Terrence Malick

Days of Heaven

Days of Heaven

One-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has created some of the most visually arresting films of the twentieth century, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros, stands out among them. In 1910, a Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and he, his girlfriend (Brooke Adams), and his little sister (Linda Manz) flee to the Texas panhandle, where they find work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating a timeless American idyll that is also a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1978
  • 94 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.77:1
  • English
  • Spine #409

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey
  • New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary featuring Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
  • New audio interview with actor Richard Gere
  • Video interviews with Bailey, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and actor Sam Shepard
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by critic Adrian Martin and a chapter from director of photography Nestor Almendros's autobiography

    New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey
  • New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
  • Audio commentary featuring Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
  • New audio interview with actor Richard Gere
  • Video interviews with Bailey, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and actor Sam Shepard
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by critic Adrian Martin and a chapter from director of photography Nestor Almendros's autobiography

    New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang
Days of Heaven
Cast
Richard Gere
Bill
Brooke Adams
Abbey
Sam Shepard
The farmer
Linda Manz
Linda
Robert J. Wilke
The farm foreman
Jackie Shultis
Linda's friend
Stuart Margolin
Mill foreman
Timothy Scott
Harvest hand
Credits
Director
Terrence Malick
Cinematography
Nestor Almendros
Additional photography
Haskell Wexler
Producer
Bert Schneider
Producer
Harold Schneider
Executive producer
Jacob Brackman
Editing
Bill Weber
Music
Ennio Morricone
Nonoriginal music by
Camille Saint-Saens
Casting
Dianne Crittenden
Art director
Jack Fisk
Set decorator
Robert Gould
Costume designer
Patricia Norris
Camera operator
John Bailey

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Ennio Morricone

Composer

Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone

After making a name for himself scoring spaghetti westerns, Ennio Morricone went on to work with some of the most renowned European and Hollywood moviemakers of all time in a career that has spanned five decades. The maestro was born in Rome and educated in trumpet and choral music at Italy’s National Academy of Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, during World War II. Early in his career, he wrote background music for radio dramas, composed classical pieces, and performed in jazz bands, but it was his sixties movie scores for Sergio Leone—specifically his now ubiquitous woodwindy wah-wah for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—that put him on the international map. Thanks to the iconic themes from these films, Morricone would be commissioned to write music for more than forty other westerns, but he would also work with such filmmakers as Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket), Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salò), and, when he began scoring American films, Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven), Samuel Fuller (White Dog), Brian De Palma (The Untouchables), and John Carpenter (The Thing). Moving easily between B movies and prestige films, adventure and romance, Morricone has remained one of cinema’s most adventurous, active, and versatile composers.