Days of Heaven

UPC: 715515055710

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: PG   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations]

Summary: Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, the long-awaited follow-up to his 1973 debut Badlands, confirmed his reputation as a visual poet and narrative iconoclast with a story of love and murder told through the jaded voice of a child and expressive images of nature. In 1916, Chicago steelworker Bill (Richard Gere, stepping in for John Travolta) flees to Texas with his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) and girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) after fatally erupting at his boss. Along with other itinerant laborers, they work the harvest at a wealthy, ailing farmer's ranch, but the farmer (playwright Sam Shepard) falls in love with Abby, and, believing her to be Bill's sister, asks the three to stay on at his elysian spread. Seeing it as his one real chance to escape perpetual poverty, Bill urges Abby to marry the sick man. Marriage, however, has more restorative powers, and the farmer has more magnetism, than Bill had planned. "Nobody's perfect," Linda impassively observes in one of her many voiceovers, after their brief paradise is erased by plagues of locusts, fire, and lethal jealousy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Anthony Asquith Award – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Cinematography – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Picture - Drama – null Best Director – null Best Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Costume Design – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Cannes Film Festival Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Director – New York Film Critics Circle Best Director – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Director – National Society of Film Critics

Features: Audio commentary featuring weber, art director Jack Frisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
Audio interview with actor Richard Gere
Video interviews with Bailey, Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and actor Sam Shepard
Plus: a booklet featuring an essay by critic Adrian Martin and a chapter from director of photography Nestor Almendro's autobiography

Days of Heaven

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 03/23/2010

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Alternate Wide Screen

Audio: DHMA null

Runtime: 94 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Lucia Bozzola

Terrence Malick's follow-up to his acclaimed 1973 debut Badlands confirmed his reputation as a visual poet and narrative iconoclast. Inspired by silent master F.W. Murnau's City Girl (1930), and shot by Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler in natural light primarily during the "magic hour" before sunset, Malick's spectacular imagery took the place of conventional exposition and excessive dialogue. The tragic love triangle between a migrant worker couple and a wealthy landowner must be pieced together through brief, cryptic incidents and child observer Linda's jaded, distant voice-over; the expressive sequences of nature's radiance and brutality allude to the emotions brewing beneath the adults' cool surfaces. Ennio Morricone's delicate, dreamy score further complemented the narrative restraint and sensory beauty. Hailed as a lushly visual masterpiece, even by viewers less taken with Malick's elliptical story-telling, Days of Heaven won a Cannes Film Festival prize and an Oscar for its cinematography, and received Oscar nominations for Score, Costumes, and Sound. Malick himself won Best Director awards from Cannes and the New York Film Critics' Circle. Despite its critical success, Days of Heaven failed to find an audience in 1978; Malick took a 20-year sabbatical from directing before making The Thin Red Line (1998). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Muriel Jolliffe  Actor 
Timothy Scott  Actor 
Frenchie Lemond  Actor 
John K. Wilkinson  Actor 
Sahbra Markus  Actor 
Richard Libertini  Actor 
Bob Wilson  Actor 
Jacob Brackman  Executive Producer 
Leo Kottke  Composer (Music Score) 
Terrence Malick  Director 
Terrence Malick  Screenwriter 
Ennio Morricone  Composer (Music Score) 
Bert Schneider  Producer 
Harold Schneider  Producer 
Richard Gere  Actor 
Brooke Adams  Actor 
Sam Shepard  Actor 
Linda Manz  Actor 
Robert J. Wilke  Actor 
Stuart Margolin  Actor 
Jackie Shultis  Actor 
Gene Bell  Actor 
Doug Kershaw  Actor 

Country: USA