, the appetizer must be palatable and easy. Enticing, but not too disturbing or filling. The meat of the film mustn’t be too chewy, bloody, or tough. Too much time spent in the fire, and the story is too dark. Not enough fire, and the story is too soft. A few morals — vegetables here and there, perhaps a piece of seductive fruit to sweeten your lips.
Days of Heaven is a feast of imagery. Set in a rural cornucopia, all the pieces of a great film are presented, but you may only partake of them one by one. There’s grit, sorrow, sex, greed, death, betrayal, manipulation, and longing; if you can palate it. It requires effort on the viewer’s part – Malick does not provide a fork and knife.
Positioning the audience within the camera, Malick invites you to take a bite of this and that, but never allows you to get sick – you can’t gorge yourself. However, if you don’t chew on the scenes, you may mistake this film for a choke. For some, the film stops at face-value. The late Arthur Knight stated that “most of the film’s events take place abruptly, lacking adequate preparation or a dramatic pay- off. He and viewers alike consume only with their eyes. Malick invites you to use all of your senses, if you want satisfaction. The phenomenological film requires the use of your eyes and ears, and invites a phantom feeling of taste, smell and touch.
Many scenes are clipped, allowing the viewer a brief moment to chew on the scene. The beauty of the countryside provides a palate cleanser from one scene to the next, as the music urges you onto the next course. The scenes layer upon one another, bite as frame, until the film is over and you can slowly digest. This film nourishes critics with an eye for detail and appreciation of art. For critics who pick at or turn away anything but an insipid bread-and-butter feature, this film will prove to be a poor experience, a waste of time and energy; they should bring a bib to catch their half-masticated remarks.
This film is not a force-feeding. It will not appeal to those who would prefer not to chew and instead be fed by a director or unimaginative cinematographer. Malick cut his masterpiece into pieces, but he won’t spoon it into the audience’s mouths, regardless of how they beg.
Philip Runia 