When I think of "Days of Heaven" (and I will think of it)
I will think of the way that the wind rustles through the wheat fields,
almost as if the crops had a tide to them. I will think of the way
that the light slants through the thunderclouds as they gather over
the Oklahoma grainfields, creating a quality of light that is just
gorgeous to behold. I will think of the way that a cloud of locusts
moves over the dying embers of twilight like a horrible cloud.
I will think of the imagery, because that is the main reason for watching
this movie. The plot is really nothing special (at all). The dialogue
is there only to advance the plot. And I mean only.
There is not one line of dialogue that does not further the plot,
because there is no other dialogue. This isn't a silent movie, but
it might just as well have been. It doesn't have a lot more talking
in it than your average Buster Keaton film. And some of the lines
don't even try to make it sound like they are doing anything more
than just getting the movie from one beautiful shot to another.
But the shots are beautiful. In fact, this is the most gorgeous movie
I have ever beheld, and I have watched a lot of movies. The way that
the rancher's house sits in the middle of the fields, the otherwise
unbroken fields, like a castle sitting in a sea of grain. The way
that Richard Gere moves through a thicket to elude the authorities.
The sight of wagons of people moving through an arch that is just
sitting there on the prairie, as timeless and iconic as the Sphinx
sitting in the midst of the desert.
These images will be in my mind forever, I am sure of it.
